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Linux Foundation Celebrates Microsoft's GitHub Acquisition (theverge.com)
The Linux Foundation has endorsed Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub. In a blog post, Jim Zemlin, the executive director at the Linux Foundation, said: "This is pretty good news for the world of Open Source and we should celebrate Microsoft's smart move." The Verge reports: 10 years ago, Zemlin was calling for Microsoft to stop secretly attacking Linux by selling patents that targeted the operating system, and he also poked fun at Microsoft multiple times over the years. "I will own responsibility for some of that as I spent a good part of my career at the Linux Foundation poking fun at Microsoft (which, at times, prior management made way too easy)," explains Zemlin. "But times have changed and it's time to recognize that we have all grown up -- the industry, the open source community, even me." Nat Friedman, the future CEO of GitHub (once the deal closes), took to Reddit to answer questions on the company's plans. "We are not buying GitHub to turn it into Microsoft; we are buying GitHub because we believe in the importance of developers, and in GitHub's unique role in the developer community," explains Friedman. "Our goal is to help GitHub be better at being GitHub, and if anything, to help Microsoft be a little more like GitHub."
GitHub aligns really well with Microsoft's position as a development tool company. Unless you want Embarcadero or Oracle to buy them, the best big dev tool company to buy them was Microsoft on that front.
Microsoft is also perfectly capable of turning the public site into a loss leader that gets companies to buy the enterprise version. They have the money to easily absorb GitHub's losses as they rebuild the enterprise strategy and open GitHub to Microsoft's full sales channel and task Microsoft corporate sales people with selling it.
And finally, Microsoft is like Apple here in that they have zero motivation right now to screw it up with ads and monetizing user data because they're not an advertising company and they have PLENTY of resources to turn the enterprise side of GitHub from a big loss into a multi-billion dollar business.
when an 800 pound gorilla consumes a bundle of bananas meant for the FOSS chimpanzees,
hey Linux Foundation do you like seeing a corporation that has had 20+ years of animosity towards GNU/Linux & FOSS buy a resource that makes downloading GNU/Linux & FOSS possible, how long before microsoft starts deleting all the good GNU/Linux & FOSS code and makes access by paid subscription only? then what?
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
We have make 20B a year selling closed-source software because we care so much about open-source software!
Nothing to see here, move along.
GitHub aligns really well with Microsoft's position as a development tool company. Unless you want Embarcadero or Oracle to buy them, the best big dev tool company to buy them was Microsoft on that front.
How long until the E-mails from GitHub saying "our terms of service have changed"?
I'm betting this happens "before the end of summer".
https://www.linuxfoundation.or...
So how much did it cost Microsoft to pay off the owners of GitHub? How big of a payday did they get?
There are corrupt people everywhere!
"we are buying GitHub because we believe in the importance of developers".
This means they will use it basically to headhunt and get all the worthy developers before anyone else, right?
Make no mistake, it remains the foul beast that it has always been. Trust MS at your own peril.
A leopard can not change it spots. Just two months ago I was using Microsoft chat to find out about installing Windows for the first time in 15 years. I was using FF and Ubuntu, and the chat window was broken, the input line covered the bottom of the chat history. so I had to keep hitting enter, enter so that I could see the last thing typed. Always just a little broken for not MS systems. The Linux foundation function is to support big business not the small developer or hacker. When money talks. the Linux Foundation bends over and takes it.
The original Linux ideals are being lost to corporate money.
Stac. OS/2. Hotmail. Skype. Etc.
Can a leopard change its spots? No doubt someone will try to claim that this is a different leopard.
If github is compromised I can always move my code to gitlab, or my own server and leave Microsoft to ride herd on its ghetto after everyone else exits.
Or maybe they won't fuck it up. I don't trust them; we'll just have to wait and see.
Their goal is to make Microsoft Windows the #1 developer platform, that's the reason why they added the Linux subsystem. At the same time, they make dual booting harder, expect there to be more problems to come with Windows updates if you're dual booting. The strategy is obvious, they've realized that Linux needs to be embraced & distinguished or at least controlled by sneaking more and more Microsoft stuff into the Linux ecosystem. They will follow the same strategy that Google managed to pull off with Android - overtly supporting free software and open source, but covertly making sure you dominate the field and using tricks and money to prevent successful forking. Can you take an arbitrary smartphone and install your own compilation of the latest Android on it? Right, you can't. The same may happen with Linux. Don't be surprised if Microsoft becomes a major contributor soon. Maybe they even try a 'Windows compatible' distro of GNU/Linux soon. At the same time, they sell their user's data, because they want to become an adware business like Google. Purchasing Github is a major step into this direction.
Why all this? It's a long-term strategy. Microsoft has always been able to deal with Apple, because Apple is not really a software company, but they rightly fear of losing the desktop market entirely. Since the phone thing didn't work out well, they're now trying to make sure to continue the desktop market and want to become the HUB for developers. Apart from that, there is only high end gaming (dwindling market), pro audio (shared with Apple), and Microsoft Office left for them before they would die. Surely at least they'd like to keep the developers, who went to buy Apple hardware in droves, because it allows you to develop for all operating systems on one crappy, overprized machine.
See subject: I tried it when it 1st became available to folks in 1994 (Slackware 1.02 iirc). Then RedHat in 1999. They had a low range of hardware & SOFTWARE. Didn't "get me" then & that's why.
Then, in 2010 while I was in Europe I ran Kubuntu 10.10 & said "THIS is starting to 'get there' & be decent" BUT it still didn't "get me".
Then, recently, my Win7 64-bit distro FINALLY "bit it" (corrupt DvD 10++ yrs. later)!
So, I tried Kubuntu 18.04 MINIMAL install (I pick & choose my own programs later) & FreePascal + Lazarus 1.8.2 (AWESOME - just like Delphi 2.0-7.0 imo & essentials for me - big thing "holding me back" was development tools & I wish I'd discovered it earlier IF it was same quality level as now) & what are my feelings NOW?
* I LIKE IT (a lot)... it's good stuff!
(SO good I didn't want to wipe my current Linux setup to install BSD (did on diff. HDD vs. SSD) to build what's below there too... & its codebase NOW is going to also replace the Win64 model (dropping Win32 one finally I think))
APK
P.S.=> Current excellent Linux & tools for it helped me port a Win32/64 program to Linux (& to make a BETTER faster + more efficient model of the same program that also ports to BSD's & MacOS X via Lazarus/FreePascal) that doesn't exist in GUI there yet https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12209260&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=56754750/ ... apk
As it flushed itself down the toilet.
Big names, Big interests, which means the little people get stomped on.
Fuck that. Fuck the linux foundation. And fuck any control they try to exert.
Gosh....
It's corporate moves and compromises like this which have made me leave the IT business to focus on Industrial programming.
IT cannot remain relevant if it becomes a monolith. Open source, as a corporate walled garden, is not going to provide the platform for people to be at liberty with their own computing and data.
It's over folks. There are no more garages.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Their finances were out of control. By Ars Technica's reasonable estimates, they had blown through the majority of the funds they'd already raised, and a lot of it had to do with them blowing insane amounts of money on employee compensation. Plus, they weren't doing nearly enough to sell, sell, sell their enterprise packages to make up for the fact that their whole public site is damn near a loss leader for that line of business.
GitHub probably could have been profitable at least one or two years ago if they'd controlled their costs and gone all-in on selling the enterprise product. I remember 4 years ago their pricing was something like $5k/year/20 years or something like that. It was like it was designed to be unattractive to small teams with limited overhead (we could have afforded a one time $5k license, but the annual renewal was a deal-breaker on the perceived value).
Must be a rhetorical question because we already know open-source's strengths. And we've made it this far in spite of hostilities because of those strengths. So where's your faith now?
They will harvest Githib looking for coders who are active in various areas of programing and use that information to enrich their LinkedIn job search capabilities.
Microsoft is killing freedom and I don't want anything to do with that company. I didn't switch operating systems 20 years ago for more of the same abuses I experienced from Microsoft. I wanted something better and until recently had something better. Unfortunately with certain individuals entering the GNU/Linux world GNU/Linux has been undermined and destroyed. From System D to Snaps to this. I want my GNU/Linux back.
I don't agree with the analysis in the parent comment.
This amazing quote from the Slashdot story demonstrates an avoidance of reality, in my opinion: "We are not buying GitHub to turn it into Microsoft; we are buying GitHub because we believe in the importance of developers, and in GitHub's unique role in the developer community," explains Friedman.
My opinion: Microsoft bought GitHub because it expects to make money. To begin evaluating GitHub's future, consider what Microsoft did to Skype and LinkedIn.
Harvard Business Review article: Why Microsoft Is Willing to Pay So Much for GitHub. Quote from that article: "GitHub was acquired for close to 30x annual recurring revenue (an astronomical multiple)."
Another quote from the Harvard Business Review article:
"In other words, Microsoft is not paying $7.5 billion for GitHub for its ability to make money (its financial value). It's paying for the access it gets to the legions of developers who use GitHub's code repository products on a daily basis (the company's strategic value) -- so they can be guided into the Microsoft developer environment, where the real money is made."
In my opinion that statement damages the reputation of the Harvard Business Review. What it really means is something like this: "... legions of developers can be FORCED into the Microsoft developer environment, where the real money is made."
... coming up in about this order:
... and so so... MicroSoft is still MicroSoft, a ruthless for-profit organization that knows no moral borders for crushing their competetion and keeping their users addicted.
- registering a live.com account (with personal information) becomes mandatory to use github
- github experience becomes "optimized for Edge", and somehow more sluggish for all other browsers
- use of GVFS becomes mandatory. Complete decentralized copies of hosted repositories is first discouraged, later made impossible
- web service starts to use binary, Windows-only extensions, later some features are no longer available without
- MicroSoft starts removing projects that contradict their business models or just generally displease them
- MicroSoft requires developers to utilize MicroSoft-issued certificates to sign their commits. First certificates are free, later they start to cost per month.
- MicroSoft sells NSA and other paying customers the service to implant back-doors in the sources hosted at github - of course "signed" with the seemingly correct developer certificate.
It' dead-easy to set up. Only thing it's really missing is an integrated code review tool, if one cares for that.
> "But times have changed and it's time to recognize that we have all grown up -- the industry, the open source community, even me."
Your move, /. readers.
MS has a track record of being total ass-holes and ruthless uncooperative bastards. I am sure all that has changed in the last few months and that they will do nothing but good in the future.
You care: Look @ U "ReAcTiNg", lol & I don't have space to do that anymore (data partition resizing already took place, other 1/2 is Linux) & I won't DO WINE (too many shortcomings, especially @ API levels (which I use extensively & even broke past MAC restrictions on ICMP)) so you LOSE again, stalker.
* Don't YOU have ANYTHING BETTER TO DO but STALK ME like the "ne'er-do-well" DO NOTHING Jealous JOWIE (lol) you clearly are?
APK
P.S.=> Evidently you don't & you don't have the SKILLS to create something our /. peers & LIKE + USE now multiplatform (even in an older lesser model soon to be improve in Win64 too) https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12209260&cid=56754750/ that yields more speed/security/reliability for less (bugs/security issues/resource use) vs. any "so-called 'competitor'" (souled out useless OR buggy + inefficient) ... apk
Is this analysis correct?
Microsoft bought access to the code of GitHub's paying customers.
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made.
Sure. And the Microsoft of tomorrow is not necessarily the Microsoft of today. Easy come, easy go.
Which is why Microsoft should get busy providing an explicit list of intentions concerning their operation of GitHub, providing as many bullets as possible about things that define their tenure as the presumptive "good" Microsoft: will dos and won't dos.
If the list doesn't allow one to finish the sentence "you'll know we've gone back to our old tricks when ..." it isn't an adequate prospective disclosure.
To reiterate: I'm not increasing my present reliance on GitHub in any meaningful way until I have a really solid completion to the sentence "you'll know we've gone back to our old tricks when ..." completed in Microsoft's own words.
I don't hold modern Germans responsible for what happened once upon a time. Nevertheless, I do expect some extremely cautious and historically informed navel-gazing on their part when their will to power swells.
My position will be much the same concerning the half of America that voted for Donald Trump if his rough and tumble "diplomacy" escalates into an exchange. Should that terrible day come to pass, "oh, well, the South Korean position was untenable, anyway (may you rest in peace)" is not going to fly in my airspace.
Explicit circumspection. It's a thing.
There are plenty alternatives to the greedy, control-freak corporations:
http://altwissenschaft.ddnss.de/IT_Airbus.html
Bullshit. They are buying it because they want as much control over distribution of as much software as possible. It's almost habitual with MS.
Simply don't use the products and services of the large monopoly players. The ARE plenty of alternatives around.
For example, why do we need GitHub ? The only reason is laziness/"convenience". With a few minutes of more work, you can run an SVN or Git server on your PRIVATE SERVER attached to your DSL router. No need to hand your hard-won code to $corporation who wants to socialize your intellectual property for their purposes.
More:
http://altwissenschaft.ddnss.de/IT_Airbus.html
Blink twice if you're under duress.
Con artists always tell you how good their intentions are, but never seem to quite work out well for anyone but them. I'll let their actions speak for them, and see how it all plays out before I accept their statements at face value.
(Also, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me is an apt aphorism here.)
Linux is not open source is free software. Unless they changed the license and I didn't notice... This guy head of the linux foundation is a jerk and should resign.
Name one other acquisition that Microsoft has handled well and hasn't fucked up through greed or incompetence. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Oracle spent a ton of money on Sun Microsystems. It gave them ownership of Java, MySQL, OpenOffice, Solaris. What does Oracle have to show for it? Solaris is dead, OpenOffice development has been forked into LibreOffice, MySQL has been forked into MariaDB, and Java has been forked into Iced Tea.
The developers of all of this software were paid handsomely in the buyout, yet Oracle still has not seen a dime (not even from the Google lawsuit).
May Microsoft squander their many billions trying to purchase both Free (Libre-GPL) and Open Source (BSD, Apache, MPL, etc.) software and their companies. These are the fruitless actions of lawyers who have not read the software licenses.
People start businesses to make money. Go to Venezuela and wait in the bread and toilet paper line if you've got a problem with the free market.
I'm no fan of Micro-shaft, but this thread is packed full of people who don't know crap about business. The most successful FOSS projects, like Ubuntu and Red Hat, are run by large corporations. Revenues and profit are natural signals that your stuff is flowing through the market, as opposed to some doofus in his mom's basement writing yet another program that there's already 500 of and then whining that no one uses it.
it's been proven previously that Microsoft has had to comply, such as giving out their digital keys to NSA in the 90's. It certainly wouldn't be difficult to order a handful of employees or less, as is typically done with NSA court orders, to set things up so certain targets receive compromised code when cloning.
If you can identify the target, typically by IP, and the repo is typically something used for security purposes, just send the compromised repo instead. Simple to do.
Another good reason to abandon GitHub in favor of GitLab where U.S. tentacles have no access.
The Linux Foundation is drinking the Microsoft kool-aid. :(
*NOT* a good thing. Microsoft is playing a long game to destroy the open-source community from within.
What is the "Linux Foundation" and why do I care?
Embrace, extend, and extinguish
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish: How Microsoft Plans to Get Rid of Linux/Android (April 20, 2015) That article contains these links:
Microsoft Hates Linux -- Part I -- The UEFI Attack on GNU/Linux
Microsoft Hates Linux -- Part II -- Patent Lawsuits Against Android/Linux Still Going On, New Ones Filed
Microsoft Hates Linux -- Part III -- Abducting the Competition (Android)
Microsoft Hates Linux -- Part IV -- Deleting, Attacking Android/Linux From Within
Microsoft Hates Linux -- Part V -- Dumping and Surveillance to Counter GNU/Linux Insurgence
Microsoft Hates Linux -- Part VI -- Propaganda Wars Against Free Software Facilitated While Media Control is Secured and Abused
Microsoft controlling GitHub is terrible, because Microsoft is terrible! We should all move our repositories over to GitLab. GitLab is hosted on Azure, they're so much nicer and more trustworthy than Microsoft!
These are the end times. Signs and portents we can not ignore.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Wow. Bigly.
Nat Friedman, the future CEO of GitHub: ... we believe in the importance of developers
I hope he's not like this guy from Microsoft's not-so-distant past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE
I don't trust Microsoft. Bad companies don't do a 180 overnight.
You just need to go with one of the self-hosted options for gitlab, you know. It is available both for the CE (open source) and EE (enterprise) versions of gitlab.
And the CE version even has the "omnibus" option for self-hosting (for those who are unable to setup gitlab themselves) or the full-source route (in which case you could, e.g. leverage the salsa.debian.org Ansible playbooks used by the Debian team that setup their gitlab self-hosted setup should you don't want to start from scratch, or do it your own way. I expect the gnome guys also have something like this...).
Also, I expect gitlab.com SAAS to move to Google's clowd in the near future. Not that I have any reason to think that is any better, or any worse, than Azure.
If you look at the successful open source projects it directly reflects how much money is being pushed at it. Take Chromium, Ubuntu, and Fedora. Having Microsoft bank rolling GitHub probably the best for its sustained existence.
Pull the other one itâ(TM)s got bells on!
Kind sirs and madams, I think you're forgetting that Microsoft has a fiduciary responsibility to screw people. Sincerely, The Communist Anarchist Gasoline-Drinking Psychopath
No, Mr. Nadella. I don't trust your company, and as a corollary, I don't trust you.
I've been for longer in this business than I care for. I've been watching your company from the Dr DOS nonsense through the Spyglass thing and several decommoditizing protocol stunts (LDAP/Active Directory et al), on to stuffing international bodies' ballots (OO XML) and building telemetry into tools *to let the applications built with those phone home* (Visual C++, pretty recent).
And the Linux Foundation? This is an industry lobby and Microsoft one of its sponsors [1], it hasn't much to do with free software these days.
Mr. Nadella, I'll "fucking trust you" when hell "fucking freezes over", no sooner.
[1] Among its sugar daddies are AT&T, Cisco, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, Oracle, Qualcomm, Samsung, and VMware.
Yes, that VMware which has ben caught infringing the GPL and is now stretching out the case as far as its lawyers can [2] [3]
[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/...
[3] https://sfconservancy.org/copy...
What I'm afraid of is not that they will start asking for money to clone a repo, or start selling ads on the site. Or scavenge user data and sell that.
It is the behind the scenes stuff that I'm afraid of. They will try to migrate the whole site to MS servers. Both the transition as well as the time after will be painful with outages and stuff like that.
Microsoft destroys everything they touch. Just look at skype.
Not long ago I've read this one: https://www.bloomberg.com/news... In the meantime, Slashdot ADs is pointing me to a tool to move all my code to SourceForge :)
I'll believe them.
Famous last words!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
They were done running CodePlex into the ground, so perhaps they just needed a new code+project hosting site to run into the ground.