Pull request accepted: You want to buy GitHub, Microsoft? Go for it – EU The European Commission has given the thumbs up to Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub. The EU took a look at the deal and concluded that, yup, everything would be fine and dandy. It observed that “Microsoft would have no incentive to undermine the open nature of GitHub's platform”, something that Microsoft is all too aware of …
Or alternatively,
Another nail in the coffin of GitHub.
and other phrases.
It would be nice to come back to this story in say three years and revisit it and compare it to what MS has done to GitHub in the meantime.
Perhaps they'll just kill it and rename Sharepoint - GitHub V2.0 (shudder)
Coat it a copy of my code on Paper Tape in the pocket.
{I found the paper tape copy of my degree project code from 7BPC (before the PC era) a couple of months ago}
It could be beneficial - GitHub became a de facto monopoly, as most other code repositories were shut down - because it looks today developers just flock to the same place as if they feel ashamed of not being in the fashionable place everybody else talk about - as "social networks" have brainwashed them.
So if other competing repositories arise, even if just because the usual hate for MS, maybe is better. Just, I'm sure one will become fashionable again and everybody and their dog will flock to. Rinse and repeat.
Just, those same people should stop babbling about the "distributed nature of the internet, and its freedom".
LinkdIn has become a bit Micro-shafty, but otherwise isn't as bad as I feared it could become. Still, I'll only run it from a sandbox'd browser. Too much script anyway. Not enough compelling reasons to kill a LinkedIn profile that I established a decade or so ago...
and I see the same with GitHub. Micro-shaft's influence on THAT will probably be obvious, and I suspect they may do things with it that are mildly irritating, but as long as I can use the legacy tools to do push/pull and clone, I'll just continue to do that.
But, if editing issues or the wiki forces me into an Office 365 environment, I'll terminate my repos and tell them how far they can insert their service into their collective rectums! Similarly if the github login causes me to be tracked, or to a lesser extent, if the site simply won't work with 'noscript' loaded.
LinkdIn has become a bit Micro-shafty
Are you kidding? It's become much, much worse.
Granted, most of that is the creepy desperate wanna-look-like-a well-connected-businessperson-so-bad types running round trying to collect profiles 10 year olds with a terminal Top-Trumps card habit.
But I'm sure the service harassment itself is Microsfoots drive to 'maximise site traffic returns' (or some grabage).
It's almost more creepy than Faecebook and far more dull.
“if Microsoft screws this up, we will lose the trust of developers for a generation”
Microsoft "screw ups" are totally by design.
Real developers know that, otherwise, that "trust" (?) would have been lost a couple generations ago (am I that old? yes).
As the accountant at the school I used to work at said, "my computer is getting more and more slow, maybe I need the new version of Windows."
They can already do that with open source code and probably have been since forever.
It's quite likely that most closed source code has chunks of open source mixed in, whether it breaks licence conditions or not. After all, who's going to know?
Yes, I know you can do code fingerprinting on object code, but I doubt most people would be daft enough to just steal wholesale. Different compilers, different compiler settings and re-jigging the code to work the "corporate way" would probably hide most of it.)
I figure it's only a matter of time before the more useful bits of private GitHub projects start turning up in Microsoft software or as Microsoft products.
That's why I've pulled down everything I've ever put on GitHub. I'm now looking for a collaborative repository that isn't infected by M$.
a matter of time before the more useful bits of private GitHub projects start turning up in Microsoft software
That would imply changes to Microsoft software bring benefits to users. I'm still waiting on that, after some decades. Microsoft borg all manner of software, and then put both bug fixes and useful development into stasis. I think perhaps you meant a matter of time before unwanted, unasked for, partially functional bugware from GitHub projects starts turning up in Microsoft bloatware
So the Commission reckons that if MS screw up GitHub, someone can easily create a competitor, but do not accept that Google search has an effective monopoly just because it works, not because no one can establish a competitor? I write as one who, when Yahoo and Google first established themselves in the UK, much preferred Yahoo, but after a few years, Google got better and Yahoo didn't.
So the Commission reckons that if MS screw up GitHub, someone can easily create a competitor, but do not accept that Google search has an effective monopoly just because it works, not because no one can establish a competitor? I write as one who, when Yahoo and Google first established themselves in the UK, much preferred Yahoo, but after a few years, Google got better and Yahoo didn't.
It's all smoke and mirrors. It's all about how the EU can maximise revenue in the form of fines or ongoing taxes. It just cloaks it in 'making competition fair'.
But then most countries are playing the same game. Nothing is as it seems.
"Microsoft would have no incentive to undermine the open nature of GitHub's platform”
Microsoft had no incentive to undermine the user experience in Skype, either, but they went ahead and did it anyway, despite repeated warnings from the serious user base.
Fingers crossed that the Microsoft GitHub team are sensible enough not to succumb to the curse of the mobile phone UI paradigm.
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