Microsoft completes GitHub acquisition(blog.github.com)
blog.github.com
Microsoft completes GitHub acquisition
https://blog.github.com/2018-10-26-github-and-microsoft/
177 comments
Microsoft is deliberately trying to be the biggest open source company in the world so I think Skype may not be the best example, maybe .NET core.
Lets get one thing clear ... this company never gained anything from developing and pushing .NET and they haven't acquired a company for it either. So no, that's not a good example.
A better example would be Nokia.
A better example would be Nokia.
"this company never gained anything from developing and pushing .NET"
I would have to disagree. .NET has become the backbone of the MSFT developer experience and has gone far beyond being just an alternative to java. It's heavily used in Azure, SQL Server, Web Applications, Desktop, Mobile etc.
I would have to disagree. .NET has become the backbone of the MSFT developer experience and has gone far beyond being just an alternative to java. It's heavily used in Azure, SQL Server, Web Applications, Desktop, Mobile etc.
Do you mean .Net in general or .Net core?
In my industry, Microsoft stacks are extremely common. The talent pool for C# in this area is tremendous, which has absolutely gained the company much synergy in the form of OS and MSSQL licensing. So the development of .Net in my opinion has made the company much more sticky.
I can't help but believe they're making a mistake (even though I want it!) in pushing .Net to open source.
In my industry, Microsoft stacks are extremely common. The talent pool for C# in this area is tremendous, which has absolutely gained the company much synergy in the form of OS and MSSQL licensing. So the development of .Net in my opinion has made the company much more sticky.
I can't help but believe they're making a mistake (even though I want it!) in pushing .Net to open source.
If Microsoft doesn't ccontinue to open up parts of the .Net stack, the OS and MSSQL licensing revenue is going to taper off more rapidly. Microsoft sees the writing on the wall, their software is focused on a stable, but not significantly expanding platform, and Chromebooks are eating the lower quartile of it.
If Microsoft can't retain developer mindshare, they are sunk.
If Microsoft can't retain developer mindshare, they are sunk.
I've actually seen the opposite happening. Organizations tend to favor MSSQL even though other free options like Postgres could do the job just fine. Large enterprises I've worked with such as hospitals, auto mobile companies and pro sports teams overwhelmingly prefer their web and mobile apps to be written in .NET over java/python/js.
Azure is a huge step forward in bringing many of these traditionally in house technologies like SQL Server, SSIS, SSAS, Reporting Services, and .NET Web Apps affordably into the cloud as well as newer technologies that fit comfortably into companies' existing infrastructure (Data Factory, Azure Functions, HDInsight etc.)
They are grabbing a huge amount of developer mindshare at the enterprise level, and by opening up their tools are allowing the younger crowd a free alternative to going with OSS.
I'm definitely not a MSFT zealot. I have been a "linux guy" since I was 14 yrs old, but after working almost exclusively with the MSFT stack for the last 2.5 yrs I am very impressed with their offerings and the level of integration and cohesiveness around those offerings.
Azure is a huge step forward in bringing many of these traditionally in house technologies like SQL Server, SSIS, SSAS, Reporting Services, and .NET Web Apps affordably into the cloud as well as newer technologies that fit comfortably into companies' existing infrastructure (Data Factory, Azure Functions, HDInsight etc.)
They are grabbing a huge amount of developer mindshare at the enterprise level, and by opening up their tools are allowing the younger crowd a free alternative to going with OSS.
I'm definitely not a MSFT zealot. I have been a "linux guy" since I was 14 yrs old, but after working almost exclusively with the MSFT stack for the last 2.5 yrs I am very impressed with their offerings and the level of integration and cohesiveness around those offerings.
They bought Xamarin. I'm also pretty sure they do make money from their Enterprise versions of their .NET developer tools.
> this company never gained anything from developing and pushing .NET
eh? the whole reason they make tools is to lure developers.
eh? the whole reason they make tools is to lure developers.
Xamarin?
Nat Friedman running this is one of the reasons I don't worry much. Plus, Microsoft buying GitHub meant...Oracle, IBM, etc. couldn't buy it, which removes a lot of risk.
“Oracle Github is used by millions of developers”
Yup. Very glad that can never happen now.
Yup. Very glad that can never happen now.
Oracle Github is the only Github that Github their repos on Oracle, the most trusted name when it comes to Github.
Oracle is exactly what I had in mind or Google, and I don’t know which is worse, because projects at Google don’t have a high survival rate.
Was cautiously pessimistic until I understood that Skype won't happen again because we have alternative: gitlab (and others). So it will either get better (good) or everyone will move to gitlab (good, more likely, ms hater here). So here goes.
Well as for Skype, there are a dozen alternatives out there (such as Wire). Much as I'd like to see an influx of users from Skype, very few people have it. The only group that's on there is colleagues and friends of colleagues, after the company did a pentest on Wire (see Wire's website for the reports).
I agree that Nat Friedman seems to be the right CEO for GitHub. I've observed him on Twitter in the past few months and his behaviour has been top notch. Words are worthless and what only matters is action. In the last weeks, he actually took the time to reach out to actual project maintainers and contributors to listen to what they want.
Microsoft won't ruin GitHub. Windows's ecosystem need developers more than ever. Developers are on GitHub. They simply can't screw it up.
Microsoft won't ruin GitHub. Windows's ecosystem need developers more than ever. Developers are on GitHub. They simply can't screw it up.
Microsoft has made huge strides towards development on windows. WSL is amazing. I have yet to find a better window manager than windows, and I still get to use bash.
I don't need a window manager. Give me a single god damn command line that's consistent with the rest of the world. Not this ancient cmd.exe abomination which is completely incompatible with this powershell garbage which is completely incompatible with this half-baked wsl which is not cygwin or mingw or blah blah blah. Bash and posix with forward slashes as first class citizens please and take your dos garbage and shove it.
This is unnecessarily harsh. You can install wsltty[0] and get a real bash prompt with posix and forward slashes if you want.
WSL is not perfect, but it's good enough for a lot of use cases if you're stuck on Windows.
[0]: https://github.com/mintty/wsltty
WSL is not perfect, but it's good enough for a lot of use cases if you're stuck on Windows.
[0]: https://github.com/mintty/wsltty
> Windows's ecosystem need developers more than ever
When will MS stop taking money away from the developers by making Visual Studio priced with hefty charges?
I still can't believe they're just making a barrier to entry by charging people who are going to help their ecosystem better and bigger.
When will MS stop taking money away from the developers by making Visual Studio priced with hefty charges?
I still can't believe they're just making a barrier to entry by charging people who are going to help their ecosystem better and bigger.
They're basically pushing people towards .net core (FLOSS) and VS Code (FLOSS), plus providing Visual Studio Community edition for free if you're making less than $2m/yr.
MS only limits the possibility of developers by having confusing "editions" again on VS. No idea what the point of splitting the user base to slow down the adoption and the growth of global knowledge base.
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I'm pretty sure Steve Ballmer said... something... about developers once...
Yes, but at least at the moment Microsoft leadership doesn't have the highest opinions on Ballmers merits regarding developers https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SNOHJf97uQU
It's a pity the Linux Foundation chose one-way communication and disabled the comments (not just for this video).
You can have the right goal in mind and execute terribly on it.
I think Microsoft has done this a lot in the past. Mobile is the standout example, but even the Skype debacle had some good intentions. Microsoft had a super fragmented ecosystem of "Windows Live", Office, MSN, Skype.. I think it was noble to try and unify everything under one login.
But they tried to push said login down the throats of unsuspecting Windows users (that more often that not didn't use that MS ecosystem but instead used Google's), and (IMO) ruined Skype's usability in the process.
I don't know what the _right_ way of doing it was, but this certainly wasn't it.
I think Microsoft has done this a lot in the past. Mobile is the standout example, but even the Skype debacle had some good intentions. Microsoft had a super fragmented ecosystem of "Windows Live", Office, MSN, Skype.. I think it was noble to try and unify everything under one login.
But they tried to push said login down the throats of unsuspecting Windows users (that more often that not didn't use that MS ecosystem but instead used Google's), and (IMO) ruined Skype's usability in the process.
I don't know what the _right_ way of doing it was, but this certainly wasn't it.
What does “pulling a Skype” mean in this context? I remember when they bought Skype it was “bad.” But do people really use Skype any less now than before?
Skype is a shell of its former self, everybody has moved over to facebook or discord. The few friends I have who did still use Skype as of a few months ago have migrated to Wire. I only know one person that uses it now and they only use it because they still have a real phone number attached to it.
I've hardly ever known a single person that has ever used Skype. I actually used to really like Lync when I worked for a company that used Office 365...but hated when they Skypified it. Microsoft Teams seems pretty awesome, but I haven't had the chance to use it. Skype does have a lot of business uses that it doesn't face any competition with...but they are features most people don't use.
After leaving Google Talk behind, Skype was my primary chat app for a few years, but a lot of people I used to talk to on it have primarily moved to Discord at this point.
I still like Skype more than Discord, but chat apps are wherever your friends are.
I still like Skype more than Discord, but chat apps are wherever your friends are.
Teams is brilliant, really pulls together all of Office 365's products.
Since skype was bought my account (and many others) simply do not work on non-windows.
On Linux they have had a client "forever". I don't use it frequently, but I have no reason to believe that it work significantly worse than on Windows. (Some usecases were not supported IIRC, something with groupcalls maybe? Screensharing was dropped at some phase, but can be achieved by some v4l2 trickery to have the screen contents appear as a camera. No idea whther it is back, I have little reason to use skype these days.)
Heh, one of the awful things they did when they acquired Skype was rebrand a bunch of pre-existing products in the same general space with the Skype name, causing a huge amount of confusion. Hopefully they don't slap the GitHub name on everything under the sun; I'm optimistic, right now it seems like Azure and Office365 are the two catchall branding efforts.
When they relabel Sharepoint as Github for Business - then you'll know we are screwed.
Yes, and those who do use it have been increasingly frustrated by what MS has done to it since then.
This is only a good thing for GitHub's competitors. MS will ruin Github, so I would recommend just not getting attached to it and change over to somewhere else now, while it's easy.
> as in this climate many businesses, operating at scale and giving away so many freebies, are struggling and GitHub could have been the next SourceForge.
What kind of world do we live in when a service which is so ubiquitous and depended upon in our community is at risk of struggling?
(Side note: I haven't been following this acquisition in detail; was GH struggling? Or was the acquisition just their exit?)
What kind of world do we live in when a service which is so ubiquitous and depended upon in our community is at risk of struggling?
(Side note: I haven't been following this acquisition in detail; was GH struggling? Or was the acquisition just their exit?)
The kind where VC subsidizes everything and people start to expect it for free, but when it comes time to pay, they have difficult decisions to make, and VCs require growth of their investments, so management also has difficult decisions to make.
Github would be unknown today if it wasn’t free for personal use.
Github would be unknown today if it wasn’t free for personal use.
It's not free for personal use. It is free for publicly available projects.
> GitHub will retain its product philosophy. We love GitHub because of the deep care and thoughtfulness that goes into every facet of the developer’s experience. I understand and respect this, and know that we will continue to build tasteful, snappy, polished tools that developers love.
> Ultimately, my job is to make GitHub better for you.
Whenever I see a product claim it's "for you", I cringe. You just can't put something on the web or on TV and say "for you" and have it mean anything useful.
What I always loved about GitHub was that it was the underdog, so they naturally built tools so that a couple of developers in a garage (well, cafe) could have access to the same type of tools that a Fortune-100 company has (and has to pay companies like IBM big bucks to install and maintain). It's using technology to help those with fewer resources, which is to me the entire purpose of technology.
Almost everything I've seen from GitHub in the past year or two has been to help enterprise developers at big established companies. Creating giant workflows and integrating with legacy systems and such. The little things that individuals use are slipping through the cracks. When I reported that the milestone date-picker went away for Safari users, for example, they just told me "Sorry".
"Developers" has become a dirty word. It's a weasel word that companies use to try to convince me they're talking about me, while actually talking about someone and something completely different. If you can't be more specific than that, you're almost certainly wasting my time.
I miss the GitHub whose homepage had logos of little startups I'd barely heard of, and direct links to new and interesting repos. Now they've got IBM and SAP and Walmart logos. It's clear that the "developers" they're targeting no longer includes me.
> Ultimately, my job is to make GitHub better for you.
Whenever I see a product claim it's "for you", I cringe. You just can't put something on the web or on TV and say "for you" and have it mean anything useful.
What I always loved about GitHub was that it was the underdog, so they naturally built tools so that a couple of developers in a garage (well, cafe) could have access to the same type of tools that a Fortune-100 company has (and has to pay companies like IBM big bucks to install and maintain). It's using technology to help those with fewer resources, which is to me the entire purpose of technology.
Almost everything I've seen from GitHub in the past year or two has been to help enterprise developers at big established companies. Creating giant workflows and integrating with legacy systems and such. The little things that individuals use are slipping through the cracks. When I reported that the milestone date-picker went away for Safari users, for example, they just told me "Sorry".
"Developers" has become a dirty word. It's a weasel word that companies use to try to convince me they're talking about me, while actually talking about someone and something completely different. If you can't be more specific than that, you're almost certainly wasting my time.
I miss the GitHub whose homepage had logos of little startups I'd barely heard of, and direct links to new and interesting repos. Now they've got IBM and SAP and Walmart logos. It's clear that the "developers" they're targeting no longer includes me.
> Almost everything I've seen from GitHub in the past year or two has been to help enterprise developers at big established companies.
Companies eventually go after companies willing to spend money, otherwise they don’t survive because consumers and startups are cheap and don’t want to spend money on such productivity tools and services.
That or they could’ve shoved ads down your throat, or bundle spyware in the archives people download.
As they say, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Next time when you like a service that brings you value, pay for it (using the royal you here).
Companies eventually go after companies willing to spend money, otherwise they don’t survive because consumers and startups are cheap and don’t want to spend money on such productivity tools and services.
That or they could’ve shoved ads down your throat, or bundle spyware in the archives people download.
As they say, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Next time when you like a service that brings you value, pay for it (using the royal you here).
I don’t think this is true. I paid for a personal GitHub plan for years to have the private repos and to support them, back when it was a simpler place. If 100k devs around the world did the same, they’d have enough plenty of money to do what they were doing then.
Instead they insisted on endless growth, hosting All The Projects without bound or limit and I’d say that’s what puts them in hot water, needing crazy amounts of money that individuals can’t provide.
Instead they insisted on endless growth, hosting All The Projects without bound or limit and I’d say that’s what puts them in hot water, needing crazy amounts of money that individuals can’t provide.
OK! Let's work some numbers on this. 100k devs times $7mo personal account times twelve months. 100 000 * 7 * 12 = 8 400 000
$8.4 million in gross revenue a year. Out of this has to come all operational costs, all salaries, all benefits for staff, all other overhead, and so on. At west coast tech rates, that's low-30s number of people. Assume lower, since AWS and similar isn't exactly free. Do you think GitHub could have done every single thing they did at the time you have in mind with a double handful of engineers and sysadmins and managers? I must admit, I'm a little skeptical. Staffing a solid ops organization capable of 24/7 coverage takes at least a dozen people.
I haven't even touched on taxes.
Business plans can easily be a thousand a month or more. GitHub has an offering of $21 per user per month, also for business. In either case this almost certainly offers significantly greater overhead that the individual plans do. You can get the same revenue numbers with significantly lower load with a third the number of users! Not to mention that you have fewer customers for the same amount of revenue, which makes support higher-touch but much easier in important ways.
With this in mind, it's easy to see why a group like GitHub might want to consider investing in supporting businesses. There's so much more margin there. Especially when you consider that their predecessors did not, and GitHub out-competed them in part due to the extra revenue that comes from strong enterprise support.
Services like GitHub don't get to sit still. Or else we'd all still be using SourceForge.
$8.4 million in gross revenue a year. Out of this has to come all operational costs, all salaries, all benefits for staff, all other overhead, and so on. At west coast tech rates, that's low-30s number of people. Assume lower, since AWS and similar isn't exactly free. Do you think GitHub could have done every single thing they did at the time you have in mind with a double handful of engineers and sysadmins and managers? I must admit, I'm a little skeptical. Staffing a solid ops organization capable of 24/7 coverage takes at least a dozen people.
I haven't even touched on taxes.
Business plans can easily be a thousand a month or more. GitHub has an offering of $21 per user per month, also for business. In either case this almost certainly offers significantly greater overhead that the individual plans do. You can get the same revenue numbers with significantly lower load with a third the number of users! Not to mention that you have fewer customers for the same amount of revenue, which makes support higher-touch but much easier in important ways.
With this in mind, it's easy to see why a group like GitHub might want to consider investing in supporting businesses. There's so much more margin there. Especially when you consider that their predecessors did not, and GitHub out-competed them in part due to the extra revenue that comes from strong enterprise support.
Services like GitHub don't get to sit still. Or else we'd all still be using SourceForge.
The margin per user argument is fine but I’m lamenting that it leads to a sort of digital gentrification.
Personally, from GitHub, I didn’t want 9 9s or infinite bandwidth or feature creep or even to use it at my day job (Jira/Jenkins/prayer).
SourceForge is a scarecrow argument btw, it’s the MySpace of its sort.
Personally, from GitHub, I didn’t want 9 9s or infinite bandwidth or feature creep or even to use it at my day job (Jira/Jenkins/prayer).
SourceForge is a scarecrow argument btw, it’s the MySpace of its sort.
I don't understand. In what way is GitHub's increasing focus on the customers that pay the bills forcing you out? I understand that you don't care about maximum uptime or SSO or the vulnerability detection system, but are they in some manner making it impossible for you to continue using GitHub? Or are you displeased because you feel GitHub could be paying attention to the needs of users like you, instead of big corporate users? Perhaps you feel it's grown Jira-grade complicated, and is no longer suitable for personal projects?
Sourceforge is exactly like MySpace! Sourceforge once ruled the roost. It was, for many people, the only game in town. It got complacent, and thought it could stay top dog while only really caring about the not-particularly-profitable users or if there was a good way to make more money from the services it offered.
Competitors innovated, found other business models, and did much better. Now we have GitHub! Which has learned from the missteps of Sourceforge. One of which was failing to invest in features that high-margin customers value and will happily pay extra for.
Sourceforge is exactly like MySpace! Sourceforge once ruled the roost. It was, for many people, the only game in town. It got complacent, and thought it could stay top dog while only really caring about the not-particularly-profitable users or if there was a good way to make more money from the services it offered.
Competitors innovated, found other business models, and did much better. Now we have GitHub! Which has learned from the missteps of Sourceforge. One of which was failing to invest in features that high-margin customers value and will happily pay extra for.
No one is forcing me out, and I still pay a subscription (kudos to GitHub for not raising the price over the years even if the exchange from my currency to USD has made it slightly more expensive)
My original comment was an argument that the reorientation towards business clients was not an inevitability as the parent comment said it was. this mindset says products for rational, aware individuals (here, developers) are not worth building anymore since the margins aren’t high enough. If these individuals aren’t worthwhile clients anymore than they are only data to be traded.
My original comment was an argument that the reorientation towards business clients was not an inevitability as the parent comment said it was. this mindset says products for rational, aware individuals (here, developers) are not worth building anymore since the margins aren’t high enough. If these individuals aren’t worthwhile clients anymore than they are only data to be traded.
Thank you for for clarifying! It's nice to know that you're not being forced out of anywhere by digital gentrification.
There is a very reasonable point that this should be enough for any company not addicted to endless, pointless growth. This is, after all, the ideology of a cancer! Customers should be respected, rather than treated as data-generators fit only to be traded upon. You have made this point wisely and well.
I think it's worth considering why a business might consider limiting its investments in competing for a pool of low-margin customers of limited size. Historical examples suggest that confining your investments to just this customer pool will often end with your customers being attracted away to other providers who have the resources to produce a superior offering. As a result, what should be a healthy and sustainable mindset of building for rational, aware individual consumers can easily lead to being out-innovated and out-competed.
An intelligent reader will note at this point that there is a lot of uncertainty in the previous paragraph. This person is right! There is a great deal of uncertainty at hand, as with all things in markets. With that said, the above scenari is more likely than not, and the expected gains from chasing high-margin customers are generally larger than the expected gains of opting to focus exclusively on low-margin ones in the face of competition.
To such services as GitHub, the consumer offering is not a way to collect data to be monetized. Indeed, the experience for single consumers is critical - it shows the key features and accustoms users to the product. A high-quality offering for rational, aware individual consumers is of paramount importance because it is where the real customer funnel starts.
There is a very reasonable point that this should be enough for any company not addicted to endless, pointless growth. This is, after all, the ideology of a cancer! Customers should be respected, rather than treated as data-generators fit only to be traded upon. You have made this point wisely and well.
I think it's worth considering why a business might consider limiting its investments in competing for a pool of low-margin customers of limited size. Historical examples suggest that confining your investments to just this customer pool will often end with your customers being attracted away to other providers who have the resources to produce a superior offering. As a result, what should be a healthy and sustainable mindset of building for rational, aware individual consumers can easily lead to being out-innovated and out-competed.
An intelligent reader will note at this point that there is a lot of uncertainty in the previous paragraph. This person is right! There is a great deal of uncertainty at hand, as with all things in markets. With that said, the above scenari is more likely than not, and the expected gains from chasing high-margin customers are generally larger than the expected gains of opting to focus exclusively on low-margin ones in the face of competition.
To such services as GitHub, the consumer offering is not a way to collect data to be monetized. Indeed, the experience for single consumers is critical - it shows the key features and accustoms users to the product. A high-quality offering for rational, aware individual consumers is of paramount importance because it is where the real customer funnel starts.
That's your side of the fence. Here's what the other side of the fence looks like:
The first job I had, I needed to get a visual studio licence of some specific level. It was a $2000 dollar licence or something. The bureaucracy of the organization I was in was large and slow.
My manager told me to request 4 licences instead of 1, so he wouldn't have to do the paperwork for the next set of interns. This wasn't an under the table thing, he told me this in front of /his/ manager, who obviously agreed that this was a sensible decision.
As another example, my current employers attitude towards s3 space usage is "eh, keep shoveling it in there, it's cheaper to let it grow indefinitely than pay you to make something that clears it out automatically. We'll let you know if it ever gets expensive.". I can't say I fault the logic.
Customers are certainly willing to pay money, but business services are where the gravy is at.
The first job I had, I needed to get a visual studio licence of some specific level. It was a $2000 dollar licence or something. The bureaucracy of the organization I was in was large and slow.
My manager told me to request 4 licences instead of 1, so he wouldn't have to do the paperwork for the next set of interns. This wasn't an under the table thing, he told me this in front of /his/ manager, who obviously agreed that this was a sensible decision.
As another example, my current employers attitude towards s3 space usage is "eh, keep shoveling it in there, it's cheaper to let it grow indefinitely than pay you to make something that clears it out automatically. We'll let you know if it ever gets expensive.". I can't say I fault the logic.
Customers are certainly willing to pay money, but business services are where the gravy is at.
That’s fine but then it ends up like an Atlassian project, not something devs want to use for their next personal project.
And yes I’m familiar with expensive licenses, we have one which is $20k per physical dongle and it’s terrible.
And yes I’m familiar with expensive licenses, we have one which is $20k per physical dongle and it’s terrible.
I am a paying customer of GitHub. I'd gladly pay more than I do now, if it provided value to me.
As it is, they're moving in a direction that's getting worse for me over time, so "get all my (paid) stuff off GitHub" is on my to-do list.
If you're suggesting that every company that starts with consumer-oriented products must inevitably transition into enterprise-oriented products, I don't believe that to be true. I can think of many counterexamples.
As it is, they're moving in a direction that's getting worse for me over time, so "get all my (paid) stuff off GitHub" is on my to-do list.
If you're suggesting that every company that starts with consumer-oriented products must inevitably transition into enterprise-oriented products, I don't believe that to be true. I can think of many counterexamples.
Have to go where the money is, and if we're at the end of the business cycle where VCs are making it rain, startups aren't where the money is at. Businesses run on cash, not hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Think about that the next time you're on the free tier of a service you love and can't live without.
I never asked anyone to run a business on "hopes, dreams, and aspirations". I'm a paying GitHub customer. They could have raised prices on me and I'd still pay.
People used to say, "If you're not paying, you're the product", so I've been careful not to depend on any free-with-a-catch services. I guess now I have to be extra careful not to depend on any VC-funded services, either, because if I'm not as rich an income stream as the corporate world, I'm still not the real customer.
People used to say, "If you're not paying, you're the product", so I've been careful not to depend on any free-with-a-catch services. I guess now I have to be extra careful not to depend on any VC-funded services, either, because if I'm not as rich an income stream as the corporate world, I'm still not the real customer.
I commend you for paying. Seriously. People usually vote with their mouths, not their dollars.
With that said, tech capitalism is hard! Even if you pay, as you mention, you might still end up being left in a lurch.
I don't know what the solution is unless you build everything yourself, which is untenable, or ensure that providers you use are easy from when necessary.
With that said, tech capitalism is hard! Even if you pay, as you mention, you might still end up being left in a lurch.
I don't know what the solution is unless you build everything yourself, which is untenable, or ensure that providers you use are easy from when necessary.
I started paying for GitHub because it offered a service I want, not to support "tech capitalism". I'm still not convinced that capitalism is the right model for software. The GitHub situation is exactly what I'd feared.
When private fire departments fail to work well for citizens, we no longer just say "Well, fire department capitalism is hard!" It's the wrong model.
When private fire departments fail to work well for citizens, we no longer just say "Well, fire department capitalism is hard!" It's the wrong model.
I don't disagree with your assertion, and am fully supportive of the non-profit utility model for Internet services (and donate to such existing causes accordingly).
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TFA mentions the community "paper cuts" issue tracker[1]. I'd love to know what's so hard about the standout top-voted issue[2] that it hasn't been implemented since being logged in 2014.
[1] https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aop...
[2] https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/283
[1] https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aop...
[2] https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/283
Probably nothing, just that it wasn't interesting to the devs (e.g. they don't feel that is a paper cut) and/or was not pushed/promoted by management, leading to nobody working on it.
Plus I'm guessing many/most GH employees aren't looking at this, this kind of listings is generally a bummer/PITA, and fixing them is a thankless job: once you've done so, all you get is "finally, took you long enough".
Plus I'm guessing many/most GH employees aren't looking at this, this kind of listings is generally a bummer/PITA, and fixing them is a thankless job: once you've done so, all you get is "finally, took you long enough".
More like "Finally, thank God" (the implementer becomes a God for the day).
This is the paradox of GitHub. The product itself is closed-source, so the outsiders cannot do the work to implement that feature themselves, no matter how much they want it.
This is the paradox of GitHub. The product itself is closed-source, so the outsiders cannot do the work to implement that feature themselves, no matter how much they want it.
I've been using this app called Octobox. It does a really good job of letting you organize and handle your GitHub notifications.
https://octobox.io/
https://octobox.io/
This is some great FrontPage news
what's the Outlook for GitHub ?
After the merge, we'll probably branch out and become an even better SharePoint for developers
It is nice now you have Access to Microsoft resources, I hope more can be contributed to Ruby and Rails. Ruby JIT on CoreCLR?
Everybody knows that Bills are the Gateing factor for further GitHub adoption
A couple of lawyers and Bob’s your uncle.
It's hard to Paint this as a bad thing.
It is going to Excel in every aspect.
Aaron!
Word, I agree it's Excellent. Myself, I'm a bit of a Solitaire, but the whole Office is full of happiness about it. I just hope GitHub isn't in Danger...
This thread, once I reddit, seemed vaguely familiar.
My reservations about Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub are not that they might ruin it or whatever, but that I've no interest in adding to the value of any Microsoft product by being their user.
For the same reason I use a Gnu/Linux operating system. Truthfully there are things that I imagine MS or apple might do better, but that's beside the point for me. It's a political stance.
For the same reason I use a Gnu/Linux operating system. Truthfully there are things that I imagine MS or apple might do better, but that's beside the point for me. It's a political stance.
If you start a project somewhere, choose a competitor.
FOSS development is way too much concentrated on GitHub already, it's unhealthy. But there is no problem in most people not thinking like you either.
Overall, I think the acquisition was good, if no other reason, just because there are enough people that dislike MS for pushing some diversity on the FOSS hosting game.
FOSS development is way too much concentrated on GitHub already, it's unhealthy. But there is no problem in most people not thinking like you either.
Overall, I think the acquisition was good, if no other reason, just because there are enough people that dislike MS for pushing some diversity on the FOSS hosting game.
The title in this case is not very clear because it's out of context. Should be something like "the Microsoft acquisition of GitHub is complete" to be more factual and instantly understandable.
Yes, good point. Updated the title.
So when I write a project in C, will Github show me a popup recommending I switch to C# for a faster, safer development experience?
Microsoft feels like an untrustworthy friend to me -- I'll go to a party at Microsoft's house, but I wouldn't let Microsoft hold my wallet.
Microsoft feels like an untrustworthy friend to me -- I'll go to a party at Microsoft's house, but I wouldn't let Microsoft hold my wallet.
To be fair, a (hypothetical) non-morally-bankrupt hosting provider would do just that but for Rust instead of C#.
I remember that GitHub was paraded as boss-less company. But now they ended up in big pile of hierarchy.
Just a friendly reminder: Corporations are not humans. Corporation's acts are driven by profits. Last decade Microsoft CEO was describing Linux as "communism".
Some say, till this day Microsoft would go after hardware manufacturers who use Linux for patent fees, having covert patent war vs Linux. [1]
I really like how Microsoft is now, all open, free, unicorns and rainbows. Hell, they're producing some terrific open source themselves and support community.
But lets not forget - corporations are not people. Next CEO may use Github to put obstacles on OSS movement's way. Just because it is good now, doesn't mean it will be good tomorrow, or in 10 years.
P.S. Personally, I really happy where Microsoft is heading right now, and I think they're doing terrific job with their open source projects. You go Microsoft. I hope OSS way would be successful enough so MS would embrace it even more... But you never know.
EDIT: [1] I'm aware that Microsoft recently joined Open Invention Network patent pool. But there're criticism that contributed patents are not important ones. I tried to find ExFAT patents, but couldn't in OIN list. Also, it is really hard to find full OIN contributed patent list. Here's US patent numbers MS going around asking money for, couldn't find any confirmation of all of them being contributed 5579517 5758352 5745902 6286013
I really like how Microsoft is now, all open, free, unicorns and rainbows. Hell, they're producing some terrific open source themselves and support community.
But lets not forget - corporations are not people. Next CEO may use Github to put obstacles on OSS movement's way. Just because it is good now, doesn't mean it will be good tomorrow, or in 10 years.
P.S. Personally, I really happy where Microsoft is heading right now, and I think they're doing terrific job with their open source projects. You go Microsoft. I hope OSS way would be successful enough so MS would embrace it even more... But you never know.
EDIT: [1] I'm aware that Microsoft recently joined Open Invention Network patent pool. But there're criticism that contributed patents are not important ones. I tried to find ExFAT patents, but couldn't in OIN list. Also, it is really hard to find full OIN contributed patent list. Here's US patent numbers MS going around asking money for, couldn't find any confirmation of all of them being contributed 5579517 5758352 5745902 6286013
While this obviously also applies equally to Apple, Google, etc., I'm curious: do you think it also is the case with companies like RedHat? The recent MongoDB announcement made me a bit more sensitive and aware of the orthogonality of interests, even in a company that produces OSS as it's core product (and monetizes services).
Apple and Google didn't take over major OSS hub (some say, the OSS hub of today). This companies contribute a lot themselves, and have a long history of doing so.
And yes, MongoDB ticked me too.
I like way Microsoft is going, I just don't want to get hurt if suddenly their board/CEO decide to pursue opposite direction: won't even be first time for the company.
> do you think it also is the case with companies like RedHat?
Not the op, but yes, both "Corporations are not humans" and "Corporation's acts are driven by profits" also applies to RedHat and other publicly traded companies.
Not the op, but yes, both "Corporations are not humans" and "Corporation's acts are driven by profits" also applies to RedHat and other publicly traded companies.
Well. It's almost a philosophical dilemma at this point.
You can either fear the future and hence never enjoy what's good today. Or you can forget the future and actually enjoy the present.
GitHub didn't exist 15 years ago. Something better will probably be there in 15 years from now.
If GitHub changes direction and becomes a bad citizen, we'll go elsewhere.
You can either fear the future and hence never enjoy what's good today. Or you can forget the future and actually enjoy the present.
GitHub didn't exist 15 years ago. Something better will probably be there in 15 years from now.
If GitHub changes direction and becomes a bad citizen, we'll go elsewhere.
> If GitHub changes direction and becomes a bad citizen, we'll go elsewhere.
Unless they buy and shut down any alternative that gathers more than a thousand users.
Unless they buy and shut down any alternative that gathers more than a thousand users.
>You can either fear the future and hence never enjoy what's good today. Or you can forget the future and actually enjoy the present.
A better choice would be to enjoy what's good today while making contingencies for when things go south in the future.
A better choice would be to enjoy what's good today while making contingencies for when things go south in the future.
Wonder if they'll decide to open source Windows via GitHub.
Open sourcing isn’t likely but Microsoft has always shared a lot of source even if true open source is a recent thing for them. Doing their shared source initiatives through GitHub (as read only) wouldn’t be surprising at all.
Dream on
It's not without precedent!
With .NET Core [0], and ChakraCore[1] (Edge's JS engine) both being open sourced. And them having thrown the entirety of MS-DOS [2] up under the MIT license, and making a bunch of new tools and stuff under open licenses (VSCode, TypeScript, msbuild, etc...). I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they started making a push to open up many parts of Windows.
Already some devs on the Edge team have said publicly that they are working on open sourcing the whole rendering engine from Edge, and seeing that they are moving toward having Windows be more of a "platform" and less of "software you buy", it makes sense that it could eventually become an open source (or at least "open core") product.
I don't think it will happen this year, but I do think that if MS keeps going in this direction, it's more likely than not to happen eventually.
[0] https://github.com/dotnet/core [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore [2] https://github.com/Microsoft/MS-DOS
With .NET Core [0], and ChakraCore[1] (Edge's JS engine) both being open sourced. And them having thrown the entirety of MS-DOS [2] up under the MIT license, and making a bunch of new tools and stuff under open licenses (VSCode, TypeScript, msbuild, etc...). I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they started making a push to open up many parts of Windows.
Already some devs on the Edge team have said publicly that they are working on open sourcing the whole rendering engine from Edge, and seeing that they are moving toward having Windows be more of a "platform" and less of "software you buy", it makes sense that it could eventually become an open source (or at least "open core") product.
I don't think it will happen this year, but I do think that if MS keeps going in this direction, it's more likely than not to happen eventually.
[0] https://github.com/dotnet/core [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore [2] https://github.com/Microsoft/MS-DOS
What would be the benefit of such a thing? It would be a disaster from a security standpoint in the short term.
Indeed, it's way too much code for the security community to review in a timely fashion. I don't think Microsoft views Windows as something they need to keep closed source for profitability reasons, but there's probably huge risks in open sourcing it.
I'd far rather they look to open source individual components one at a time. Most of the modern UWP apps of theirs they could easily open source, for instance. Individual components of Windows may be reasonably open sourcing them as they go through and upgrade and enhance them.
I'd far rather they look to open source individual components one at a time. Most of the modern UWP apps of theirs they could easily open source, for instance. Individual components of Windows may be reasonably open sourcing them as they go through and upgrade and enhance them.
Interesting joining OIN was driven by GitHub acquisition.
Did MS confirm that them joining OIN includes non aggression with exFAT and ActiveSync patents?
Did MS confirm that them joining OIN includes non aggression with exFAT and ActiveSync patents?
Please fix search. A simple deduction would go a long way. So many times are there 30 pages of the same file.
Deduction = deduplication
Honestly I'll be happy no matter how this turns out. If this deters developers as a result, it should open up more potential for new platforms. If it does great, then open source as a community will continue to grow and be backed up by the credibility of Microsoft.
Nitpick: Nat Friedman's GitHub profile [1] does not have STAFF badge yet.
[1] https://github.com/nat
[1] https://github.com/nat
I sometimes view projects on GitHub, but do not use it (nor do I use git at all; I prefer Fossil) for my own projects, so I am unaffected.
The benefits or Microsoft owning GitHub seem to keep rolling in. The visual studio integration has gotten much better already and I'm excited to see how they begin to integrate github into Azure.
A lot of the Azure documentation has been in GitHub for ages - made me wonder if MS viewed them as an acquisition target more than a year ago.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
That's Google's MO now.
Yep, but the other way around. Open source was Microsoft's fiercest enemy, and now it's managed to root deep inside the company, eating it from the inside out, turning Microsoft into something very very different than what it was 15 years ago. We won!
Crossing fingers...
I'm keeping a close eye on repos such as py-kms.
How long before GitHub moves to Azure?
Having it in RackSpace and AWS is bad optics, but they also must know Azure is not stable enough for something as large and visible as GitHub.
I expect this to be the first integration they try. Stockpiling the popcorn.
Having it in RackSpace and AWS is bad optics, but they also must know Azure is not stable enough for something as large and visible as GitHub.
I expect this to be the first integration they try. Stockpiling the popcorn.
"but they also must know Azure is not stable enough"
In what universe is this true? Azure is the backbone of large things in corporate America, especially in banking and healthcare that you never even think about. Things a lot more important than someone's repo being inconvenienced.
Any migration will be painful, but to say Azure as a service isn't up to the task is just nonsense.
In what universe is this true? Azure is the backbone of large things in corporate America, especially in banking and healthcare that you never even think about. Things a lot more important than someone's repo being inconvenienced.
Any migration will be painful, but to say Azure as a service isn't up to the task is just nonsense.
From practical experience, I would say Azure is a moving target currently. Things beyond virtual machine and networks feel like moving targets.
For the sectors you cited that might not matter since those will not be using cloud resources but rather the common virtual machine workload.
For the sectors you cited that might not matter since those will not be using cloud resources but rather the common virtual machine workload.
I'm not sure what planet you live on, but there are plenty of things far bigger and more important than GitHub running in Azure.
GitLab was hosted on Azure just fine for a long period, before moving off recently for optics reasons.
It wasn't for optics reasons; that was entirely coincidental. It was announced well before the GitHub acquisition that we were moving to GCP, primarily for better Kubernetes integration [0].
[0] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/05/gke-gitlab-integration/
[0] https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/05/gke-gitlab-integration/
You've got enough rebuttal on your doubt of Azure.
But another issue with this comment is this:
> in RackSpace and AWS
As far as I can tell, they moved off RackSpace a long time ago. And they only use AWS infrastructure for peering, which makes sense with the amount of AWS machines that pull code from Github. The majority of the heavy lifting is done in Github's own data centers: https://githubengineering.com/evolution-of-our-data-centers/
But another issue with this comment is this:
> in RackSpace and AWS
As far as I can tell, they moved off RackSpace a long time ago. And they only use AWS infrastructure for peering, which makes sense with the amount of AWS machines that pull code from Github. The majority of the heavy lifting is done in Github's own data centers: https://githubengineering.com/evolution-of-our-data-centers/
I remember when they moved Hotmail to Windows servers, took more than one try, if memory serves.
Microsoft uses other providers from time to time, I know a few of their services which reside in IBM's SoftLayer too.
> Ultimately, my job is to make GitHub better for you.
Who asked you to make GitHub better though? It's pretty darn good already. I fear that the new CEO will try to make things better when they are already good. I'm really scared that GitHub will end up like Azure DevOps, perhaps get merged or shut down entirely when they feel they have feature parity. Currently there is no great GitHub alternative IMHO and for selfish reasons I wish Microsoft could just leave it. The most I am scared is to wake up one day and see the most ugly "Metro" UX applied to GitHub.
Who asked you to make GitHub better though? It's pretty darn good already. I fear that the new CEO will try to make things better when they are already good. I'm really scared that GitHub will end up like Azure DevOps, perhaps get merged or shut down entirely when they feel they have feature parity. Currently there is no great GitHub alternative IMHO and for selfish reasons I wish Microsoft could just leave it. The most I am scared is to wake up one day and see the most ugly "Metro" UX applied to GitHub.
A fair point, but I, for one, will give him a chance.
I'd be more worried for the folks at Microsoft that work in competing spaces. :)
I have slowly moved most of my projects to GitLab. The UX is a little different, but you also get unlimited private repositories for individuals and organizations.
Gitlab is a smaller company with a smaller userbase. You could argue they are a much more obvious takeover target for the Oracle / IBM / Google's wanting to compete more with Microsoft to own the developer experience.
Thanks for sharing this! I'd love to hear if you have more feedback on how is GitLab's UX different. Particularly, what do you think GitLab could do better here?
Not OP, but is there a way to preview Markdown when writing up your project's Wiki as you are typing?
Alongside this, is there also a way to change the order of Wiki Pages?
Alongside this, is there also a way to change the order of Wiki Pages?
The wiki edit screen has a Markdown preview tab https://www.dropbox.com/s/ouq7mwgazyyv6nc/Screenshot%202018-... but it disables typing.
I think you can override the default index of pages with a custom one.
I think you can override the default index of pages with a custom one.
> unlimited private repositories for individuals and organizations.
This was my draw to it as well.
This was my draw to it as well.
Why GitLab over Bitbucket?
Haven't used gitlab but have used bitbucket server. It is trash compared to GitHub. Seriously feels like clunky stone age molasses.
GitHub will operate independently as a community, platform, and business. This means that GitHub will retain its developer-first values, distinctive spirit, and open extensibility. We will always support developers in their choice of any language, license, tool, platform, or cloud.
GitHub will retain its product philosophy. We love GitHub because of the deep care and thoughtfulness that goes into every facet of the developer’s experience. I understand and respect this, and know that we will continue to build tasteful, snappy, polished tools that developers love.
GitHub will retain its product philosophy. We love GitHub because of the deep care and thoughtfulness that goes into every facet of the developer’s experience. I understand and respect this, and know that we will continue to build tasteful, snappy, polished tools that developers love.
Never in the history of acquisitions of that profile has the buyer ever given a different message than "we won't touch anything".
Of course they will make big changes two years later down the line. You don't buy something if you have no plans for it.
Of course they will make big changes two years later down the line. You don't buy something if you have no plans for it.
> Never in the history of acquisitions of that profile has the buyer ever given a different message than "we won't touch anything".
Well, _technically_ I worked for one where it functioned in a hands-off way. The big difference was, the parent company was a holding company specialising in a certain industry, and us functioning differently from their other properties was the whole point.
In this case, I expect things to go the What's App way: it's going to be long and slow, but MS will eat it eventually.
Well, _technically_ I worked for one where it functioned in a hands-off way. The big difference was, the parent company was a holding company specialising in a certain industry, and us functioning differently from their other properties was the whole point.
In this case, I expect things to go the What's App way: it's going to be long and slow, but MS will eat it eventually.
> Currently there is no great GitHub alternative
GitLab is decent, with an open source core that can be installed on premise — I introduced it for a former employer and they are still very happy with it.
https://gitlab.com/
All isn't perfect and I'm still on GitHub due to the network effects, but you do have alternatives.
GitLab is decent, with an open source core that can be installed on premise — I introduced it for a former employer and they are still very happy with it.
https://gitlab.com/
All isn't perfect and I'm still on GitHub due to the network effects, but you do have alternatives.
It's not about an alternative -- heck, `apt install git` is the way everyone is already self-hosting git (you can push and pull from anything like Dropbox/Drive/OneDrive to an NFS mount). It's about the community that is GitHub.
Since the news broke I've been hosting a Gitea instance and while that works fine, I cannot go a day without using Github for things like pulling other people's code, creating issues, etc.
Since the news broke I've been hosting a Gitea instance and while that works fine, I cannot go a day without using Github for things like pulling other people's code, creating issues, etc.
There are some prominent projects on GitLab already. Also once the apple gets rotten, people will move. Remember SourceForge?
Seriously it only takes a bunch of high profile projects and people to drive a migration.
In other words Microsoft has to play nice.
Seriously it only takes a bunch of high profile projects and people to drive a migration.
In other words Microsoft has to play nice.
Microsoft is pushing some invasive stuff in Windows 10 but they totally get away with it. I don't believe that the only way to stay in business is to play nice, at least not in the short term that managers can oversee and will base their decisions on.
SourceForge is from before my time. When Github was still small, I was still being brainwashed by school's free Windows and discount Office licenses and school educating us in using Microsoft Office. From my current point of view, though, SourceForge was never as big as Github is now. Almost every development company pulls code from Github, either in an automated fashion to pull in updates, or casually as they need random things that are published there. I don't think that was ever the case with SF.
SourceForge is from before my time. When Github was still small, I was still being brainwashed by school's free Windows and discount Office licenses and school educating us in using Microsoft Office. From my current point of view, though, SourceForge was never as big as Github is now. Almost every development company pulls code from Github, either in an automated fashion to pull in updates, or casually as they need random things that are published there. I don't think that was ever the case with SF.
Hello, Community Advocate from GitLab here! I'm happy to hear that your former employer is happy with our product!
If you have more feedback on the things that could be better, we would love to hear more!
If you have more feedback on the things that could be better, we would love to hear more!
I'm using it for a couple personal projects and am very happy with it so far, for what that's worth.
What's wrong with Azure Devops? I'm genuinely curious, because it looks like it might do a great job at replacing an Atlassian catastrophe.
Probably 2/3 of my day job is implementing Azure Devops for our internal and client applications - personally I really like it although it certainly has a learning curve and some things are non-intuitive. But everyone I've talked to who has used it in a professional context more than once (e.g. not tried it once and given up) is more-or-less very happy with the quality and reliability.
If you're good with Powershell it's also extremely easy to write your own build and/or release steps which is a huge plus.
If you're good with Powershell it's also extremely easy to write your own build and/or release steps which is a huge plus.
For us, a few weeks ago Azure DevOps randomly stopped processing GitHub webhooks, so merge commits didn't trigger builds anymore (and we're not the only ones, see https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/...). A fix for this issue still isn't deployed.
Just a few days ago the service connection to Azure suddenly stopped working with "401 CouldNotFetchAccessTokenForAzureStatusCode" which appeared when deploying to Azure AppService. We had to recreate the service connection to get it working again.
Recently we also wanted to move our Android builds to Azure DevOps but in the end the documentation was so confusing that we just used Bitrise instead.
Just a few days ago the service connection to Azure suddenly stopped working with "401 CouldNotFetchAccessTokenForAzureStatusCode" which appeared when deploying to Azure AppService. We had to recreate the service connection to get it working again.
Recently we also wanted to move our Android builds to Azure DevOps but in the end the documentation was so confusing that we just used Bitrise instead.
It does not work unless Github is open to the internet. For example, Github Enterprise behind a VPN will not be able to use Azure Devops. Crazy but true.
Isn't Azure Devops just Visual Studio Team Services rebranded which is just hosted TFS?
How hard is to bring TFS in house?
How hard is to bring TFS in house?
At work we are moving from VSTS to Jira :( sucks. It’s soooooo sloweeee compared to VSTS... luckily we can move our repos to GitHub.
Your statements sounds a little confused. Everything stagnates, suffer from miss-direction, or just become irrelevant. Someone in an earlier post mentioned sourceforge for example. we just have to hope that this acquisition doesn't make it happen anytime soon.
> Who asked you to make GitHub better though? It's pretty darn good already.
It is? Because it takes my home feed ~5 seconds to load. Totally unacceptable.
It is? Because it takes my home feed ~5 seconds to load. Totally unacceptable.
Blame elasticsearch for that :)
I blame poor product management and engineering. It's not even cached between page loads if nothing has changed (which is 99% of the time I load the page).
But shouldn't a company the size of GitHub fix elastisearch in that case?
> Who asked you to make GitHub better though?
Microsoft, his employer and the owner of GitHub.
Microsoft, his employer and the owner of GitHub.
And every person that has ever used GitHub ever, that wants things to improve instead of remaining static. Just in the past few months Github has released a lot of cool stuff, before this was even completed. Github has changed a lot over the years, and that's a good thing. No one wants something that never improves.
Microsoft could pull a Skype of course, but on the upside this might turn out to be a good thing, as in this climate many businesses, operating at scale and giving away so many freebies, are struggling and GitHub could have been the next SourceForge.
Who knows, maybe they'll even open source it. Fingers crossed.