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.
Basically there MS explain why they think APIs are copyrightable.
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 June 2018 at 6:52 pm UTC
MintedGamer Jun 4, 2018
Quoting: NanobangFrom the beginning, everything Microsoft (why don't I see more penis jokes about their name?) has done has been not only about improving their bottom line by improving themselves and their product, but also damaging, killing, buying out their competition.. They have done nothing worthy of anyone's trust, but perhaps trusting Microsoft to fuck people over and take away every freedom they can.
I'm glad to see so many people here saying that they left or are going to leave Github, it's reassuring to see that the Linux and Foss community are aware that Github is no more. Everything Microsoft touches turns to shit. Profitable shit, but shit all the same.
This. Microsoft is not worthy of anyones trust.
slaapliedje Jun 4, 2018
Quoting: NanobangFrom the beginning, everything Microsoft (why don't I see more penis jokes about their name?) has done has been not only about improving their bottom line by improving themselves and their product, but also damaging, killing, buying out their competition.. They have done nothing worthy of anyone's trust, but perhaps trusting Microsoft to fuck people over and take away every freedom they can.
I'm glad to see so many people here saying that they left or are going to leave Github, it's reassuring to see that the Linux and Foss community are aware that Github is no more. Everything Microsoft touches turns to shit. Profitable shit, but shit all the same.
A friend of mine was just giving me shit about hating github now. I was in the middle of the whole debacle when Elop killed MeeGo (still love my N900 and N9) and have despised Microsoft (Tiny and Flaccid, the opposite of Megahard, there is your penis joke) for many years. Pretty much since '95 when my parents first got a Wintel machine (I grew up using Atari computers.)
I told him I clearly wasn't going to be the only one pissed by this. Microsoft is toxic to the computer industry.
I would have preferred GitHub as an independent vendor. That said I'm glad that Microsoft acquired them and not e.g. Oracle or Facebook.
Having a strategy for opting-out applies to all cloud services, not just for GitHub that happened to be acquired by Microsoft.
PS: Congrats to the GitHub CEO's.
Last edited by jens on 4 June 2018 at 8:13 pm UTC
Quoting: slaapliedjeA friend of mine was just giving me shit about hating github now. I was in the middle of the whole debacle when Elop killed MeeGo (still love my N900 and N9)
I still have my N950 with Harmattan, though more like a collection item.
Quoting: jensThey need the GitHub community and the users to keep GitHub as the de-facto standard for professional source code hosting in the cloud.
Catch is, community doesn't need them really. With MS reputation, it would be hard to convince people to stay and even more so, new ones to join. I expect Github to lose its de-facto standard status in result of this. So it might be a good move for MS (from MS perspective) to lure people to Azure, but it's a ruinous move for Github itself and its community.
Last edited by Shmerl on 4 June 2018 at 8:35 pm UTC
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: jensThey need the GitHub community and the users to keep GitHub as the de-facto standard for professional source code hosting in the cloud.
Catch is, community doesn't need them really. With MS reputation, it would be hard to convince people to stay and even more so, new ones to join. I expect Github to lose its de-facto standard status in result of this. So it might be a good move for MS (from MS perspective) to lure people to Azure, but it's a ruinous move for Github itself and its community.
Sure, GitHub will take an initial hit by users leaving GitHub just due to the name "Microsoft". But how big that hit exactly is, is still to be seen. Don't forget that GitHub wasn't exactly a charity organization before. The community and free users were/are surely important to Github's business model, but at least equally important are GitHub's paying customers. As I stated, I expect that not that much will change to free users and open projects within foreseeable future.
Last edited by jens on 4 June 2018 at 8:55 pm UTC
Cannot.
Be.
Trusted.
Talk all you like about how they love open source all of a sudden, and I'll talk about how they've not open sourced anything we wanted and didn't already have. Get back to me when they open source directx.
Talk about how "it could be good for github", and I'll talk about how skype used to have end-to-end encryption and a usable Linux client.
Talk about how I'm a paranoid old curmudgeon who is clinging to the past and the 90s were 20 years ago and how Microsoft aren't like that anymore and they're now all warm and fuzzy and totally trustworthy, and I'll talk about the spyware built into their latest operating system.
Trust is something you have to earn through actions, not lipservice. If Microsoft started behaving themselves today they could potentially earn themselves a limited amount of trust by 2028. Until then...
Microsoft.
Cannot.
Be.
Trusted.
Joeyboots80 Jun 4, 2018
slaapliedje Jun 4, 2018
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: slaapliedjeA friend of mine was just giving me shit about hating github now. I was in the middle of the whole debacle when Elop killed MeeGo (still love my N900 and N9)
I still have my N950 with Harmattan, though more like a collection item.
I look for an N950 now and then. Ah, what could have been....
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