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Microsoft bought GitHub? How's that going to affect text editors?

dragonwocky on June 05, 2018

So, yeah. If you somehow haven't heard (seriously though, how could you not have heard), Microsoft bought GitHub the other day. I'm not going to go...
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Philip Karlsson

I don't think that they'll do anything radical with atom. A lot of people are already negative towards the acquisition of Github, and messing up atom definitely wouldn't help. And I don't see how some sort of merge would benefit VS Code, as it in my opinion is superior in most ways.

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dragonwocky • Edited

Completely agree. Just curious as to what the future will hold. This isn't a major issue, and it's unlikely much will happen (if anything), but I want to see what people think could happen.

Also just the fact that these two "competitors" (although the people working on them would likely not call them that) are now both under the same roof (kinda) is both puzzling and funny to me, I guess.

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Alex Lohr

Both are open source, so the worst thing that could happen would be for Microsoft to discontinue development, at which point the community would take over, if need be.

The best thing that can happen is that both projects are continued and learn from each other to become the two best viable choices for developers.

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David Young

I'm quite happy with the idea of these two forces merging. We have two electron based text editors, I don't see why they would not put those teams together to produce a much more incredible version.

I think one things for certain though, they're likely to leave whatever text editor they build as open source, and that's a positive thing.

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Leighton Darkins

I don't think there's a great deal to worry about with regards to Atom in the short term. It's open source, whoever wants to work on it will keeping working on it.

I also don't imagine MS owned GitHub will torch the project (i.e. close its source, remove it entirely or apply some BS license). Instead, they'll just invest in VSCode, porting over the stuff that makes sense from Atom and continue to build a great editor.

Whether Atom survives in the long term is largely up to the community that supports it. It's unlikely that it's going to be receive direct investment now, so it'll have to find a new way to swim. Or sink.

What's interesting to me is that I see VSCode as the superior editor anyway (it took me a good long time to form that opinion too), so MS purchasing GitHub changes very little about the trajectories of these tools in my mind.

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Quentin Sonrel

At first I was kinda worried for Atom, but hey, it's open-source and has a solid community, I think it'll be fine.

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Reese Poirier

I am very unsure on whether or not Microsoft would be able to legally change the license on already released versions of Atom. I don't think so, but it would be nice if an IP lawyer could weigh in.

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Quentin Sonrel

Well, I don't know if they could but I don't think they would, MS is more open source friendly than what meets the eye. And I think they tend to be more open source themselves over the years.

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Reese Poirier

I agree. I don't have any expectation that they would do that. This situation just made me realize that that was a question that I don't know the answer to.

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Stephen Chiang

I Imagine it's more about pushing azure, so maybe atom will get some kind of azure integration? BTW you have a typo in visual (virtual) studio code

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dragonwocky • Edited

Thanks, hadn't seen that. Fixed.

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mgaruccio

I think in the short term they both probably continue but longer term atom probably gets killed off and it's best features (particularly it's github integrations) get added into Code. Which sucks because I actually prefer Atom, but oh well they are both perfectly usable and have the extensions I need.

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Heather

I wondered too, and my knee-jerk reaction was to disable auto-updates because I don't like change. <-- totally weird response, I know, but I've seen other "open source" projects which relied on single companies just whither completely.

Apparently, GitHub sold off Speaker Deck before the acquisition.... From speakerdeck.com

We're pleased to announce that Speaker Deck has found a new home! As of June 1, 2018, speakerdeck.com and all associated accounts have been transferred to Fewer and Faster, LLC, which is run by two of the original creators of the Speaker Deck service. If you have any questions, you can contact them at the following email address: support@fewerandfaster.com

So... my guess is they have plans to resolve this by discontinuing development on one or the other. I'd guess VSCode will win in this case.

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Tiago Marques

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Arandi López

I'm switching to Vim in case Atom dies... Or maybe buy a sublime license.