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posted by chromas on Monday June 04 2018, @01:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the versionctl⠀-alt⠀-del dept.

[Update 20180604 @ 14:00 UTC: Acquisition confirmed. Microsoft is paying $7.5 billion in stock. Coverage at Microsoft, Security Week, The Register, and The Verge. Also, see the Microsoft blog post. --martyb]

Microsoft has reportedly acquired GitHub

Microsoft has reportedly acquired GitHub, and could announce the deal as early as Monday. Bloomberg reports that the software giant has agreed to acquire GitHub, and that the company chose Microsoft partly because of CEO Satya Nadella. Business Insider first reported that Microsoft had been in talks with GitHub recently.

Time to move off GitHub?

Previously: Microsoft Holds Acquisition Talks with Github

An AC also submitted Bloomberg's article.


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday June 04 2018, @03:59PM (3 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday June 04 2018, @03:59PM (#688417)

    But that also means it can be forked. So my guess is there will be a MS git coming out soon, that isn't backwards compatible of course. And it will have some new useless features added for no other reason to provide an excuse for that malicious incompatibility.

    You are forgetting an important aspect of the GPL: The so-called "viral" nature of GPL means Microsoft is required per the license to distribute the source code for those new maliciously incompatible features. Which means mainline git can quickly be modified to handle both standard git and MS-git, with MS-git being probably the less featureful version.

    That wouldn't have been true had git been BSD-licensed, but thankfully that's not the case here. Proof that RMS, once again, was more far-sighted than many of his detractors.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:46PM (#688501)

    software. If it is a 'supporting library' 'above' the software, it can be proprietary. Which means all microsoft has to do is make a windows only library implementing a bunch of proprietary metadata, source code generation, code signing, etc features which are restrictively licensed and patent encumbered, convince enough plebs to start using it and the majority of git code goes back behind a paywall, just like they did with kerberos, early vpn/pptp stuff, etc.

    Nadella made a comment about being 'all in with open source': if that was really true, he'd be telling us the open source release plans for all legacy versions of windows.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 04 2018, @07:32PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 04 2018, @07:32PM (#688521) Journal

    You are forgetting an important aspect of the GPL: The so-called "viral" nature of GPL means Microsoft is required per the license to distribute the source code for those new maliciously incompatible features

    Only if you distribute binaries. E.g. if everything you need to access those 'features' is a Web browser, they are not forced to distribute the modified server code (git is not Affero-GPLed).

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @03:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @03:06PM (#688877)

    "You are forgetting an important aspect of the GPL"

    And you are forgetting what a "silicon valley virgin" is. The value of github is in the user base and the infrastructure.

    Generally, communications protocols are not patentable. This is part of the reason the APL works the way it does. In I.P. law there is no statutory recongition for the value inherent in compatability. Which is in part, why EEE is effective even when serves no other purpose but destroying vibrant markets. Making a compatible version of git that is closed source is trivial for MS. Then moving users over to it, is as simple as releasing it, and then breaking github. This is how they've done business since the 80's.

    Github built trust with thousands of users. Microsoft destroyed that trust with the stroke of a pen. The total economic cost to the U.S. is tremendous, not just in long term GDP value, but in the dilution of the rule of law. Essentially there is a race condition in the statutory law that MS exploits to perpetrate acts that are economically destructive to everyone but them.

    There is value being destroyed. It does constitute an experienced loss for those effected. The crime is preserved like crumbs in the pocket seams of the law. It is a tragedy of commons thing, and it is only lawful because nobody has effectively articulated it before a jury... Yet. And the only way it is going to ever see a jury, is if software licensing compels the fight. GPL is not compelling in that regard. APL is an attempt at creating a user base that can compel that kind of litigation.

    YMMV, but at least somebody is doing something.