Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On Wed, Jun 06, 2018 at 04:54:59AM +0100, Mark Rousell wrote: [cut] > > All the same, a relatively young, very fast-growing company like GitHub > might well be expected to burn through cash (thus wiping out any profit > that would otherwise have been made) at an eye-watering rate. However, > that means that eventually new cash has to come from somewhere, such as > (more) VC funding, an IPO, or a sale of the business. It seems that a > sale of the business was what the owners chose. > > My guess is that they liked Nadella more than they liked Microsoft and > its history. > My guess is that (former) GitHub owners simply liked the 9-digit figure on the check, and didn't pay much attention to whom was signing it. They would have sold as easily to Amazon or Google or Apple or IBM or Facebook. As Latins said "pecunia non olet"...[0] This is absolutely normal in business, but please, don't try to convince us that it's great, or good, or a fantastic opportunity for the free software community. Microsoft has never given a shit about the free software community, except for repeatedly noticing that Microsoft's business had been profoundly harmed by the sole existence of a community that preaches that software and ideas should be available to everybody, and that one of Microsoft's primary missions was to extinguish that "cancer". Companies don't change. Microsoft was founded by the same person who wrote the worst example of "letter to a community" in the whole history of computers [1]. Nadella does not change anything, especially because he could be easily replaced tomorrow with another Gates on another Ballmer, or worse, and Microsoft won't ask you if you like it or not, or if it's good or not for the free software community or for GitHub. And just as a final remark: my "hatred" against Microsoft is not "blind" (which would imply being irrational and unmotivated). I simply don't believe in companies doing any good for a community. Companies do good only for themselves, and when they decide to "embrace" a community is only and exculively to exploit it for the company's benefit. There is no single example that goes in another direction, and no, Ubuntu is not the exception. You are free to like the "new" Microsoft, but please do not whine if other people like me think it's a very stupid thing to do. We don't need to agree, and we can't both be right :) HND KatolaZ [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecunia_non_olet [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists -- [ ~.,_ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ - Devuan -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ "+. katolaz [at] freaknet.org --- katolaz [at] yahoo.it ] [ @) http://kalos.mine.nu --- Devuan GNU + Linux User ] [ @@) http://maths.qmul.ac.uk/~vnicosia -- GPG: 0B5F062F ] [ (@@@) Twitter: @KatolaZ - skype: katolaz -- github: KatolaZ ] signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On Wed, 6 Jun 2018 at 04:54:59 +0100 Mark Rousell wrote: > My guess is that they liked Nadella more than they liked Microsoft and its > history. They just liked the money. And they must not have liked the chances of having such a big corporation as an enemy. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 05/06/2018 18:26, Alessandro Selli wrote: > They only did it because they had to. Oh absolutely. I just don't see that as a necessarily bad or evil thing. Necessity is a driver of business and of business behaviour. >> I predict that they won't muck up GitHub. The fact is >> that GitHub needed an investor or buyer > Really? Did they need it? It doesn't seem to me they were looking for a > buyer or an investor, it was M$ who decided to assimilate them. Apparently GitHub has been in been on and off, semi-formal acquisition talks with Microsoft for some time. Did the owners "need" to sell? Not necessarily; there were other possibilities (see below) to raise more funding. Nevertheless, the owners did choose to sell. Note that Microsoft did not just "decide to assimilate them". That's just not how it works. The owners of Github had to *decide* to sell and decided in particular to sell to Microsoft. GitHub was privately owned so it could never be forced into being bought out in the same way that a publicly quoted company can be. > >> and Microsoft has the cash to >> prop it up. They could afford to support it even if it continues to make >> a loss. > GitHub was not operating at a loss: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub#Finance > > As of August 2016, GitHub was making $140 million in Annual Recurring > Revenue.[47] > > 47. Plassnig, Moritz. "GitHub is making $140M in ARR". Medium. Retrieved > 2016-12-19. > https://medium.com/@moritzplassnig/github-is-doing-much-better-than-bloomberg-thinks-here-is-why-a4580b249044 > If I understand correctly, Annual Recurring Revenue is a measure of income or sales (i.e. revenue), not profit. All the same, a relatively young, very fast-growing company like GitHub might well be expected to burn through cash (thus wiping out any profit that would otherwise have been made) at an eye-watering rate. However, that means that eventually new cash has to come from somewhere, such as (more) VC funding, an IPO, or a sale of the business. It seems that a sale of the business was what the owners chose. My guess is that they liked Nadella more than they liked Microsoft and its history. -- Mark Rousell ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 at 12:06:25 +0100 Mark Rousell wrote: > On 05/06/2018 07:19, Alessandro Selli wrote: >> On 04/06/2018 at 18:40, Mark Rousell wrote: >>> On 04/06/2018 17:02, salsa-...@tut.by wrote: Personally I see this as a part of "embrace open source" strategy to kill open source. # Serge >>> I can't see that it would be in Microsoft's interest to kill open source. >> Really? Are you kidding? > > The simple truth is that Microsoft is now making money out of open > source (and users of open source software). Thus killing or harming open > source no longer makes sense for Microsoft. Their revenue going forward > depends on playing nicely with open source. They only did it because they had to. They still are not a FOSS friendly company and they'd be ovejoyed to be able to kill or at least highjack FOSS to be able to go reign back all of their customers into their prorietary walled garden. Or, would they not be able to do so, at least steal customers away from prominent FOSS companies. > Time will tell. This was said hundreds of times before about M$, and time always said the same thing: M$ intentions have always been to promote their interest to the detriment of everybody else's. > I predict that they won't muck up GitHub. The fact is > that GitHub needed an investor or buyer Really? Did they need it? It doesn't seem to me they were looking for a buyer or an investor, it was M$ who decided to assimilate them. > and Microsoft has the cash to > prop it up. They could afford to support it even if it continues to make > a loss. GitHub was not operating at a loss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub#Finance As of August 2016, GitHub was making $140 million in Annual Recurring Revenue.[47] 47. Plassnig, Moritz. "GitHub is making $140M in ARR". Medium. Retrieved 2016-12-19. https://medium.com/@moritzplassnig/github-is-doing-much-better-than-bloomberg-thinks-here-is-why-a4580b249044 Alessandro ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 05/06/2018 13:56, Lars Noodén wrote: > Actions speak louder than words. They do. It will be interesting to see how their "stewardship" of GitHub works out. >> Their revenue going forward depends on playing nicely with open source. > Their revenue does not yet depend on helping FOSS, but it does depend on > people repeating that untruth that it does. As I see it, it's not a matter of "helping"; it's a matter of working well with open source for their (Microsoft's) own benefit. And in the world we're now in, MS's revenue certainly does increasingly depend on being able to play well with open source. In my view, they 'like' open source now because they have to. > M$ will screw up GitHub both on purpose and by accident. Take a look at > Nokia, Hotmail, and Skype. Politically they can't mess with it right > away while people are watching, but expect the claws to come out within > two years of acquisition after people have time to forget. Time is > needed, recall what Ralph wrote about TTL of societal knowledge. I think it is implausible to believe that they would screw it up on purpose. As things stand (now and for the foreseeable future) that would simply not be beneficial to Microsoft for all sorts of reasons. Remember that they have bet on GitHub as a centre to develop and promote their own open source projects, projects that are absolutely key to getting developers to write for the Microsoft ecosystem (which now extends to Linux, Mac, Android). Nevertheless, I can imagine them screwing it up by accident, perhaps my meddling. They have specifically said that they won't meddle. Time will tell. We'll see. I think GitHub is very different to Nokia and Skype. Nokia and Skype were acquisitions carried out in a different (Ballmer) age and were badly handled. In particular, Skype suffered from meddling and excessive integration with other MS products that alienated its previous user base. GitHub just isn't the same sort of thing. As for Hotmail, what's wrong with that? It still exists in the form of Outlook.com and it's massive, isn't it? Hotmail is surely a success story, or am I missing something? -- Mark Rousell ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 06/05/2018 02:06 PM, Mark Rousell wrote: > On 05/06/2018 07:19, Alessandro Selli wrote: >> On 04/06/2018 at 18:40, Mark Rousell wrote: >>> On 04/06/2018 17:02, salsa-...@tut.by wrote: Personally I see this as a part of "embrace open source" strategy to kill open source. # Serge >>> I can't see that it would be in Microsoft's interest to kill open source. >> Really? Are you kidding? > > The simple truth is that Microsoft is now making money out of open > source (and users of open source software). Thus killing or harming open > source no longer makes sense for Microsoft. If M$ actually were into FOSS, it'd support ODF and other open standards in its products, rather than breaking them. Or it would join the OIN to show that it is on the same team and stop shaking down Android/Linux-using companies and other */Linux users over software patents. Actions speak louder than words. > Their revenue going forward depends on playing nicely with open source. Their revenue does not yet depend on helping FOSS, but it does depend on people repeating that untruth that it does. Where they are making money off of FOSS is through their shakedowns over software patents. That is a core part of their Azure strategy, too. For Azure if another company threatens M$ over software patents, M$ just sells them a few more for a song and then sends them off to attack competitors. M$ used to depend on the OEM monopoly and the office file format monopoly and to a certain extent it still does. But they are moving those cash cows under Azure to make "cloud" look like growth. M$ will screw up GitHub both on purpose and by accident. Take a look at Nokia, Hotmail, and Skype. Politically they can't mess with it right away while people are watching, but expect the claws to come out within two years of acquisition after people have time to forget. Time is needed, recall what Ralph wrote about TTL of societal knowledge. /Lars ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 05/06/2018 07:19, Alessandro Selli wrote: > On 04/06/2018 at 18:40, Mark Rousell wrote: >> On 04/06/2018 17:02, salsa-...@tut.by wrote: >>> Personally I see this as a part of "embrace open source" strategy to kill >>> open source. >>> >>> # Serge >>> >> I can't see that it would be in Microsoft's interest to kill open source. > Really? Are you kidding? The simple truth is that Microsoft is now making money out of open source (and users of open source software). Thus killing or harming open source no longer makes sense for Microsoft. Their revenue going forward depends on playing nicely with open source. Time will tell. I predict that they won't muck up GitHub. The fact is that GitHub needed an investor or buyer and Microsoft has the cash to prop it up. They could afford to support it even if it continues to make a loss. -- Mark Rousell ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 04/06/2018 at 18:40, Mark Rousell wrote: > On 04/06/2018 17:02, salsa-...@tut.by wrote: >> Personally I see this as a part of "embrace open source" strategy to kill >> open source. >> >> # Serge >> > > I can't see that it would be in Microsoft's interest to kill open source. Really? Are you kidding? "I can't see that it would be in Raytheon's interest that the US bombed Iran." Alessandro ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 06/04/2018 06:53 PM, wirelessd...@gmail.com wrote: On 5 Jun 2018, at 10:02, Jimmy Johnson wrote: On 06/03/2018 06:01 PM, Rick Moen wrote: For years, I've been politely telling representatives & users of open source projects (Void Linux, many others) 'Hey, you might want to reconsider outsourcing your entire source code repos to GitHub, and consider instead deploying instead one of many actually open source, self-hosted workalikes such as GitLab.' I'm betting they'll see nothing wrong with outsourcing to a proprietary-software firm run by people they don't know and have no reason to trust, based on this news. I'm glad it works for them. Did I mention GitLab? ;-> - Forwarded message from David Krauser via Tech - Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 18:51:18 -0400 From: David Krauser via Tech To: tech Subject: [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub Reply-To: David Krauser , t...@golug.org https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-03/microsoft-is-said-to-have-agreed-to-acquire-coding-site-github This makes me really uncomfortable. - dk https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/ I hope it's not to late for friendly open-source to get out of gethub. -- Jimmy Johnson How does this affect tools like NPM/Yarn, or even golang, that have direct specific integration with GitHub to download or import source code packages? —Tom I don't know, do you know? Thanks you, -- Jimmy Johnson Devuan Jessie - TDE Trinity R14.0.4 - AMD A8-7600 - EXT4 at sda2 Registered Linux User #380263 ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
> On 5 Jun 2018, at 10:02, Jimmy Johnson wrote: > >> On 06/03/2018 06:01 PM, Rick Moen wrote: >> For years, I've been politely telling representatives & users of open source >> projects (Void Linux, many others) 'Hey, you might want to reconsider >> outsourcing your entire source code repos to GitHub, and consider >> instead deploying instead one of many actually open source, self-hosted >> workalikes such as GitLab.' >> I'm betting they'll see nothing wrong with outsourcing to a >> proprietary-software firm run by people they don't know and have no >> reason to trust, based on this news. I'm glad it works for them. >> Did I mention GitLab? ;-> >> - Forwarded message from David Krauser via Tech - >> Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 18:51:18 -0400 >> From: David Krauser via Tech >> To: tech >> Subject: [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub >> Reply-To: David Krauser , t...@golug.org >> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-03/microsoft-is-said-to-have-agreed-to-acquire-coding-site-github >> This makes me really uncomfortable. >> - dk > > > https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/ > > I hope it's not to late for friendly open-source to get out of gethub. > -- > Jimmy Johnson How does this affect tools like NPM/Yarn, or even golang, that have direct specific integration with GitHub to download or import source code packages? —Tom ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 06/03/2018 06:01 PM, Rick Moen wrote: For years, I've been politely telling representatives & users of open source projects (Void Linux, many others) 'Hey, you might want to reconsider outsourcing your entire source code repos to GitHub, and consider instead deploying instead one of many actually open source, self-hosted workalikes such as GitLab.' I'm betting they'll see nothing wrong with outsourcing to a proprietary-software firm run by people they don't know and have no reason to trust, based on this news. I'm glad it works for them. Did I mention GitLab? ;-> - Forwarded message from David Krauser via Tech - Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 18:51:18 -0400 From: David Krauser via Tech To: tech Subject: [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub Reply-To: David Krauser , t...@golug.org https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-03/microsoft-is-said-to-have-agreed-to-acquire-coding-site-github This makes me really uncomfortable. - dk https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/ I hope it's not to late for friendly open-source to get out of gethub. -- Jimmy Johnson Devuan Jessie - TDE Trinity R14.0.4 - AMD A8-7600 - EXT4 at sda2 Registered Linux User #380263 ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
I deleted my linkedin account a few years ago. Almost immediately I started receiving invitations from some people that I only knew peripherally. Why would they care? None of the people I knew well ever said anything about my leaving. It didn't take long to write a procmail recipe to send all such spam to /dev/null. - Nate -- "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true." Web: http://www.n0nb.us GPG key: D55A8819 GitHub: N0NB signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 04/06/2018 17:02, salsa-...@tut.by wrote: > Personally I see this as a part of "embrace open source" strategy to > kill open source. > > # Serge > I can't see that it would be in Microsoft's interest to kill open source. Aren't they the largest single contributor on GitHub? -- Mark Rousell ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
Is this a case of mass US based industrial espionage now? It's been said that Microsoft makes a great deal of monies from Linux with patents in play. I see this as a perfect solution for Microsoft to go after every man and his dog using github to see if there are any patents to win more money over (like Oracle did to Google for instance over Java). If Microsoft has full and unfettered access to all the code repositories, then they can deep scan every project looking for opportunities to take legal action. This is a disaster waiting to happen. I won't use Skype ever again, haven't for a long time. My LinkedIn is just a placeholder account and some "wise" person screwed up my profile long ago with incorrect information. LinkedIn is a problem in itself. What are they? They are the ultimate 3 letter agencies dream. They want to know about every single business, every single employee and job description, every single skill; it's entirely encompassing -- it is a nightmare for anyone wanting to preserve any shred of privacy about their own information. I just hope that people abandon Github, but I won't hold my breath; people haven't abandoned LinkedIn or Skype as they should. Very troubling times indeed. A. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
Quoting Mark Rousell (mark.rous...@signal100.com): > I really can't see anything different about project autonomy before or > after GitHub acquisition by Microsoft. The issue you elaborate on below > is certainly real but Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub doesn't seem > likely to make any difference to it. Quite likely correct. (You'll note that I never said it did.) I prefer having control over my own software infrastructure to the extent feasible and economic, for reasons having nothing particularly to do with Microsoft, Inc. (I haven't especially looked into the ramifications of that business deal. It's just one proprietary software company swallowing another, and not of great concern to me.) ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
Personally I see this as a part of "embrace open source" strategy to kill open source. # Serge ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 04/06/2018 16:14, Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Mark Rousell (mark.rous...@signal100.com): > >> To play devil's advocate, what can go wrong? > Autonomy. I really can't see anything different about project autonomy before or after GitHub acquisition by Microsoft. The issue you elaborate on below is certainly real but Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub doesn't seem likely to make any difference to it. > The Void Linux distribution is, according to Steve Litt, currently in > semi-chaos because GitHub, Inc. recognises no other user other than the > founder as having authority over the project's data. If Void Linux > controlled its own software infrastructure with appropriate > collaborative arrangements, this administrative hurdle would be easy to > solve. Well yes, but this is not GitHub's fault (nor would it be Microsoft's fault). It seems to me that if Void Linux had ensured that multiple users had admin access to the project's data on GitHub OR if they had kept regular off-GitHub backups then none of this would be a problem. > As long as they outsource software infrastructure, that infrastructure > runs according to someone else's rules. Personally, I want my software > infrastructure to implement _my_ policies and follow _my_ rules. Oh I agree! This is a potential problem with *all* types of cloud hosting, isn't it. What happens if the provider disappears or if the person with the account username and password disappears? All users of cloud services, be it web hosting, data storage, processing, or code hosting should ensure that (a) they have well-distributed admin access so that the project never relies on any single person to access the online data and (b) that they have a contingency plan/disaster recovery plan in case they need to move hosting. And yes, I suspect most users of cloud services don't think through these risks well enough. But Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub won't make this any more of a potential risk than it is already. Personally I dislike it when people, businesses, or projects move almost everything to the cloud. It really is overly risky to my mind (for all sorts of reasons in addition to the two I mentioned above). But I can't fight how things are: Cloud hosting brings many, many benefits and so I always caution people never to rely solely on cloud services: They should keep their own backups on their own physical infrastructure, they should ensure that there is no single human point of failure, and having to move hosting elsewhere (including bringing it in house) should be part of their general disaster recovery plans in case their chosen service providers cease to be effective. -- Mark Rousell ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
Quoting Mark Rousell (mark.rous...@signal100.com): > To play devil's advocate, what can go wrong? Autonomy. The Void Linux distribution is, according to Steve Litt, currently in semi-chaos because GitHub, Inc. recognises no other user other than the founder as having authority over the project's data. If Void Linux controlled its own software infrastructure with appropriate collaborative arrangements, this administrative hurdle would be easy to solve. As long as they outsource software infrastructure, that infrastructure runs according to someone else's rules. Personally, I want my software infrastructure to implement _my_ policies and follow _my_ rules. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 04/06/2018 14:07, Mark Rousell wrote: > it would even give them a root into the resurgent mainframe market. Doh... s/root/route/ -- Mark Rousell ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On 04/06/2018 02:01, Rick Moen wrote: > For years, I've been politely telling representatives & users of open source > projects (Void Linux, many others) 'Hey, you might want to reconsider > outsourcing your entire source code repos to GitHub, and consider > instead deploying instead one of many actually open source, self-hosted > workalikes such as GitLab.' > > I'm betting they'll see nothing wrong with outsourcing to a > proprietary-software firm run by people they don't know and have no > reason to trust, based on this news. I'm glad it works for them. > > Did I mention GitLab? ;-> To play devil's advocate, what can go wrong? Protecting a project's Github-hosted code from competitors is of course not an issue since it's open source code anyway. The very worst that could happen (and this is absurdly unlikely of course) is that the new Microsoft overlords could ban certain types of project or charge huge fees for them. But, as I say, this is absurdly unlikely. I suppose that Microsoft could potentially just shut down Github entirely (and use it solely as an internal repository) but that seems ridiculously unlikely too. Or maybe they could claim some sort of licence on Github-hosted code but that is incredibly unlikely (and probably legally implausible) as well. As long as projects that currently use Github are sensible enough to keep off-Github backups then it seems to me that there is no real risk at all. If Github was to become unusable for any reason then porting to some other Git environment might be a hassle but it could be done. So I just don't see a problem with this. It will be interesting to see how Github develops. It could actually work out well. I'd been thinking that Github would be a very useful acquisition for Microsoft in terms of extending the already very handy Git and Github integration in Visual Studio. Perhaps the only plausible risk to Github is if Microsoft extend the Visual Studio integration and somehow make it difficult to use other tools but even this seems very unlikely to me. Improving Visual Studio Github integration seems certain but that doesn't mean that they'll seek to block out other tools or make using other tools more difficult. So, what is the next open source acquisition target for Microsoft? A project doing Group Policy integration tools for Linux might be a good (if rather small) choice. Or more significantly perhaps even Red Hat or the SUSE business unit from Micro Focus. A major corporate Linux vendor acquisition would further expand Microsoft's corporate reach (it would be very appealing to corporates if MS could say that you can have Windows and/or Linux and it all integrates transparently within the Microsoft ecosystem) and it would even give them a root into the resurgent mainframe market. I note that SUSE is into OpenStack in a big way and this would definitely suit Microsoft in the longer term. -- Mark Rousell ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On Mon, 4 Jun 2018 at 11:49:47 +0200 KatolaZ wrote: > The most probable outcome is that a new alternative will possibly > emerge. And no, gitlab is not the one, IMHO. Why not? I do think a more modern solution would be a distributed p2p repository based on a keychain, but a classic, centralized repo like GitLab is probably much easier to the vast majority of coders (and users, too). Besides the fact that there is not one currently available TIKO. -- Alessandro Selli http://alessandro.route-add.net VOIP SIP: dhatarat...@ekiga.net Chiavi PGP/GPG keys: B7FD89FD, 4A904FD9 ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
On Sun, Jun 03, 2018 at 06:01:58PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote: > For years, I've been politely telling representatives & users of open source > projects (Void Linux, many others) 'Hey, you might want to reconsider > outsourcing your entire source code repos to GitHub, and consider > instead deploying instead one of many actually open source, self-hosted > workalikes such as GitLab.' > > I'm betting they'll see nothing wrong with outsourcing to a > proprietary-software firm run by people they don't know and have no > reason to trust, based on this news. I'm glad it works for them. > IMHO the main problem is not just outsourcing to a proprietary software firm (which I think is already bad enough), rather outsourcing to a proprietary software firm which has made a fortune out of stealing software developed by others (the most notable examples are MS-BASIC and MS-DOS, which made MicroSoft out of NothingSoft), strangling competitors with endless lawsuits (does anybody here remember Digital Research?) or acquiring them to let them rotten to death (Nokia and Skype are probably the most notable recent examples), etc. GitHub was not a potential competitor to any software company hosting their repos on github.com. MicroSoft definitely is. The most probable outcome is that a new alternative will possibly emerge. And no, gitlab is not the one, IMHO. My2Cents KatolaZ -- [ ~.,_ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ - Devuan -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ "+. katolaz [at] freaknet.org --- katolaz [at] yahoo.it ] [ @) http://kalos.mine.nu --- Devuan GNU + Linux User ] [ @@) http://maths.qmul.ac.uk/~vnicosia -- GPG: 0B5F062F ] [ (@@@) Twitter: @KatolaZ - skype: katolaz -- github: KatolaZ ] signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] (forw) [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub
For years, I've been politely telling representatives & users of open source projects (Void Linux, many others) 'Hey, you might want to reconsider outsourcing your entire source code repos to GitHub, and consider instead deploying instead one of many actually open source, self-hosted workalikes such as GitLab.' I'm betting they'll see nothing wrong with outsourcing to a proprietary-software firm run by people they don't know and have no reason to trust, based on this news. I'm glad it works for them. Did I mention GitLab? ;-> - Forwarded message from David Krauser via Tech - Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 18:51:18 -0400 From: David Krauser via Tech To: tech Subject: [GoLugTech] Microsoft buys GitHub Reply-To: David Krauser , t...@golug.org https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-03/microsoft-is-said-to-have-agreed-to-acquire-coding-site-github This makes me really uncomfortable. - dk ___ Tech mailing list t...@golug.org http://lists.golug.org/listinfo/tech - End forwarded message - ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
