You've probably seen all the rumours and now it's official with the Microsoft announcement, they're acquiring GitHub.
I'm only slightly joking about loose change too, with the deal being $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock. Sounds like a huge amount to us mere mortals, but to Microsoft that's still probably change that fell down the back of their massive sofa.
I know this isn't specifically gaming news, but it's a pretty big piece of news to take into consideration. Why? Well, with so many open source games, toolkits and many more important open source projects being hosted only on GitHub, it may cause alarm to some developers. However, I'm trying to look at this with a cool head. I've already seen talks of mass migrations to GitLab, for example:
We're seeing 10x the normal daily amount of repositories #movingtogitlab https://t.co/7AWH7BmMvM We're scaling our fleet to try to stay up. Follow the progress on https://t.co/hN0ce379SC and @movingtogitlab
— GitLab (@gitlab) June 3, 2018
With that out of the way, let's look at this key part of the announcement I think is important for people to make sure they read:
GitHub will retain its developer-first ethos and will operate independently to provide an open platform for all developers in all industries. Developers will continue to be able to use the programming languages, tools and operating systems of their choice for their projects — and will still be able to deploy their code to any operating system, any cloud and any device.
Emphasis mine.
So, business as usual for now. Sure, the Microsoft of old used the term "Embrace, extend, and extinguish", so it does pay to remain cautious, but I wouldn't go completely nuts over this.
I mean, look at Mojang. Microsoft acquired them back in 2014 and has anything actually changed—no. The Java edition of Mojang is still full steam ahead and works fine on Linux as always. I heard only recently they took on more staff, one of which said they would be specifically taking a look at getting their new launcher officially supported on Linux (I can't back that up right now, because I'm a moron and didn't copy it down at the time).
GitHub is still very useful and likely will remain so, but I am quite a fan of GitLab personally, which you can even run yourself (always the better choice to do—if you can). Just remember, don't keep all your eggs in one basket. It's going to be very interesting to see what the open source movement does as a result of this.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I don't trust any company but less so Microsoft.
I recently read that Vulkan games aren't allowed on the windows store (which they seem to be pushing devs and users towards). So, I'm not trusting Microsoft to do what's best for general PC users. They'll end up doing whatever is best for their own business (which makes perfect sense), and I doubt that will benefit github in the long run.
Last edited by nox on 4 June 2018 at 2:06 pm UTC
Also, what will happen to open source projects aiming Windows 10 without being in the windows store?
I will start preparing my migration to gitlab, just in case Microsoft starts pulling the plug.
Last edited by Binogure on 4 June 2018 at 2:16 pm UTC
* gitlab
* gogs
* gitolite
In order of decreasing resource usage. (maybe more?)
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 June 2018 at 2:27 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestCanceled. What is needed is code on an actual standardized open and thus never controlled platform, like syncing Github with Freenet or some other decentralized and open system like that.Like git-ssb?
ObsidianBlk Jun 4, 2018
That said... why would a company like MS want GitHub? I feel it might have something to do with the number of high profile public and private repos utilizing GitHub. Microsoft would now be able to more directly integrate their developer tools with GitHub, which, I feel, would be their way of making these developers more dependent on the Microsoft toolsets in the long term.
I'm probably overly paranoid in the short term. Long term, though...
Quoting: noxI recently read that Vulkan games aren't allowed on the windows store
Yep, all that talk about "new MS has changed for the better" breaks on hard reality of actual lock-in like above.
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 June 2018 at 4:28 pm UTC
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