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Linux Foundation Celebrates Microsoft's GitHub Acquisition (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the what-year-is-it dept.

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."

2 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. How long? by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".

  2. Big business has eaten FOSS by SysEngineer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.