Look I get that MS has been more OSS friendly. But @github was not connected to a particular OS, dev stack, language, or anything else. MS buying @github is bad for all of us. Less independent, less free. Move to @gitlab.

You realize that kind of argument can be made against the jdk too. Seems a bit over the top, and also premature.

Java has a standard and multiple implementers and channels to keep it honest. There is *none* of that here. It will become more closed, more proprietary, and less open. I guarantee it.

I disagree - happy to put some beer down on a bet :-) My reasoning is that MS seems to have been rapidly increasing both open and collaborative development across a ton of their products. They're also now a multiplatform player because cloud.

Java is no pinnacle of openness, I will grant that. Part of my job is fighting that. But there's no value to this acquisition and a million worries. MS isn't the evil company they used to be, but I wouldn't even be happy if Red Hat bought GH.

I won't say more than this on "multiple implementors" but I'm sure you know how some of them feel after big Os actions. Id be really surprised if the use of GitHub because a litigious issue.

Github has never been open enough, either with code or protocols. You think that will get better now? You think MS isn't trying to wring more profit out of this? You think they won't influence the future of GH negatively for their benefit?

I don't believe that breaking the kinds of things you and I want from GitHub is good for their business, and as such I don't expect a drastic downturn. I'd certainly rather a dev focused org than another sourceforge.

I'd rather a sourceforge than a company with their own COMMERCIAL dev stack and OS.

That's only part of their business now, and much of it is no longer commercial. Cloud is changing this stuff. They do as much linux as others now, and they are also pushing on .net over there.

Tell me how this move will help you? I'll tell you all the ways it won't and we'll stack them up. I'll win.

Both are biased external projections. It could change nothing but a logo.

It could. Or it could kill it like everything else MS acquires. You want a list? Let's start with Minecraft, which is a POS C++ app now that nobody can most except through DLC channels. I'm sick of MS acquiring and killing my favorite things.

I expect Github future to be much like Hotmail's. The only question is who's going to provide the GMail alternative? One way or another we'll have no option but to trusting a software giant with own agenda to host our open source code from now on.

Nooooooo! There must be a better way!

What about VSTS then?

Sourceforge have been pushing malware blobs for years now. There's no preference toward that outcome for me. Bias toward a platform is better than wanton distregard for customers.

SF is a POS.

FYI my company acquired SourceForge in 2016 and have been improving significantly. No more bundled adware, all projects are scanned for malware, https downloads and project web hosting, & more. Big redesign just rolled out too

Hey that all sounds great. SF was the absolute toilet of project hosting a few years ago. I hope you can turn it back around.

Thanks. Doing our best. The more viable options out there to host OSS the better.

That's for sure. And we need to figure out the righr way to do open issues, vcs, wiki, and other protocols. We need federated issues and pull requests and merges across hosts. I'm just worried that MS is not going to be interested in enabling cross-host developer integration.

Do you have a board approved public statement that what was done before will never happen again?

I'm the owner and CEO/president. I've been quoted in many places vowing it won't happen again. But, that's a good idea too. I'll get on it.

Trust is hard - you have a big turn to approach and I wish you luck. Competition matters in this area. It'd add more weight for me to see such a thing.

SourceForge with its distributed mirrors network around the world has a big advantage. Keep up the good work.

If by multiple implementors you mean "law suit targets" then yeah...see Android/Google vs. Java/Oracle.

Yeah I won't defend Oracle at all. They hurt Java almost as much as they help it. But Java was never really free and it is a specific technology. Github is by definition supposed to be agnostic. How likely is that now?

The presence of bad actors does not validate more bad actors. Oracle is shit when it comes to Freedom. So is Microsoft. Do I excuse one because of the behaviors of the other? Absolutely not.

In my opinion, unchanged.

So you believe Mcrosoft will exert no influence on the direction of GitHub?

It depends. Having done this, I have advice for Chris if he want sit.

Me too. I want to be involved in this stuff more than ever.

I hope they do, but recent years actions point to benevolence, not malevolence. The way they kept Mojang...the responsible way they shut down CodePlex...the continuing OSSification of their own property. I think they are saving @github.

You realize they killed Minecraft modding, the biggest thing for the platform?

I don't know. If it's cloud that is buying it, this may not be too bad. If it's visual studio, maybe it'll be worse. If it's the office side of things, probably quite bad. Big company, who knows

There's a possibility that MS will be a neutral or positive influence on GitHub, sure. I have not seen any evidence that's how they operate. And having GitHub tied to any company with a decent stack and OS to push seems inherently bad. Nobody wants this. Nobody.

Eh, decent stack = dev stack

How much control one retains in a large company depends a lot on how the executives navigate a massive change in scale and reporting requirements. It's possible to exert influence. If you want an example of a brand that thrived through acquistuion, see firebase.

You sound like an Oracle apologist, no offense intended. Yeah it could be great or it could be a nightmare. I was skeptical but cautiously optimistic about Oracle. Result has been a mixed bag. I'll move to @gitlab before I bank on the latter.

How many Firebase applications did you deeply this year?

I am not allowed to answer that question

I, who use GitHub for Enterprise, Java and Angular every day, want this. I guess I am a nobody.

Why is this good for you?

Because there is no way that GitHub was going to stay profitable, too much infrastructure costs... meanwhile Microsoft is no longer motivated to compete even on a expenses basis, so they can build more on the capitalization side of the balance sheet.

So Microsoft is going to buy an unprofitable service purely out of the goodness of their hearts. They won't ty to tilt it toward profitability for MS bottom lines or anything.

Or maybe it's an associative product. They're not making money driectly on many things they do. Again this is about the way the product reporting structure gets managed and to who. These deals rarely start with "hey owner, we want to buy and screw up your product"

But they usually end up that way.

That's often because the "powers that be" don't understand how to present their work upward, as they have not had upward for years. They then receive pressure to show trajectory and give in to "easy wins" in order to be perceived to succeed. Seen this many many times

Note that this generally doesn't actually flow down, it flows up!

Yes I'm sure they'll do it right this time. 🙄

All we can do is offer advice to people we know, the rest is work

If nothing else, this gave me some more fast-twitch-DevOps practice last night... github365.com

I just made clear HOW it tilts the balance sheets in their favor without any other changes. Operational expenses are always less desirable than capital expenses.

Although I would worry about the Atom editor :)

You mean Atom.NET.

Two electron based editors enter … one leaves.

I think @gitlab is the raggedy man.

A fabulous life of vertical integration awaits you in the off world colonies.

See the bright side: it could have been Oracle.

Too soon.

Or Facebook

Also the end for any project. I'm not saying Red Hat is perfect but we have openness in our DNA. Those companies absolutely do not. I'm so angry.

🔥

MS might burn it down through bumbling ineptitude. Oracle would do it deliberately - just ‘for shits and giggles’

We are happy to help and assist the jRuby project if you need anything.

couldn't agree more, MS is not a technology company - they're a marketing company. Look at what they did to Skype, LinkedIn and just about anything else they lay their dirty hands on. This will be great of GitLab and I suspect the final push some projects will need to move.

I've been on the edge for years. This is it.

#movetogitlab Thanks for the kind words!

Microsoft also isn’t tied to a particular OS, dev stack, language, or anything else. This ain’t your grandmas MS

Yeah, I read the quarterly reports. They're not making money off open source and open systems. They're making it off closed platforms.

GitHub was a commons, with an expensive restaurant on the side. Now it has a 'family restaurant' that makes money selling addictive crap food, especially to kids. The new owner has embraced many such communities in the past.

I'm worried we'll see a move like Minecraft, where they ditch any tech that isn't Microsoft to the detriment of us all.

Note: Gitlab is funded and partnered with by Google. Not hating but important to note

You can mount your own gitlab server ( if you are concerned about privacy )

Less concerned about privacy and more about controlling my own destiny. If I host my own GitLab, how does it integrate with other GitLab instances though?

Also Gitlab is open source.

But hosted on MS Azure 😞

But moving to G Cloud 😐

Yes, if there was ever a site that should be controlled by a foundation, like Cloud Foundry, GitHub would be one.

What makes you think this move is bad for the opensource community? Looking how MS contributed to make k8s better isn't that bad. I'd be interested to hear your point of view. Perhaps, perhaps MS has finally learned it's lesson? (I'm dreaming awake?)

That may be, and I certainly hope it is the case. But they have a track record of killing off my favorite projects or locking them down for profit. Witness Minecraft, where they destroyed the modding community so they could sell mods.

Ok that's interesting. We could build our own version of these features but obviously I'd also like to see a more permissive license on those bits. Maybe this can be the tipping point for us all to take more shared community ownership of GitLab?

I value simplicity, UX, familiarity, etc., so I'm going to keep my projects and co on GitHub for now and focus on getting work done: natfriedman.github.io/hello/

Given the lack of equivalent options, I will too. But as much as I'm able I want to start the process of building something new that addresses our concerns.