Microsoft Embraces Git For Development Tools

alphadogg writes "Once vehemently opposed to open-source software, Microsoft has warmed to the development model over the years and will now take the unusual step of incorporating an open-source program developed by Linus Torvalds into its own development tools. Microsoft is integrating the widely used Git, a distributed revision control and source code management system, into its Visual Studio IDE and Team Foundation Server, two of the company's main tools for enterprise developers."

Comments

1st step.

[Kenja]

Step 1: Embrace. Step 2: Extend. Step 3: Replace. Step 4: Discontinue.

Re:1st step.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Slashdot.org readers hate microsoft no matter what. Its sad really how willfully ignorant zealots can be.

Re:1st step.

[GigaplexNZ]

There's nothing stopping Microsoft from modifying their copy of libgit2 as long as they release the source according to the modified GPL license it is covered by. In fact, Microsoft already have upstreamed some modifications.

Re:1st step.

[slimjim8094]

Why do you think garbage collection is related to "keeping track of what was done by who, when"? All it does is clean up files that are no longer part of the commit tree; that is, unreachable and "garbage". A way to create such a file is to 'git add' a file (which puts that specific version in the repo, for later commit) and then make another change. Since it's a different file than it was, you have to re-'git add' it, which creates an entirely new object that is referenced by the eventual commit. Hence, the dangling useless object is garbage and should be cleaned up.

People have been complaining about rebasing for a long time, and there's some valid criticism of it, but given the above I'm not convinced your problems with it are properly understood.

Re:1st step.

[phantomfive]

I think it's an indication that git has won the popularity contest over mercurial, for better or worse.

Re:1st step.

[Anonymous Coward]

They garbage collection has nothing to do with git as a version control system, it's basically an implementation detail that helps with performance.

And history rebasing is frankly extremely useful, and only ever used on work that no one else seen (unless you're crazy and want people to hate you). You are only ever going to rebase to clean up stuff in your own repository, so all it does is encourage you to commit more often since it doesn't need to be perfect and organized with pretty commit messages all ready for public consumption. You've gained negative from a VCS point of view if all you've done is discourage Bob from committing early and often just so you can know the exact steps taken by Bob when Bob was working in Bob's repository.

GPL Breaks this process.

[anwyn]

The GPL restricts the "Extend" step so that Discontinue step is impossible.

Any derived work of something, like git, which is GPLed, must be GPLed. That means that if you fork, the main branch, the main branch is free to use your extensions. This makes it difficult for replacement to work.

Furthermore, if you try discontinue step, others are free to fork and continue. So discontinue does not work.

The GPL completely breaks the "Embrace. Step 2: Extend. Step 3: Replace. Step 4: Discontinue." process. Which is why it is hated.

Re:MS Really Embracing OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

As with Windows, it's not the OS that is scary, it's the company behind the OS. Apple has always been a much more controlling and anticompetitive company than Microsoft, it's just that they never had any marketshare to abuse until recent years.