Comment by EnderMB
8 years ago
I spent eight years building software on .NET, so I have a lot of time for Microsoft, but I fully understand why a lot of people aren't happy with this news. It's been good to have a leader in open-source that is unaffiliated with anyone but the tech they chose to use (Ruby/Rails). For me, it doesn't matter who takes it over - it's just sad to see a neutral player disappear.
With all that said, things have changed a lot over at GitHub over the past 2-3 years, so I can't say I'm all that surprised that this was the outcome. Restructures, scandals, and some crazy comments over the few years has led me to believe that GitHub probably isn't the same company that the development community embraced. For that reason, I can't see Microsoft doing a "Skype" and merging GitHub into their platforms. Developers are fickle, and if Microsoft mess with GitHub then it's not only a huge blow to the relations they've been trying to build for the past few years, it's a guaranteed way to see developers flock to the next big service (i.e. GitLab).
This dovetails nicely with Windows Subsystem for Linux, VS Code, and Microsoft’s ongoing play to capture the Silicon Valley hipster development ecosystem that Apple is alienating.
This was largely my thought behind the move.
Given that GitHub is quite proudly built on Ruby, I can't see them wanting to switch things up from a tech perspective. GitHub is stable, and it's tech stack is capable of staying up despite some major DDoS attacks.
If anything, I think this is an opportunity for Microsoft to introduce themselves to the Ruby and Rails teams, and to finally resolve the issues that stop Windows from being a first-class citizen in the Ruby world. If they can do this through both Windows and the Windows Subsystem for Linux then I think they'll be on to a winner. It's a capture of a much-loved service, and an opportunity to bring a mature set of tools into their domain.
I work for Microsoft, we run systems that are not built on MS technologies. There’s absolutely no push for migration. In my opinion, no-one will pressure GitHub to change their stack, it would be a suicide.
Disclaimer: this is just my personal opinion.
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Microsoft bought one of my favorite pieces of cloud software from a few years ago Deis[1]. With that they also got Helm[2] with the purchase. They are doing GREAT with Helm and are going in a different direction that looks super cool as they mothball Deis called Draft[3]. They are moving away from the OS company they used to be and betting heavily on cloud technologies and I think this Github purchase makes sense. Github has been stagnate for years. MS is embracing open source in a way they haven't before, and I think they are doing so in a way that is going to surprise people.
In NO way am I a Microsoft fan boy. I've been windows free going on a decade. I run Linux Mint and OSX as my primary desktop environments. Apple is burning me hard, the way the computing world is going to change in the next couple years, cluster technology is going to be at it's core and we are going to see some very different things grow out of it. I'm as shocked as anyone to see MS play nice with linux and especially contribute how they have to Kubernetes; which I think is the largest open source project in the world right now?
What if MS dumped resources into world class CI tools to go with Github? What if they made a Github open source module and would let you federate your content? I could see this being a really interesting thing. They could also screw us all, but under their current management I think they are getting ready to be competitive in an emergent environment that can't exist without open source.
[1] https://deis.com [2] https://docs.helm.sh/using_helm/ [3] https://github.com/Azure/draft
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Reminder: That didn't stop them from converting HoTMail over to NT/Exchange.
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> Given that GitHub is quite proudly built on Ruby
And for that matter, GitLab as well :-)
I have lived and worked in SV for a decade, and still don't know a single "Silicon Valley hipster" developing with WSL or VS Code.
I do know the power of analytics and control over prominent backend systems, and the allure of being "gatekeeper" with the power to extract value from integrations.
> VS Code
you don't know anyone using vs code?
in all the circles I know, it's the new de-facto goto for text editing heavier than notepad.
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Yeah, the open source dev community may very well see Microsoft quite differently in upcoming years if they keep playing their cards this way.
Can't speak for everyone but that won't happen personally until they start respecting privacy.
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I think that this is real "DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS" and they know it will bring them good times.
I doubt it, I think they are doing it because they’ve seen more and more of their enterprise migrate from TFS to git.
This is my opinion, but I think Microsoft tech is fairly terrible for open source and smaller projects, because .Net is a lot of complicated tooling you’ll never use outside of enterprise. At the same time they are rapidly becoming the “only” enterprise option rather quickly, and with that comes the question of why you’d chose AWS over Azure.
Sure visual studio has a free version, Windows now does Linux and .net Core is open but I see those moves as a way to make c# replace JAVA in schools not as a way to make open source love Microsoft.
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The web dev part, anyway. Microsoft still has a long hill to climb to be in the graces of nearly any kind of native dev.
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I don't think Microsoft even uses the same deck of cards as FOSS people.
Microsoft had their chance, and they worked hard to show us what they're made of. We learned the lesson, and they don't get another chance.
> This dovetails nicely with Windows Subsystem for Linux, VS Code, and Microsoft’s ongoing play to capture the Silicon Valley hipster development ecosystem that Apple is alienating.
I can tell you from experience that that will never, ever happen.
The most likely outcome is that GitHub will slowly but surely start to bleed open source projects to alternatives like GitLab. And GitHub will continue to live on, like LinkedIn and Skype before it, but it will lose mind share and will no longer be the epicenter of open source development.
Remember SourceForge? Yeah, that's right.
> Silicon Valley hipster development ecosystem that Apple is alienating
Not sure what you mean here.
They've never specifically targeted non-Apple developers as a core constituency. It was mainly due to the fact that OSX was UNIX derived that the platform became popular at all.
> This dovetails nicely with Windows Subsystem for Linux
Interix/SFU/SUA has always existed. WSL is just the latest iteration of it. And nobody uses it now just like nobody used it before
That's kind of a broad statement. I see a lot of people using WSL, I even think it has become part of the standard software kit for new hires within PlayStation Network. I know its widely used among the employees who opted for the Windows laptop over a MacBook. Anecdotal, of course, but I think you're downplaying the spread of its use.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221777 and marked it off-topic.
May I ask why? It seems germane to the rest of the thread speculating on what Microsoft might be doing with this acquisition.
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Can you elaborate on what the Silicon Valley "hipster development ecosystem" is?
There are several distinct developer ecosystems. Some people write C# and VB on .NET in Visual Studio on Windows machines for delivery to Windows Server enterprise networks. Some people write Java on Spring/J2EE in Eclipse for delivery to Java enterprise application servers. Some people write C++ in proprietary IDEs for delivery to proprietary embedded systems platforms. But the one I’m talking about is the one centered around Github, Kubernetes, Macs, and trendy open source tools like Go, Rust, React, etc. The “hipster” characterization is tongue in cheek. It would be insufficient to say “the developer ecosystem” because MS already has one of those, including its own VCS, Team Foundation Services.
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If it requires an explanation, don't explain.
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Not quite so.
I think WSL is a great idea and it also works very well, if we ignore minor bugs and oddities. But the acquisition of github is AWFUL. Microsoft gave the choice of "take it or leave it, my way or the highway".
There was no way for me to associate with the move so I was gone from github after 10 years.
Linux subsystem for windows is garbage, it brings all the same issues with running a linux VM on windows with no more benefit than cygwin gave and who exactly is apple alienating? This sounds like opinion since apple profits are doing just fine and waking into any incubator will show you who the dominant player is. also windows is not even close to comparable to macos except that they’re both OSes
> Linux subsystem for windows is garbage, it brings all the same issues with running a linux VM on windows with no more benefit than cygwin gave
> also windows is not even close to comparable to macos except that they’re both OSes
This sounds like opinions ;)
I also spent years working with Microsoft’s proprietary technologies. The reality of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish was still alive and well as late as 2011 when I mostly stopped dealing with them. Since that time they have definitely taken a new direction, with increasing adoption of Linux in particular, but I have trouble belieiving the corporate DNA has been so thoroughly overwritten in the last few years that this does not spell the imminent demise of Github as the broadly useful plarform that we know it as today.
Their "corporate DNA" was established when the desktop was supreme and they could steer the direction of the industry based on thier Windows dominance.
Times are different, mobile is more important, cloud hosting is a real thing and technology changes. They had to evolve or die. Saying you can't trust MS in 2018 based on the way the world was years ago is like saying that Netflix could only ship DVDs to people's houses, Amazon can't be trusted to do cloud hosting because they only sell books, and that a minor niche computer maker should never be trusted to sell phones.
Ya, they can’t do the same tricks they did before. You do have to wonder what new tricks they might pull though.
“I can’t hurt you now, I have these handcuffs on” doesn’t mean you can full trust someone who hit you.
(All that aside, I have notice what does appear to be real cultural change at MS)
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I would be disheartened by any major software firm buying github. The temptation is simply too great for any company with interests in software development to leverage their control over the world's largest open-source community to advantage their own products and services.
If there's one thing which is predictable about corporate behavior, it is that they will act in their own best interest. Publicly traded companies are legally required to do so.
Also equating trust with product offerings is a false equivalency here: saying Amazon can't be trusted as a hosting provider because they were known as an online retailer is a lot different than saying Microsoft cannot be trusted because they have a long track-record of anti-consumer and anti-developer behavior.
I guess it depends what side of Microsoft we get working with GitHub, whether it's the friendly outreach side alongside the .NET Foundation, or whether it's the internal software team that want to integrate GitHub into internal tooling and start moving their platform onto theirs.
My dream scenario is the former, where Microsoft provide leadership to a company that's still reeling from its own scandals, and use GitHub as a platform for promoting open-source, rather than as a way of mining their access to the open-source world to benefit their own tooling.
"Dream" is the right word here. The idea that a major software firm would buy the worlds largest repository of and community around open source software with the sole intention of "providing leadership" seems pretty unlikely.
It's along the same lines as saying an oil executive would make a good candidate as the EPA chief because they "understand pollution".
Microsoft is one of Linux Foundation biggest donors, which means they have leverage over them. They are invited to discuss new Linux developments, products, etc...
Is that bad? Do we not want Microsoft involved with Linux? They are the #2 cloud provider.
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Except now they have billion dollar data centers they need your servers on and don't care if you use their software as long as they turn a profit from the hosting. Bill G is probably kicking himself for not renting servers decades ago.
"Decades"? Bandwidth requirements and difficulty of virtualization essentially precluded enterprise cloud hosting much more than one decade ago. Virtualization was essentially impractical or mainframe only until Intel added VT-x. Two decades ago most Internet users were on AOL dialup. And anyways, Azure is #2 behind AWS, so it's not like they're doing badly.
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> Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
Hmmm... Windows Subsystem for Linux... the 1998 Microsoft-vs-Linux report... hmmmm.
While I'm currently picturing a pacman trying to eat a dot a bit bigger than it expected, I do wonder what kind of hilarity Microsoft have planned for, presumably, 5-10 years from now (I'd presume they're in the Embrace/Extend period if my conspiracy theory is right).
[Small edit: currently at -1; interesting | Edit 2: Now at -4! Anybody care to actually comment? I'm interested in why people disagree!]
In the interest of providing data, here is at least a single reply. Though I haven't voted, by my criteria your comment leans more to downvote than upvote. My reasons:
1. It adds little to nothing to the discussion. You raise two items with no commentary but "hmmmm", then offer a metaphor and an admitted conspiracy theory - neither of which you explain in depth nor draw interesting conclusions from.
2. There is inherent ridiculousness (almost to the point of trolling) in connecting a 20-year old report (1998) to a modern initiative, particularly considering the massive industry, technical, and organizational changes between those two events. Implying that one leads to another as part of a 30-year strategy to consume/extinguish Linux assumes a level of long-term planning and, frankly, managerial competency that is almost unheard of in today's public companies.
3. Assuming I can even understand your poorly constructed point, I still disagree with it (see #1 and #2) and, more importantly, think you fundamentally misunderstand the landscape in which Microsoft now competes. In a world increasingly accessed by mobile devices, MS has no mobile presence. In an OS landscape increasingly disintermediated by the browser, MS has little significant browser presence. They have oriented their entire organization around Azure (its biggest revenue growth area) and cross-platform applications deliverable in the browser and on 3rd party mobile OSes. They reorganized and, for the first time, no longer have a Windows division. Thinking they're in the middle of some Machiavellian scheme to take back an increasingly irrelevant OS dominance position by extinguishing Linux (and failing because Linux is too big?) completely misses the point that Linux's size wasn't the cause of Microsoft's inability to extinguish it, it was these other countervailing industry forces. And to imply that they've somehow failed also ignores the fact that MSFT's market capitalization has had a nearly identical growth to GOOG and AAPL over the past two years while they've made this transition.
As they say on Food Network, for those reasons we had to chop you.
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[Update since edit period has expired: back at -1 again - adding this because I think it's interesting, also first edit was after about 20min, 2nd edit was after an hour, this edit is after ~2h | Update 2 after ~1hr; parent is at 2, this is at 0]
This, I was trying to think of the right way to state this. Looks like I’ll be looking for alternatives.
Tossing out Ballmer has greatly improved things, but it's hard still hard to ever trust them.
Maybe when Ballmer is dead and buried.
> Maybe when Ballmer is dead and buried.
That is totally uncalled for.
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Skype wasn't ruined because they attempted to merge it into their other platforms. Skype was just flat out ruined with bloat, horribly inefficient code, turning it into a spying tool and not listening to their vocal users. Everyone was rioting after every update and it just got worse. To add insult to injury the last major update they have tried turning it into Snapchat. Their incompetence knows no bounds. If you think the same middle managers that ruined Skype aren't there anymore, you don't know how big companies like Microsoft work.
The client was mismanaged, but forcing the backend onto their abysmal Lync stack did ruin reliability as well as privacy.
I wonder if pre-acquisition Skype was one of the hardest software the Windows team had to deal with. For example, at one point they used SYSENTER directly to make system calls!
Do you have a source for this? I enjoy reading about horrible software.
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> For that reason, I can't see Microsoft doing a "Skype" and merging GitHub into their platforms.
Maybe not now, but what about after the next reorganization or the next CEO? If it's no longer in MS' interests to keep a relationship with this audience somewhere down the road, why would they leave them alone?
This is the uncertainty people are afraid of.
For Github there was always uncertainty; if MS didn't take over, investors would've, or another (less capable) competitor (like I dunno, Yahoo?). I'm confident in MS keeping github running smoothly and moving forward.
I completely agree with your comment. As much as I love Microsoft, this is a weird development.
It’s like if Google bought Mozilla and Firefox became just another Google browser.
What isn't commonly known is that GitHub was never profitable and was getting closer and closer to insolvency every day.
Microsoft rescued them.
Any idea how they could possibly make GitHub profitable? It seems more likely that they want to attach the Microsoft name to GitHub to build up positive sentiment among the open source community. Something like keeping GitHub alive without wrecking it could cause some people to hate Microsoft a little bit less.
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Source? I thought the story was that Github was profitable from day 1 in 2008?
How did they become unprofitable? Their expenses are servers and people. It seems that there are an enormous number of companies paying for private repos and that should more than cover their costs.
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I’m willing to believe this, but what’s it based on? It seems like they have so many customers. What’s the free/public-to-paid/private traffic that would have made them sustainable?
Is it? I imagine VSS and their cloud source control offering (don’t remember the name) probably aren’t doing all that well in the face of GitHub.
They want to be a player in that game, so they’ll transition off they are old product which isn’t that popular onto a new one they purchased that has all the mind share.
As long as they don’t screw it up, and recent Microsoft seems to me like a company that won’t, it will benefit them. And perhaps it will benefit the user some to do have a company with deep pockets behind it.
Microsoft adopt git as their main source control, even in internal projects.
Makes sense they try to control the future of the tool they use in so meny projects.
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AFAIK, I don't think anyone seriously used VSS inside Microsoft, but heard that long time ago they forked perforce in customized way... A bit like google.
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The timing is suspect, because Google has been pushing Cloud Source Repositories as a private Git repository recently [1]. So, GitHub will most likely be part of Azure portfolio. Developers might be fickle, but they are fully locked into their respective cloud platforms in the recent years.
[1] https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2018/05/Cloud-Source-Re...
It makes that Gitlab graph https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/forrester-ci-wave... even more interesting.
Try https://kallithea-scm.org/ supporting not just git but also hg and svn.
Kallithea doesn't support SVN, only RhodeCode does which Kallithea forked. SVN support amongst many other security fixes and features were added at a later stage into RhodeCode.
On Kallithea activity and release is better than rhodecode and truly open source under software conservancy. Kallithea do support svn and it has moved on, with turbogears 2 support and now the theme is also modern based on bootstrap.
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Of course they will mess with it. Just slowly so developers dont leave. This is Microsoft. Read up on their tactics. It works.
It's why I'm surprised at the timing, since GitHub has had its own issues over the past few years, with a founder and other staff members leaving over harassment, and some questionable comments coming from members of their new team. I've felt for a while that GitHub had peaked, and that we weren't far away from seeing it push towards breaking the product to satisfy investors that want a return.
With an acquisition, most of this becomes amplified, based on how Microsoft treat GitHub. IMO, leaving them alone to do their own thing could be just as bad as being too controlling. I'd like to see someone like Scott Hanselman, a well-liked developer in the development community be given the opportunity to sit in GitHub and to use Microsoft's resources to improve the open-source community.
It's a real disaster.
People ten years ago did not sign up for a MS github, so why should they now want to stay?