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posted by chromas on Monday June 04 2018, @01:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the versionctlâ €-altâ €-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: 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.