Microsoft acquires GitHub for some loose change

Like many here I don't trust Microsoft, living through their horrible and aggressive behaviour in the Gates/Ballmer era as a Linux user. Even today Microsoft is as two-faced as ever, with the "We love Linux" comment and what seems like trying too hard adopting the "open source" business model. They desperately want to appear as a "progressive" and "hip" company, while many of us old enough know that Microsoft is still just as conservative and monopolistic as ever. Unfortunately Microsoft has had time on its hands, and I see a new generation of developers who believe MS is actually a driving force behind Linux and Open Source, because "Free stuff!", while dismissing the whole point of GNU. Perception, it seems, can be bought..

I'm calling it now: Canonical will be acquired by Microsoft in the near future.

Quoting: antisolTalk 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.

to be fair, skype isnt usable on windows either, everyone is ditching it in favor of discord

If it's Microsoft related, I stay away from it. It has served me well both in personal peace and in the finance department.

I don't even care about MS in particular being involved here. But if people think mergers of this scale are a good thing, they need to start reading economics textbooks. It's not. If we want functional markets, we can't allow corporations to become that large. But I guess we still believe in this "regulation is bad!" rubbish. Until they day when the corporations start to regulate us.

Not that they don't already.

Quoting: KimyrielleI don't even care about MS in particular being involved here. But if people think mergers of this scale are a good thing, they need to start reading economics textbooks. It's not. If we want functional markets, we can't allow corporations to become that large. But I guess we still believe in this "regulation is bad!" rubbish. Until they day when the corporations start to regulate us.

Not that they don't already.

Remember when they were on the brink of being split up? Yeah that should be brought back...

I wonder if Apple was split into iPhone/Mac if the Mac would survive on its own.

But splitting MS into Office and Windows companies could have helped, not sure if we will ever know.

[quote=Dunc]

Quote... Look, on the other hand, at Hotmail. Or Nokia. Or Lionhead. Or Rare. Or Blue Ribbon Softworks. (“Who?” ... Exactly.)...

I think you meant Blue Ribbon Soundworks. I remember. And I agree with you.

QuoteI 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).

IIRC they said that the Java version (from Mojang) is gonna die and be replaced by their MS monetized C++ "better" version (essentially killing all those remarkable Java-based mods). I read that community quite hates MS team (which resides in other continent that Mojang) and don't really want to have anything with them. I stopped developing Minecraft mods partly because of MS. I don't really want to support them (e.g. paid skins in MS version, original Minecraft has free custom skins from beginning).

I would not count Minecraft being a M$ success. They only haven't killed it just yet.

Quoting: noxI...
I recently read that Vulkan games aren't allowed on the windows store (which they seem to be pushing devs and users towards). ...

Hi Nox,

Where did you read this?

Thanks!

Quoting: Emazza

Quoting: noxI...
I recently read that Vulkan games aren't allowed on the windows store (which they seem to be pushing devs and users towards). ...

Hi Nox,

Where did you read this?

Thanks!

Check out the comment thread for OpenGL and Mac, there is more about it there. But here is an issue related to it, with little progress:
https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs/issues/366

And a relevant quote:

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: sub

Quoting: noxHm, I find that kind of scary. Microsoft pushing their "no vulkan allowed" storefront, and no opengl on mac.

"no vulkan allowed" storefront.

You mean Vulkan API apps are not allowed on the Microsoft store?
Really? Can you please point me to a source?

It's part of the UWP model, where the Vulkan ICDs can't be loaded (edit: not entirely accurate, it's more of surface presentation bindings than unable to load drivers, --edit2: actually it seems native Vulkan driver can't be installed on Windows 10S as well, so....crap). This is what makes the Vulkan Portability Initiative so welcome, because developers can target Vulkan, with a wrapper shim library converting to DX12 without needing Vulkan drivers.

And the most recent conference regarding vulkan. They mentioned that nothing has been made yet regarding the shim library needed. Link

There is also this article which confirms it: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/vulkan-is-coming-to-macos-ios-but-no-thanks-to-apple/

QuoteWhile Windows, unlike macOS, does have Vulkan drivers from GPU companies, applications sold through the Microsoft Store are only permitted to use DirectX.

To finish off though, I'm not very knowledgeable about this, just echoing other lovely members of the GOL community :)


Last edited by nox on 5 June 2018 at 4:02 pm UTC

Guess it's proof everyone has a price.
Way I see it, gives Microsoft access to private repos, they otherwise wouldn't have access to which may have propriety stuff they want.
They wouldn't even have to tell anyone, microsoft has been known to steal many things over years. Microsoft was in the begginning even banned from releasing windows with a web browser years ago... so what did they do made it so the browser was integral for the os to work at the time.
Microsofts business practices have always been dodgy. They will be seeing this as an acquisition of IP, Unlimited access to anything on github at a guess.
Just like outlook years ago, free to use but not private in the slightest.