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Microsoft Is Said to Have Agreed to Acquire Coding Site GitHub (bloomberg.com)

Bloomberg reports:
Microsoft Corp. has agreed to acquire GitHub Inc., the code repository company popular with many software developers, and could announce the deal as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with the matter. GitHub preferred selling the company to going public and chose Microsoft partially because it was impressed by Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Terms of the agreement weren't known on Sunday. GitHub was last valued at $2 billion in 2015.

GitHub is an essential tool for coders. Many corporations, including Microsoft and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, use GitHub to store their corporate code and to collaborate. It's also a social network of sorts for developers. While GitHub's losses have been significant -- it lost $66 million over three quarters in 2016 -- it had revenue of $98 million in nine months of that year.

On Friday, it was reported that Microsoft was in talks with GitHub about an acquisition. Now it seems like it's actually happening.

Update: Our sister site, SourceForge, has weighed in. Here is a tool that will import your GitHub project to SourceForge.
Update #2: Already, we are seeing plenty of backlash over this news. One user has started a petition to stop Microsoft from buying GitHub.
Update #3: It's official. Microsoft has acquired GitHub for a whopping sum of $7.5B.

6 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Go fuck yourself, SourceForge by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sourceforge offers git, so it seems like a perfectly reasonable bit of self-promotion to add. And it’s not like Whipslash is removing mentions of the other possible places people might consider migrating to.

    Z Shell’s home is on SourceForge. If I wanted to take the time, I could come up with other prominent SF denizens for you - but regardless it’s apparent not everyone shares your sentiments.

    The current owners do seem to be trying to turn SF back into a useful home for open-source projects. It looks to me like they've removed most/all of the crappy behaviors put in place by Certain previous owners. It’s not the only game in town... but it’s a legitimate competitor again.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  2. Obviously.... by beheaderaswp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's where my code won't be.

    No way.

    I've been kicked in the face, in a business damaging way, by Microsoft acquisitions. In fact a couple of times.

    There's no way that my intellectual property, open source or not, will be under Microsoft control.

    --
    Another consultant who stuck it out.

    "We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
  3. Re: So glad by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why does everyone expect digital/virtual goods and services to be free? And then those same people flip shit about the advertising and sales of submitted and extrapolated data about them.

    Y'all got any more of that good strawman? Who is this everybody?

    The resources to host this stuff, and do so reliably, quickly, and securely, is not cheap. The cost to continue improving it is not cheap. Explain to me, please, why you expect a whole lot of something for absolutely nothing.

    That is all beside teh point. This is Microsoft, they manage to turn things to shit very quickly. Perhaps they will raise GitHub to the quality of their Windows 10 updates, eh? I wouldn't be surprised if the first thing they do is require a Microsoft account to access anything as well.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  4. GitHub is NOT an 'essential' tool for coders by Ross+Finlayson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "GitHub is an essential tool for coders"

    No it's not. It's a *useful* tool for *many* coders. Many other coders use other cloud-based source code control services - or none at all.

    It's important that we be precise in our language, and stop resorting to hyperbole.

  5. Private Repo Access? by srichard25 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If Microsoft does acquire Github, does that mean that they will instantly have access to all the private repos from Google, Apple, IBM, etc?

  6. Re: Why are unprofitable companies worth so much? by guruevi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not necessarily. A lot of companies will acquire and keep running losses on those just to keep the market share, account information or some integration or whatever is actually "valuable" in the grander scheme of things. Some things just aren't expressed in money.

    Microsoft has been chasing developers since Ballmer got forced out. With low cost or free development cloud infrastructure and free dev tools, hardware and software. They think the future is going to be in custom middleware in the cloud and they're betting big on it.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com