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What I think is bad about Microsoft acquiring GitHub

Massimo Artizzu on June 05, 2018

I think I needed this whole day to digest the big news about GitHub being bought by Microsoft. I discussed about it with colleagues, among Slack ...
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leob

Great article, detailed and nuanced, best contribution to the MS/Github discussion that I've come across sofar ... yes, independence is at the heart of this discussion, I don't question the motives of MS at this moment but what about the future ... so I agree, something like Github should ideally be managed by an independent foundation.

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mnivoliez

While I agree that MS will certainly not turn GitHub to ashes, I think that a problem lies in the big grasp that MS acquired along the road. For instance, how many companies look through Linked In and GitHub to evaluate developer before hiring them? That means that MS is know part of a big part of the process. Another things is, as state by your article, that a lot of stuff depends on MS goodwill. It takes only a bunch of angry shareholders to make it changes. I would not be surprise if MS use GitHub to push upfront their own solution (without arming other of course).

But, only time will say if it's good or not. They have done great things for open source so nothing say they'll change overnight.

PS: do not worry for gitter, Gitlab acquired that: blog.gitter.im/2017/03/15/gitter-g...

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Massimo Artizzu • Edited

Ooh, I completely forgot about Gitter bought by GitLab! That's better!

But Atom still doesn't have a goot outlook...

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mnivoliez

Indeed.

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Massimo Artizzu

I've updated the post reporting Nat Friedman's words about the future of Atom.

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ParityError

Microsoft is about the least "open-source" as a company can get. They likely should've spent the billions of dollars on something else such as scrapping Windows and starting over from scratch. The acquisition could ruin GitHub in ways not yet imagined... only time will tell.

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M. Roman Torres

Well, now that you mentioned it, I would really love to have Clippy in GitHub.