Slashdot Mirror
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
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...
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.
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.
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).
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.
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