Comment by notimetorelax
8 years ago
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.
Aside from Wunderlist, who was acquired and running on AWS, and had to switch to Azure and rewrite a bunch of their code to become ToDo.
There is a large difference in complexity here though, and Wunderlist need extra coding for O365 integration so it wasn't just redevelopment purely for a platform shift.
GitHub more complex than todo-list-on-steroids app so a platform change would not make any real sense. MS today may still have some of its old habits but they do seem to have purged a lot of the "not invented here" problem that caused much embarrassment when the first attempts to migrate HotMail over to MS technologies failed. It also has pretty good integration with relevant MS tools (VS & VS.code, etc.).
I expect to see them moving the base infrastructure over to Azure, but non-MS technologies are well enough supported on the platform so that won't require any notable changes to the main codebase of the product itself (though perhaps some rework of the deployment processes to make them more optimal for their new target network?). These days they care a lot more about what runs on Azure than what is written using .Net and even what runs on Windows, and are comfortable releasing their own code using other tech (VS.code being based on Electron being the first example that springs to mind). They'd prefer you used an MS stack from top to bottom of course, but they are more than happy for projects to use other components in/on Azure.
It'll be interesting to see how they would position it alongside TFS, as there is a lot of overlap between the two products. My guess is they'd keep pushing TFS for people who are completely MS shops and GH for people with more varied stacks.
> VS.code being based on Electron
(self reply as it is too late to edit)
As pointed out in another location I post: Electron was created at GitHub and they are its primary maintainer which may have had some bearing on the decision, and a wider effect as it could touch many other projects. Though as Electron is open source there is always the fork option if the community doesn't like the direction MS go with it.
Looks like their will be two sets of automatic posts on news of any project that used Electron: those bemoaning its use because it is Electron and those bemoaning its use because MS!
The scale of products you're talking about are vastly different.
Meanwhile, I'd really like for people to stop hating Microsoft just because "Microsoft".
> Meanwhile, I'd really like for people to stop hating Microsoft just because "Microsoft"
OK, I respect the call for keeping an open mind. Always a good approach. But let's not forget all of the moves toward a friendlier Microsoft/Linux world looks suspiciously like "Embrace"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
I for one am willing to keep an open mind, but will be following these types of developments closely.
I hope to be proven wrong.
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> Meanwhile, I'd really like for people to stop hating Microsoft just because "Microsoft".
To be fair, Microsoft need to stop doing stuff that makes people dislike them. Microsoft aggressively court developers who don't use their platforms, but if you are a Microsoft partner or worse, a mere Windows user, you don't always feel so loved.
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People hate Microsoft for "being Microsoft" BECAUSE of what Microsoft is, does and has done.
I'm sure you will find most people who voice those opinions have their own reasons, based on history, to be distrustful of Microsoft and the way this acquisition will be handled.
> Meanwhile, I'd really like for people to stop hating Microsoft just because "Microsoft"
Why is that? Why should people forget how evil MS was and still is?
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I wasted many years using Windows, an OS that I gained nothing from using except memorizing UI patterns. This may be great for some, but I really developed as a computer person when I got OS X, which allowed me to use Unix without diving into Linux. The impact was huge. I still think sadly about the wasted years clicking around Windows.
Just the other day I was helping my mom with some C# code in VS, stepping through lines in the debugger. When I hit some library code I excpected to step into the library code, like in Java. Instead it force stepped over. Wouldn’t even let me see a decompile, like XCode shows you for code without available source. That’s microsoft for you. You get some binary libraries, docs that may or may not be crap, and Steve Balmer screaming “developers developers developers” while you bang your head trying to figure out some poorly documented library works. Microsoft relies on users’ ignorance, Stockholm syndrome, and the perception that Apple is more expensive. You get so much more from Apple, it’s incomparable.
That said this acquisition seems like a great fit and doesn’t trouble me at all. As much as I love it, GitHub is nothing special. Microsoft has little to ruin and a lot to improve. Seems like a solid vanity pickup for MSFT, and a good source of guiding vision for GH.
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Read-up on MS's ongoing Linux patent racket and you might change your tune.
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Well, you may love to forget, but a lot of us don't.
We didn't forget that our community was called a cancer (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_...)
We didn't forget that microsoft is one of the biggest pattent troll in the world (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=... or http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five...).
We didn't forget than they litterally corrupted officials to capture markets (https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrawrage/2013/03/20/micro... and https://www.tomshardware.fr/articles/pots-de-vin-microsoft,1...)
We didn't forget monopolistic practices (https://www.networkworld.com/article/2221165/microsoft-subne... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...)
We didn't forget the lies (http://practical-tech.com/operating-system/2096/) and sabotage (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2009051922175320).
We didn't forget they aided dictators (https://www.salon.com/2011/09/06/wikileaks_microsoft_tunisia) or destroyed products you bought remotly (http://sebsauvage.net/rhaa/?2010/01/06/13/21/41-microsoft-pe...).
We didn't forget they force updated Win10 and all the integrated ads and spywares, after a terrible Win8 while everybody was happy with win 7.
We didn't forget that microsoft killed rare, nokia, skype and that currently outlook is becomming less and less usable everyday.
So yeah, VSCode, Excel, TypeScript, the Xbox and C# are good products. So what ?
Unless you suddently fire everybody from MS, change their raison de vivre, and reboot them, they are still Microsoft.
Attitude like yours is why crooked politicians get reelected. Why big companies can mess up with consummers and get away with it.
People say that you can't change the world. That you can't do anything about what's wrong. They feel helpless.
I'd start with stopping this habit of giving a free pass to all the entities with a disrespectful background just because they got better on some points. Or because they have a better PR.
Because they do. Half of the links I had on them were cleaned off. They are green washing them, cm by cm. Until all that remains is that they were the good guys.
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They cant just ask for forgiveness after all that they have done.
Action speaks louder than words. I don't care about Open Soruces or Paid or Free. Bring me better products! Bring me better services. Proof it to me that they care.
They are obviously doing a lot of things right under Nadella. But asking many to not hating them after 4 years of good and 20 to 40 years of bad may be is a little too much to ask for. They will have to do a lot more to wins us back.
As soon as SQL Server isn’t an inescapable trap for your data, my impression of Microsoft will improve on the developer side.
Right now the idea of doing things that every other major Relational DB can do, like hook directly to ElasticSearch or feed live data into an outside system is crippled. It’s hard to see that as anything other than a business decision that negatively impacts my codebase.
The name is burnt. They still are a company with business interests. While their interests might align today with the open source community this doesn't have to be so tomorrow and there is no resistance internally to burn these bridges they are building today.
I actually was never anti-Microsoft but I must say that the aggressive, user-hostile moves they made with Windows 10 seriously irked me.
Microsoft need to stop creating sub-par products.
Skype is absolute junk...takes me 15 mins to get a call working each time.
Microsoft Teams/Planner is junk too.
I understand things are changing, but it still feels like they have weak product managers who don't care about the quality and polish of their products.
Haloween documents, and literally the twenty years they've been trying to destroy free software.
Not to mention . . :
https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1002696910266773505
Tl;dr, Microsoft ignored his license, attributed nothing, and copied his program directory-by-directory.
Fuck Microsoft. Trust them with email, not your software.
What about the people who hate Apple just because `Apple`?
(or any other form of "brand envy" against other companies, for that matter.)
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Dislike the word "hate". It is more people that have been in the industry for a long time know what Microsoft has been all about for a very long time.
But finally we have a new culture in software. Where big tech give away crazy amounts of IP. Google gave away Map/Reduce and K8s and TF and so many papers. FB has given away so much also.
We finally had a single and neutral site which everyone uses.
So things were just fantastic and then the old guard just can't resist and messes it up. Now the big tech companies will have to move to a new site and a single place is no more.
Looks like they will move to GitLab which will just become the new GitHub and ironically way down the road MS will probably have to move their code to GitLab if it becomes the new place.
There are many, many developers, most developers?, that do not use any MS developement technology. Now without them wanting it MS has injected themselves and will cause a hassle. Either moving your repo to GitLab or now having to go to multiple places to find things. Or confusion if the repo is on Github or Gitlab. It is not a huge hassle but a hassle that was not necessary.
That is the thing. The new leaders in the tech world are all about moving the ENTIRE industry forward. But MS move here has slowed the industry as people have new work to deal with it.
BTW, do hope we can put to rest that MS has changed. Clearly they have not. I never really thought it as company cultures rarely change. But here is the nice black and white proof.
You are native to think they want to support open source. This is an American, capitalistic company who have crushed many opponents exactly the way they are doing now. Embrace, extend, extinguish. It's their thing. You can Google it even.
The funny thing is that Google is 20x as evil, and the fanboys still love them
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It’s very different when it’s a direct competitor, especially one you’re paying $ to every month. CEOs hate funding their competitors.
I still use Wunderlist and probably will until they forcefully shut it down. Tried the ToDo app, and I don't get why they basically tried to rewrite Wunderlist. The ToDo app was so buggy and crashed all the time not to mention it's lack of features. Hopefully Microsoft learns from this mistake of trying to do a crappy useless rewrite.
I was looking at draft.sh from the Azure open source team and the current (very early) version literally only works on Mac. The only install method listed is Homebrew.
Actually we have release assets for Mac, Windows, and Linux with support for 64-bit and ARM architectures. Someone from the community added Chocolatey support not too long ago. :)
Disclaimer: I am one of the core maintainers of Draft.
Oh, nice! Please update your docs. Releasing code is worthless if no one knows how to get it.
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Not right away, but eventually MS "old boy network" cancer will metastasize there and push all the good people out, just like it did in every single other acquisition. This problem is not unique to Microsoft: other large companies have it too. But it is more acute, because at MS the old boys network is utterly incompetent, completely entrenched, and the company is 100% top-down. Frontline devs are expected to do as they are told, and are considered to be expendable "resources". In contrast, at SV companies managers are more expendable than good engineers.
So you have inside knowledge of their business purpose in aquiring GitHub? Are you posting this in an official capacity as a representative of the company? Or do you not really know and just elevating your two cents using the name of your employer?
I do have a bit of experience in acquisitions, and revenue is king, for which you have to move fast; changing the stack of an already working system would be suicide. Definitely expect more native GitHub integrations in Azure, and Azure first tools.
I have absolutely no knowledge of the deal.
I’m commenting on the tech stack discussion, given my experience in the company and if GitHub joins, I’m 99.99% sure they will stay on the tech stack that they have today. Look at LinkedIn, it is still running on Scala.
It's generally not a good idea to make unofficial statements about the choices your employer might take in the future, especially if your employer is a public company. There are some weird legal things that can happen. (e.g. If you say, "Microsoft is going to support technology XYZ" and then someone buys shares in technology XYZ because you said this, and then Microsoft doesn't do this, are you liable?)
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Minor clarification: LinkedIn primarily runs on Java not Scala.
Except minecraft...