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The fact that they will be able to do it, is problem, we should not put ourselves in position to rely on their future morality. Github at this point needs to b

The fact that they will be able to do it, is problem, we should not put ourselves in position to rely on their future morality. Github at this point needs to be open source, atleast then they would be an easier way out.

anthony_r 5y ago
Lol, like Microsoft paid the billions to give it out now for free. Besides, do you want your index funds to do well? Because that's exactly where the proceeds go to.
- greyhair 5y ago
  More than that, github was floundering economically, and Microsoft bought them to ensure continuity, because Microsoft was the single largest user. Don't want to rely on Microsoft for GitHub? The underlying 'git' is open source. Just deal with your git repos raw. No one is forcing you to use github.
  - anthony_r 5y ago
    > More than that, github was floundering economically I do not think we actually know that. Was there any release of any financial data? Also, part of the "beauty" of the modern "tech" giants is that they manage to find alternative sources of revenue, in some cases (notably Google and Facebook) completely replacing the old school user subscription revenue. By and large people seem to be OK selling their data for either a price reduction or complete price removal for services. It is what it is.
  - bastardoperator 5y ago
    This is completely false. Microsoft bought GitHub to appeal to developers. They had TFS and Azure DevOps with Git for years before the purchase. I'm also 100% certain Microsoft was/is not GitHub's largest customer.
  - hypothesis 5y ago
    >More than that, github was floundering economically, and Microsoft bought them to ensure continuity, because Microsoft was the single largest user. Was it a common knowledge at the time? I don’t recall seeing info about MS being largest user and unfortunately their newspost on acquisition returns an error… [1] https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/ https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-g...
  - oytis 5y ago
    Github is not the only git web frontend. I worked with Gerrit (fully open source) for a while and really enjoyed it.
  - nixgeek 5y ago
    You don’t pay $7.5B for things which are “floundering economically” usually. It was a strategic buy, and likely reflects a healthy multiple on revenue. Kudos to Microsoft for being the one to get the deal done, I’m very confident GitHub had multiple suitors.
  - mythz 5y ago
    > More than that, github was floundering economically, and Microsoft bought them to ensure continuity, because Microsoft was the single largest user. Yeah they paid 7.5B so they can continue using their favorite web app? This is possibly the most naive take I've read on it that ignores any of the strategic reasons for actually acquiring them.
  - manigandham 5y ago
    Github wasn't profitable but had plenty of marketshare to guarantee more funding. Also Microsoft has plenty of infrastructure and did not need Github. How do you think Windows and Office were built for decades?
    - aitchnyu 5y ago
      Wow. I have memories reading Github is a bootstrapped, profitable and dominant 90 person company. What happened to profitability?
      - manigandham 5y ago
        Venture capital happened: https://archive.is/1t6qi https://archive.is/1t6qi
blacktriangle 5y ago
Github does not need to be open source. Open source needs to pull its head out of its collective ass and not hand over its entire workflow to private companies. Github may be the single greatest execution of embrace/extend/extinguish in computing history.
- maccard 5y ago
  Where are we seeing the extend or extinguish with GitHub? It's been 3.5 years and GitHub is just as compatible with git as it has ever been.
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    That's the trick, the git is open, but the metadata is what matters. Issues, PRs, integrations into various code auditing services. That's the whole "extend" bit.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      That is somewhat fair - there aren't great alternatives to migrate issues and the like to today. But all of those bits of metadata are easy to pull out of the service via API hooks. If someone wanted to start a serious competitor to github that shares the same basic data model it'd be pretty trivial to write up migration aides. I don't disbelieve that it's possible for microsoft to severely restrict these - but entirely removing them is off the table unless they cut out a lot of value. Inter-service communication to third party review tools and CI/CD tools all depend strongly on those API hooks.
      - merpnderp 5y ago
        > If someone wanted to start a serious competitor to github that shares the same basic data model it'd be pretty trivial to write up migration aides. Like Gitlab? I assumed Gitlab would dominate after the MS purchase of Github, but I was incorrect that people wouldn't want to trust their data and personal projects to the epic abusers of privacy that is Microsoft.

anthony_r 5y ago

Lol, like Microsoft paid the billions to give it out now for free. Besides, do you want your index funds to do well? Because that's exactly where the proceeds go to.

greyhair 5y ago
More than that, github was floundering economically, and Microsoft bought them to ensure continuity, because Microsoft was the single largest user. Don't want to rely on Microsoft for GitHub? The underlying 'git' is open source. Just deal with your git repos raw. No one is forcing you to use github.
- anthony_r 5y ago
  > More than that, github was floundering economically I do not think we actually know that. Was there any release of any financial data? Also, part of the "beauty" of the modern "tech" giants is that they manage to find alternative sources of revenue, in some cases (notably Google and Facebook) completely replacing the old school user subscription revenue. By and large people seem to be OK selling their data for either a price reduction or complete price removal for services. It is what it is.
- bastardoperator 5y ago
  This is completely false. Microsoft bought GitHub to appeal to developers. They had TFS and Azure DevOps with Git for years before the purchase. I'm also 100% certain Microsoft was/is not GitHub's largest customer.
- hypothesis 5y ago
  >More than that, github was floundering economically, and Microsoft bought them to ensure continuity, because Microsoft was the single largest user. Was it a common knowledge at the time? I don’t recall seeing info about MS being largest user and unfortunately their newspost on acquisition returns an error… [1] https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/ https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-g...
- oytis 5y ago
  Github is not the only git web frontend. I worked with Gerrit (fully open source) for a while and really enjoyed it.
- nixgeek 5y ago
  You don’t pay $7.5B for things which are “floundering economically” usually. It was a strategic buy, and likely reflects a healthy multiple on revenue. Kudos to Microsoft for being the one to get the deal done, I’m very confident GitHub had multiple suitors.
- mythz 5y ago
  > More than that, github was floundering economically, and Microsoft bought them to ensure continuity, because Microsoft was the single largest user. Yeah they paid 7.5B so they can continue using their favorite web app? This is possibly the most naive take I've read on it that ignores any of the strategic reasons for actually acquiring them.
- manigandham 5y ago
  Github wasn't profitable but had plenty of marketshare to guarantee more funding. Also Microsoft has plenty of infrastructure and did not need Github. How do you think Windows and Office were built for decades?
  - aitchnyu 5y ago
    Wow. I have memories reading Github is a bootstrapped, profitable and dominant 90 person company. What happened to profitability?
    - manigandham 5y ago
      Venture capital happened: https://archive.is/1t6qi https://archive.is/1t6qi

blacktriangle 5y ago

Github does not need to be open source. Open source needs to pull its head out of its collective ass and not hand over its entire workflow to private companies. Github may be the single greatest execution of embrace/extend/extinguish in computing history.

maccard 5y ago
Where are we seeing the extend or extinguish with GitHub? It's been 3.5 years and GitHub is just as compatible with git as it has ever been.
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  That's the trick, the git is open, but the metadata is what matters. Issues, PRs, integrations into various code auditing services. That's the whole "extend" bit.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    That is somewhat fair - there aren't great alternatives to migrate issues and the like to today. But all of those bits of metadata are easy to pull out of the service via API hooks. If someone wanted to start a serious competitor to github that shares the same basic data model it'd be pretty trivial to write up migration aides. I don't disbelieve that it's possible for microsoft to severely restrict these - but entirely removing them is off the table unless they cut out a lot of value. Inter-service communication to third party review tools and CI/CD tools all depend strongly on those API hooks.
    - merpnderp 5y ago
      > If someone wanted to start a serious competitor to github that shares the same basic data model it'd be pretty trivial to write up migration aides. Like Gitlab? I assumed Gitlab would dominate after the MS purchase of Github, but I was incorrect that people wouldn't want to trust their data and personal projects to the epic abusers of privacy that is Microsoft.