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Well, this is amazing! I never would have thought the Microsoft acquisition would have these kinds of results! Congrats to Nat and the GitHub team (and by exten

Well, this is amazing! I never would have thought the Microsoft acquisition would have these kinds of results! Congrats to Nat and the GitHub team (and by extension Microsoft) for making this possible! I wonder whether this is a result of market conditions, or whether GitHub sees this is a first-to-market play of some sort, or whether it's something else. I hate to be a cynic given how much good Microsoft + GitHub have been doing lately, but what prevents this change from being rolled back? Congrats again! I love using GitHub and look forward to many happy years shipping code on the platform.

markdog12 7y ago
> whether GitHub sees this is a first-to-market play of some sort Could be a response to GitLab, which had a similar offering for years, including unlimited free private repos.
- yingw787 7y ago
  Maybe, but this move looks to flatten GitHub pricing down to two tiers: enterprise and free, while GitLab has four pricing tiers and the enterprise feature offering doesn't seem to be there (Gold doesn't look too enterprise-y at first glance).
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
sneak 7y ago
I feel like anyone who lived through the 90s could have expected "these kinds of results". Git is open source and widely supported, which doesn't benefit Microsoft. By causing GitHub-specific features to be an essential part of a "modern" or "industry standard" git workflow, they can capture more marketshare/attention, and cause alternatives to be sidelined. This requires removing all friction to entering the proprietary ecosystem, including purchasing. This, along with the acquisition of NPM, is the "embrace" part. The next will be an expansion of GitHub and NPM's featuresets in ways that are only accessible via branded, first party tools (i.e. not git/ssh/yarn). GitHub has already made some inroads there prior to the Microsoft acquisition with of course the ubiquitous PRs as well as GitHub Issues and Actions. I imagine the ability to check out GitHub wikis as git repos will probably eventually go away to further this. The last part ("extinguish") is turning off support for non-firstparty tools like git-via-ssh, .patch URL support, issue collaboration via email, yarn, et c. By the time they do this, few people will notice, having acclimated to the entirely-proprietary ecosystem they've been incrementally subjected to. The goal, as always: a Microsoft editor (VS Code or Atom), editing code in a Microsoft language (TypeScript/.NET/whatever), signed off via Microsoft review software (GitHub mobile), publishing to a Microsoft website (GitHub/npm), running CI on a Microsoft VM (GitHub Actions), pushing code to a Microsoft datacenter (Azure). It's simply a moat to prevent open, unfettered competition in any intersection of the vertical. Any weak spots (such as GitHub signup friction) are to be subsidized as they will yield benefits when later used as a cohesive whole in an anticompetitive fashion.
- hirako2000 7y ago
  Thank you, it summarises it pretty well. MS is back pretty strong. It's also to note they attacking on two fronts, the open source and startup folks (VS code, github, typescrip, azure) , and the enterprise with communication, productivity tools and cloud infra (Teams, Office 365, Azure) Owned.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    I don't think it's an attack to try and make good products. Unless they're playing dirty / being anticompetitive, you're just describing a company making dev and cloud products.
    - sneak 7y ago
      If it's not an attack, why do you think they bought NPM (which doesn't sell anything meaningful)? Goodwill? Make no mistake: this is about control.
- binarytox1n 7y ago
  I might buy the conspiracy theory except for the fact that Azure DevOps exists and provides all the features of GitHub already with none of the restrictions you've mentioned except that you pay for the service.
  - irrational 7y ago
    Can it really be called a conspiracy theory when there is proof that MS has done this same sort of thing in the past? Past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. Saying that someone has been shown to do something in the past, therefore it is likely that they will do the same thing in the future doesn't seem to qualify as a conspiracy theory.
    - leadingthenet 7y ago
      It should also be noted that conspiracy theory != false. There are numerous examples of real conspiracies throughout history.

markdog12 7y ago

> whether GitHub sees this is a first-to-market play of some sort Could be a response to GitLab, which had a similar offering for years, including unlimited free private repos.

yingw787 7y ago
Maybe, but this move looks to flatten GitHub pricing down to two tiers: enterprise and free, while GitLab has four pricing tiers and the enterprise feature offering doesn't seem to be there (Gold doesn't look too enterprise-y at first glance).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

sneak 7y ago

I feel like anyone who lived through the 90s could have expected "these kinds of results". Git is open source and widely supported, which doesn't benefit Microsoft. By causing GitHub-specific features to be an essential part of a "modern" or "industry standard" git workflow, they can capture more marketshare/attention, and cause alternatives to be sidelined. This requires removing all friction to entering the proprietary ecosystem, including purchasing. This, along with the acquisition of NPM, is the "embrace" part. The next will be an expansion of GitHub and NPM's featuresets in ways that are only accessible via branded, first party tools (i.e. not git/ssh/yarn). GitHub has already made some inroads there prior to the Microsoft acquisition with of course the ubiquitous PRs as well as GitHub Issues and Actions. I imagine the ability to check out GitHub wikis as git repos will probably eventually go away to further this. The last part ("extinguish") is turning off support for non-firstparty tools like git-via-ssh, .patch URL support, issue collaboration via email, yarn, et c. By the time they do this, few people will notice, having acclimated to the entirely-proprietary ecosystem they've been incrementally subjected to. The goal, as always: a Microsoft editor (VS Code or Atom), editing code in a Microsoft language (TypeScript/.NET/whatever), signed off via Microsoft review software (GitHub mobile), publishing to a Microsoft website (GitHub/npm), running CI on a Microsoft VM (GitHub Actions), pushing code to a Microsoft datacenter (Azure). It's simply a moat to prevent open, unfettered competition in any intersection of the vertical. Any weak spots (such as GitHub signup friction) are to be subsidized as they will yield benefits when later used as a cohesive whole in an anticompetitive fashion.

hirako2000 7y ago
Thank you, it summarises it pretty well. MS is back pretty strong. It's also to note they attacking on two fronts, the open source and startup folks (VS code, github, typescrip, azure) , and the enterprise with communication, productivity tools and cloud infra (Teams, Office 365, Azure) Owned.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  I don't think it's an attack to try and make good products. Unless they're playing dirty / being anticompetitive, you're just describing a company making dev and cloud products.
  - sneak 7y ago
    If it's not an attack, why do you think they bought NPM (which doesn't sell anything meaningful)? Goodwill? Make no mistake: this is about control.
binarytox1n 7y ago
I might buy the conspiracy theory except for the fact that Azure DevOps exists and provides all the features of GitHub already with none of the restrictions you've mentioned except that you pay for the service.
- irrational 7y ago
  Can it really be called a conspiracy theory when there is proof that MS has done this same sort of thing in the past? Past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. Saying that someone has been shown to do something in the past, therefore it is likely that they will do the same thing in the future doesn't seem to qualify as a conspiracy theory.
  - leadingthenet 7y ago
    It should also be noted that conspiracy theory != false. There are numerous examples of real conspiracies throughout history.