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Microsoft's Interest In Buying GitHub Draws Backlash From Developers
The supposed acquisition of popular code repository GitHub by Microsoft has drawn an unprecedented backlash from the developer community. Over the weekend, after Bloomberg reported that the two companies could make the announcement as soon as Monday, hundreds of developers took to forums and social media to express their disappointment, with many saying that they would be leaving the platform if the deal goes through.
So why so much outrage? In a conversation with Slashdot, software developer and student Sean said that he believes a deal of such capacity would be bad for the open source community. "They've shown time and time again that they can't be trusted," he said. Sean and many other believe that Microsoft would eventually start telemetry program on the code repository. "Aside from Microsoft not being trustworthy to the open source community, I'm sure they'll add tracking and possibly even ads to all the sites within GitHub. As well as possibly use it to push LinkedIn (which they own)," he said. Ryan Hoover, the founder of ProductHunt, wrote on Sunday, "Anecdotally, the developer community is very unapproving of this move. I'm curious how Microsoft manages this and how GitHub changes (or doesn't change)." Even as Microsoft has "embraced" the open source community in the recent years (under the leadership of Mr. Nadella), for many developers, it will take time -- if at all -- to forget the company's past closed-ecosystem approach. Just this weekend, a developer accused Microsoft of stealing his code.
A petition that seeks to "stop Microsoft from buying Github" had garnered support from more than 400 developers. Prominent developer Andre Staltz said, "If you're still optimistic about the Microsoft-GitHub acquisition, consider this: They didn't ask your opinion not even a single bit, even though it was primarily your commits, stars, and repositories which made GH become a valuable platform." More importantly, if the comments left on Slashdot, Reddit, and HackerNews, places that overwhelmingly count developers and other IT industry experts among their audience, are anything to go by, Microsoft better has a good plan on how it intends to operate GitHub after the buyout. Security reporter Catalin Cimpanu said, "LinkedIn has turned into a slow-loading junk after the Microsoft acquisition. I can only imagine what awaits GitHub." On his part, Mat Velloso, who is technical advisor to CTO at Microsoft, said, "I don't think people understand how many of us at Microsoft love GitHub to the bottom of our hearts. If anybody decided to mess with that community, there would be a riot to say the least."
Jacques Mattheij: Companies that are too big to fail and that lose money are a dangerous combination, people have warned about GitHub becoming as large as it did as problematic because it concentrates too much of the power to make or break the open source world in a single entity, moreso because there were valid questions about GitHubs financial viability. The model that GitHub has -- sell their services to closed source companies but provide the service for free for open source groups -- is only a good one if the closed source companies bring in enough funds to sustain the model. Some sort of solution should have been found -- preferably in collaboration with the community -- not an 'exit' to one of the biggest sharks in the tank. So, here is what is wrong with this deal and why anybody active in the open source community should be upset that Microsoft is going to be the steward of this large body of code. For starters, Microsoft has a very long history of abusing its position vis-a-vis open source and other companies. I'm sure you'll be able to tell I'm a cranky old guy by looking up the dates to some of these references, but 'new boss, same as the old boss' applies as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the new boss is a nicer guy but it's the same corporate entity. Update: It's official. Microsoft has acquired GitHub for a whopping sum of $7.5B.
So why so much outrage? In a conversation with Slashdot, software developer and student Sean said that he believes a deal of such capacity would be bad for the open source community. "They've shown time and time again that they can't be trusted," he said. Sean and many other believe that Microsoft would eventually start telemetry program on the code repository. "Aside from Microsoft not being trustworthy to the open source community, I'm sure they'll add tracking and possibly even ads to all the sites within GitHub. As well as possibly use it to push LinkedIn (which they own)," he said. Ryan Hoover, the founder of ProductHunt, wrote on Sunday, "Anecdotally, the developer community is very unapproving of this move. I'm curious how Microsoft manages this and how GitHub changes (or doesn't change)." Even as Microsoft has "embraced" the open source community in the recent years (under the leadership of Mr. Nadella), for many developers, it will take time -- if at all -- to forget the company's past closed-ecosystem approach. Just this weekend, a developer accused Microsoft of stealing his code.
A petition that seeks to "stop Microsoft from buying Github" had garnered support from more than 400 developers. Prominent developer Andre Staltz said, "If you're still optimistic about the Microsoft-GitHub acquisition, consider this: They didn't ask your opinion not even a single bit, even though it was primarily your commits, stars, and repositories which made GH become a valuable platform." More importantly, if the comments left on Slashdot, Reddit, and HackerNews, places that overwhelmingly count developers and other IT industry experts among their audience, are anything to go by, Microsoft better has a good plan on how it intends to operate GitHub after the buyout. Security reporter Catalin Cimpanu said, "LinkedIn has turned into a slow-loading junk after the Microsoft acquisition. I can only imagine what awaits GitHub." On his part, Mat Velloso, who is technical advisor to CTO at Microsoft, said, "I don't think people understand how many of us at Microsoft love GitHub to the bottom of our hearts. If anybody decided to mess with that community, there would be a riot to say the least."
Jacques Mattheij: Companies that are too big to fail and that lose money are a dangerous combination, people have warned about GitHub becoming as large as it did as problematic because it concentrates too much of the power to make or break the open source world in a single entity, moreso because there were valid questions about GitHubs financial viability. The model that GitHub has -- sell their services to closed source companies but provide the service for free for open source groups -- is only a good one if the closed source companies bring in enough funds to sustain the model. Some sort of solution should have been found -- preferably in collaboration with the community -- not an 'exit' to one of the biggest sharks in the tank. So, here is what is wrong with this deal and why anybody active in the open source community should be upset that Microsoft is going to be the steward of this large body of code. For starters, Microsoft has a very long history of abusing its position vis-a-vis open source and other companies. I'm sure you'll be able to tell I'm a cranky old guy by looking up the dates to some of these references, but 'new boss, same as the old boss' applies as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the new boss is a nicer guy but it's the same corporate entity. Update: It's official. Microsoft has acquired GitHub for a whopping sum of $7.5B.
If we are going back to the 90s, let's do it properly.. :P
MS are completely and utterly untrustworthy.
There's no way I would do anything to support them, or have anything to do with them.
MS buy GitHub, my repo leaves GitHub : I've been on GitHub for about ten years now.
git really doesn't need a hub. So sure, it's convenient, and it became the FOSS-hipster thing to do. Now big bad redmond comes along and buys it all up. Just like they bought up linkedin. Now all your employment history is theirs to do with as they please. Now all your code is theirs to do with as they please, too.
Why did you give it to some 'merkin company in the first place? Just for the convenience? Riddle me this, please.
Yes, I know "embrace, extend, exquingish" is their track-record. But google (eg. deja news) is no longer even pretending to "don't be evil", and yet all y'all are still clinging to their products and services. Why not big bad and wrong, evil redmond?
I know why I avoid redmond whenever and wherever I can. I never had a linkedin account nor a github account. But why the indignation now? Do explain please. Anybody? What makes this one evil company so special that you won't trust them with your code, but you certainly would some random other company? What if google had bought up github? SAP? IBM? Yahoo? Sony?
Just fire up a new site.
How does github make money anyway? How do they keep the lights on?
If you require trust, you shouldn't have used GitHub in the first place.
"I don't think people understand how many of us at Microsoft love GitHub to the bottom of our hearts"
The love that suffocates. Just fuck off and die.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
When I participate in developer forums, I find they tend to become better when the emotional, irrational, outraged developers leave. I remember when there was a "boycott slashdot" week over beta. When those people left, it was like a breath of fresh air. The average quality of comment went up (and I say that as someone who disliked beta). Having an emotional attachment to a platform, company, or website is irrational by definition.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Ermagerd, dey gonna integrate soshul netwerkz...
Give me a fucking break, Sean. Unless you're in your 30s or older, you probably have no idea how much Microsoft has gone from being the fighting dog pitbull of the industry to being a friendly and loyal black lab between 1998 and 2018. If you told us in 1998 that...
1. Microsoft would open source its Java competitor under better terms than Java...
2. Would fully adopt (as much as anyone other than Mozilla is) open web standards from the browser to all corporate products...
3. Add a Linux compatibility layer...
4. Port Office to a platform like Android...
5. Be the 5th largest contributor to the Linux kernel...
6. Enthusiastically sell cloud services based on Linux...
7. Microsoft would offer more innovative desktops than Apple...
8. Microsoft would compete for OEM licenses on price and merits, not contractual extortion...
We'd have called you a crackhead. Not a dreamer, but a crackhead because only a crackhead would think up a future like that as being plausible. Yet... that's where we're at in 2018
Wrong.
First of all, that's called a whataboutism. Kids learn that those don't fly.
Secondly, businesses generally don't change. They might spread a bunch of lies and pretend that they have changed, but at the core they very rarely succeed, even if they try. I have seen no signs of Microsoft genuinely trying. Just look at how every single update to Windows 10 resets your settings to allow maximum data harvesting from Microsoft. Behold the updategate where they actually tried to trick people into "upgrading" to Windows 10. Does that look like someone who has changed?
I deleted mine, and they do, a link down the bottom of the page after you delete. So, I guess did you really delete?
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
Github is far too dominant in the online source code repository market. If this causes some people to leave and join other repositories or set up new competitors, that is a good thing.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
The developers weren't consulted?
What a childish, idiotic, egocentric attitude. This is business. Github is not a nonprofit.
From the beginning, Git support of MS has been poor. I'd say this is well deserved.
Yes MS from 2018 is not MS from 1998, but mostly due to competition, not on their own accord. Proof of that is the shenanigan they still do in the amrket they are more or less de facto monopolist : the OS. Furthermore point 1 cn be painted in a dimmer light as "embrace and extend then extinguish" which has always been their toolbox, as for point 8 i am sorry, what OEM license competition ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
RIP github.
Actually, I think it only became decent after Microsoft bought it.
It's also not under U.S. jurisdiction, being based in Europe. These days that's something you need to consider.
Windows 10 turned Windows into spyware, telemetry, unwanted features (go ahead and try to permanently disable Cortana) and otherwise revert your settings.
While you dwell on some 1990s web browser thing, in the real world Microsoft, just Windows 10 alone is an example of why to not trust Microsoft.
And that's recent.
Today's Microsoft views you as the product to exploit you and take advantage of you.
And they will with github too.
I'm one step ahead of you. I've never used GitHub in my life, much less had an account there.
#DeleteFacebook
Dear 40 year old, when you copy a talking point from a word document to a Slashdot post, be sure to replace Word's smartquotes with regular quotes and apostrophe's.
Otherwise people will instantly notice you've just cut and pasted that, and wonder why you didn't write it.
I dislike many things done by Microsoft, but like others. I don't like big companies getting everywhere, but don't have any strong feelings about the current GitHub owners either. I like the attitudes in some of the repositories hosted by GitHub or other sites and dislike quite a few others. Despite having tried different alternatives (+ knew about others in the previous article about this still-rumour, perhaps also in this one and in some of the 2-3 upcoming ones), I am reasonably happy with GitHub. My opinion about them might change at any point and I might start using other alternative right away.
I understand that there are lots of hard feelings against Microsoft, big companies, monopolies, etc. I even share most of them. But I also see lots of egoist interests trying to take advantage from all this to their own gain. I also understand that objective quality isn't the only factor to become the number 1 in this sub-world, that you need to attract users no matter what. I am not censoring anyone's behaviour, just that I am not feeling like being a pawn in what looks like a popularity contest only meant to benefit unrelated-to-me companies. If GitHub continues working as so far, I would continue using it. If things change, I would look for alternatives. If monopoly, arbitrary, Windows-10-like "issues" start happening, my opinion about Microsoft as a whole would get even worse.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
If it is to screw things over, look no further than the decline of SourceForge. At one point, their position of 'go-to place for open source projects' seemed unassailable. Then they died off and github became the new hotness in *very* short order. The kicker is that sourceforge technically gave a lot more services than github ever did, so projects were willing to give up having integrated hosting, powerful download management, and many other things. Also, a lot of projects were still using svn, so they had to go the extra mile to migrate to git.
Now look at github. By and large, projects use them for *a* git clone. Yes, the pull requests are useful in the context of the networking effect of the community, but generally speaking, a project could migrate to another similar service like gitlab or bitbucket without so much as even logging into their github account ever again. There is very very little 'stickiness' for github from a technical standpoint.
As far as Microsoft's track record for acquisitions, it's mixed. Skype clearly came out worse for the wear, unable to match competition and screwed up by MS' ambitions for it. On the other hand, LinkedIn still seems to be doing ok, and MS has seemingly not done too much to it yet.
I personally prefer gitlab anyway (I can actually self-host gitlab if I want to, unlike github), so I'm hoping this move makes gitlab more popular.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Don't use one web site to do anything, in this case Github for a code repository.
We need open standards spread across the internet and many different sites which cannot be bought and commercialised.
Decentralise, don't concentrate.
Go well
Between gitlab and atlassian, there are at least healthy alternatives that have easy issue tracking/git commit integration and continuous integration packages for those who don't feel ilke understanding how to set it up themselves (which as you suggest isn't too hard either).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
How does Microsoft owning GitHub "break the open source world"? Even if Microsoft were to do something nefarious (like make unacceptable changes to the TOS), there are dozens of similar services around, or you can simply run GitLab as a hosted or containerized application.
One, most people don't think too much on Netscape, that was one of the *least* insidious ways they attacked the market. Of course the more insidious technical examples are even older (intentionally making popular microsoft software fail to work correctly with competing DOS implementations). Business wise it has been consistent and pervasive throughout. They have recently been better for those who care about the technology and espouse open source values, but business wise they continue to do things that aren't the healthiest for the industry.
Note that MS is not alone here, all the big tech companies with billions in profits didn't get there by being nice and doing the right thing by the industry.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Now we're getting lumped in with Reddit? What Hell?
Right, I don't see how MS is a bad guy in the sense that Comcast is a bad guy. Maybe that's just me, I realize it's an unpopular opinion around here. And FTR I use Linux and OSX about as much as I use Windows these days. I just don't see the great villainy that everyone else does.
Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. Trust MS at your own peril.
The more ruckus is raised around this, and the more developers credibly threaten to leave, then, if the haggling is still in progress, the less Microsoft has to pay to acquire GitHub. In negotiations, it can basically claim, "If we buy you guys, half your users are going to leave because they hate us. So we can't really justify paying you more than X."
If you get "X" so low that it's no longer an appealing price to GitHub then you've "won" in the sense that you've torpedoed the deal. If you don't get "X" low enough to torpedo the deal then you've just saved Microsoft some cash and put less in the pockets of the GitHub guys.
This is just a comment about where you "put your eggs." If you put them all in one basket and something happens to that basket, all of your eggs can break.
Moreover, if you put some outside resource in a position where a change there can doom your enterprise, you are at great risk. This is true regardless of the resource. In the case of code hosting, there are alternatives. There's Bitbucket, Gitlab and probably others hosted in the cloud. Or you can host Gitlab or Gitea on your own H/W or VPS.
This is not like social media where you cannot leave without losing all of your connections. Your projects can go anywhere and still work. Of course for Big Projects the move will be costly. This is a good opportunity to evaluate how expensive the next move will be and choose accordingly.
It wasn't so long ago that Microsoft tried to kill off everything that was not Microsoft. They did not succeed. Yet. Their recent (post Ballmer) actions seem to truly support open source, but recall that their earlier strategy was to "embrace, extend, extinguish." It would be wise of the open source community not to permit itself to be put in a situation where MS can "extinguish."
Trust but verify (and hold at arm's length.)
Sean is definitely the most authoritative commentator. I'm glad he gave /. his opinion, or I wouldn't really know what to think, but now that Sean says this is probably a bad idea, I know that it is.
The intended imputation here is that if only we understood, we'd behave differently.
Not true.
Our behaviour can only be influenced by a loud, long, thorough, sensible, and credible disclosure about how a newly kinder/gentler Microsoft plans to operate, maintain, intervene and intercede with their newfound toy and it's non-trivial powers.
Leading Change — 1996
This book explains how most corporations under-communicate change by an order of magnitude.
We're not talking one soul-baring High Commission of the CTO blog post here. We're talking an entire Kotteresque full-court press, set into stone for the long haul.
What Kotter doesn't cover (time for an updated edition?) is the New World Order, where the urgency and sustained campaign lies in communicating a credible backbone of non-change.
If Microsoft had been honorable for the last 10 years, I would be trusting them somewhat right now. They've actually, however, been the opposite.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
*slow, insincere golf clap*
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
... so I could close it. As with everything having to do with Microsoft... this is a trap.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Yeah, like Comcast actually changed as promised after getting a new head of customer service. Riiiiiight.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
People are using now using the slur whataboutism to defend how someone else gets away with something they don't - or similar analogy.
You know - like progs deflect all criticism of admitted yet unprosecuted crimes but expect prosecution of imaginary ones their opponent supposedly committed.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
GitLab is free. You can self-host it. There are pre-packaged appliances you can install.
Not sure what Microsoft's motive was in making the purchase. No way they couldn't have known there'd be backlash. Maybe because they are such a coding-intensive company they consider coding and infrastructure a major part of their business which is understandable to the extent they don't commercialize it or threaten OSS.
LOL, is that supposed to be a lot?