I've been slow to answer this (people invited me to contribute, but I was away during this exciting week)... and so much has already been written!

All to say, I don't see how I could state it better than the Linux Foundation itself: linuxfoundation.org/blog/microsoft-buys-github-th…

I was really surprised (and disappointed) by all the negative feedback this acquisition created. It's amazing how many people are still stuck in the last decade, and haven't realized how Microsoft has changed over the last years. Microsoft is one of the biggest open-source contributors worldwide. VSCode, TypeScript, ChakraCore, have already been mentioned, but they have at least 70 engineers dedicated to contributing to Kubernetes (Azure is becoming a great cloud for k8s btw), and this is not to mention all the Kubernetes-related projects they started directly as open-source, like Helm, Draft or Brigade. Thos are awesome pieces, totally opensource. Helm just got upgraded to a Cloud Native Foundation project in the last weeks.

If you're still worried about the acquisition, or have a bad image of Microsoft related to open-source, do yourself a favor and go read that LinuxFoundation comments. Much better than any of my words ;-)

I'm biased as an employee, but I believe that, all memes aside, there are some pretty solid commitments and statements being made that you should at least consider before drawing conclusions. My take on this is very positive and I'm excited to see how it evolves.

Without further ado ...

CEO Satya Nadella: blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/06/04/microsoft-git…

The Linux Foundation: linuxfoundation.org/blog/microsoft-buys-github-th…

Nat Friedman: natfriedman.github.io/hello

... and from his "ask me anything": reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_…

I really don't care. I got other crap to deal with that affects my own and my employer's immediate needs rather than theorizing about what may or may not happen due to somebody's acquisition.

My opinion is in line with this article on ArsTechnica

Whilst this really doesn't effect anything I do -- NOT a fan of version control since it seems to have made project managers no longer do their damned jobs and basically destroyed actual communication between developers -- all I can say is it could be far, FAR worse.

As companies that swallow up others go, in the grand scheme of things Microsoft is actually relatively benign. I mean sure Connectix' product line got back-seated and the one real remaining tech (virtual PC) is a joke... and don't get be started about Hotmail...

But this is NOTHING compared to someone like Adobe, Symantec, or the king of half-assed mismanaged takeover cock-ups, Oracle.

I mean when Adobe does it, it's usually to either bury a competitor -- or more likely bury their own product and rebrand the competitor under their own name. See what they did with Aldus and Macromedia.

When Symantec does it, it's for a quick name recognition cash grab so they can use/abuse every last dollar of it with zero investment, then spend decades coasting on the name... Powerquest, Nortons, etc, etc... Remember when Partition Magic was good?

But those didn't deal with Open Source... Oracle's back-to-back acquisitions of MySQL and Sun on the other hand proved just three things...

1) Oracle only cared about Sun's virtualization tech.

2) They were buying up possible competitors to bury them

3) Oracle clearly doesn't understand what Open Source is.

That's why OpenOffice is for all intents and purposes dead with anyone with a brain using the LibreOffice fork (which is finally ripping out all the Java crap), That's why Solaris is for all intents and purposes DONE, and it's why most of you right now are likely using MariaDB instead of mySQL and DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT!

Seriously, most web hosts setting up new servers are installing MariaDB and not even telling you it's not mySQL. You'd almost think the past four years of howToForge tutorials no longer even bother providing mySQL installation instructions. NOT that I'm saying many major hosting companies and most smaller ones just blindly follow howToForge's tutorials... No, wait, that's EXACTLY what I'm saying.

Oracle did everything they could to alienate the people working on the Open Source IP's they gobbled up... which is why those developers almost universally screamed "Yeah, well fork you!"

Given the HISTORY of such buyouts I can understand why those who use it are now looking for alternatives like Gitlab or Go.io. Same as how I switched to "Private Internet Access" the MOMENT I heard that TunnelBear was bought up by Symantec.

There is a fundamental lack of trust when it comes to these large companies gobbling up smaller project. If not for Microsoft's reputation alone, then for the general history of such transitions.

In M$ defense though I'm not sold that this is done with malice, or for a cheap cash-grab to name-coast something existing into the ground. That generally is NOT their mode of operation and in recent years they've been much more friendly towards the development community.

We make fun of Ballmer for "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers" but it's a sentiment you'll find in damned few companies. Github is a development tool that if that mentality is still maintained could work out well in the long run.

Their FINALLY embracing outside tools for creation of products I think indicates this could work out well. Look no further than Visual Studio Code -- they HAVE in-house tools galore: .NET, the UWP platform, they've embraced mono and opened up large swaths of the .NET codebase to make mono work better on non M$ OS platforms, and they have their own "chakra" stack for building web stack applications, and an endless array of languages including their own in-house developed C#... so when it came time to make a cross-platform editor/IDE for developers what did they use?

Electron, an open source node.js implementation with Blink sitting atop it. Basically Chromium in reverse... browser engine on JS instead of JS on browser engine

THAT is a change in direction that we can only hope their takeover of github will follow.

Time will tell... and if they screw it up it's not like there aren't alternatives that will step up to the plate.

Though I am having a good chuckle at some of the "Church of Stallman" FLOSS fanboys running around like the sky is falling

Just found a picture in fb, I don't think I need to give my opinion anymore:

Microsoft Acquired Nokia renamed it Microsoft Mobile and the next thing you know windows phone is dead. You never know when or how they will pivot from one idea to another. In the case of Windows phone they were trying to get in to the smartphone market and they could'nt get hold of the market and had to let go. Now Microsoft acquires GitHub for 7.5 billion Dollors. They would definately expect some return and make changes to the platform to get the returns. So in my opinion, with all these risks, people should know all their options and alternatives, back up their code elsewhere and stay aware of the changes that will come. Then when the changes come they can easily jump ship if they are unfavourable. I have already created a GitLab account and hope to copy (not move) my code there. Just in case, things go south with GitHub.

Most of the anti-Microsoft sentiment I've seen relates to things that happened years ago under different leadership. In recent years they've really pushed interoperability and open source. It's not so strange with that lens.

I also think many people would have been upset no matter who acquired Github (nobody's good enough for FOSS's darling). But it wasn't turning a profit and $350m is a lot of investment to carry. The acquisition gives people their pay day and provides Github a pretty reliable base for the future.

I don't know what they'll change. I suspect we'll see more integration with other MS products and tools; it'll be interesting to see if they change the UI. Maybe they'll go for something bigger like a cloud-based VS Code + Github offering... that'd be pretty cool.

I can't trust Microsoft on that one, they broke Skype, I'm sure something bad will happen with Github. Me, I'm moving to other git hosts.

Coincidentally(?), there was a comparison of Git hosting services recently: hashnode.com/post/github-or-gitlab-or-other-and-w… . It seems Github is a good option and I agree with that, I'm definitely not going to move preemptively.

My opinions:

• They're not going to take your private code without permissions, they'd get in endless legal trouble.
• While not all, many of their products are pretty usable, probably Github will remain the so too.
• Microsoft is not very evil these days, better than before. They don't oppose open source anymore.

So I think it'll be okay.

There may be a lot of weird bugs in the code.
It could also be that there is a greater chance of conflict.
Or your private library code appears in Microsoft products.

I've got a bad feeling about this. Maybe it's just me but, personally, I think Microsoft has a bad habit of overthinking and overcomplicating what should normally be the most simple of processes. My worry is that they will do the same with Github. I really--REALLY--hope I'm wrong.