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posted by janrinok on Saturday June 02 2018, @02:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the good-business-or-something-else dept.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/06/01/microsoft--github-acquisition-talks-resume.html

Microsoft held talks in the past few weeks to acquire software developer platform GitHub, Business Insider reports.

One person familiar with the discussions between the companies told CNBC that they had been considering a joint marketing partnership valued around $35 million, and that those discussions had progressed to a possible investment or outright acquisition. It is unclear whether talks are still ongoing, but this person said that GitHub's price for a full acquisition was more than Microsoft currently wanted to pay.

GitHub was last valued at $2 billion in its last funding round 2015, but the price tag for an acquisition could be $5 billion or more, based on a price that was floated last year.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday June 02 2018, @03:53PM (13 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Saturday June 02 2018, @03:53PM (#687715)

    1. It's at most a couple of hours work to set up your own git repository,
    2. Anybody who has a checkout of the code can do that setup, and
    3. It's really easy for a set of collaborators to switch to a new git repository as the canonical repo.

    That's all a testament to the quality of git's design.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Wootery on Saturday June 02 2018, @03:58PM (11 children)

    by Wootery (2341) on Saturday June 02 2018, @03:58PM (#687717)

    Anyone can replace their Git host, but replacing GitHub would mean far more than that.

    GitHub has wikis, bug-trackers, fork-tracking, and most importantly, community.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:59PM (10 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:59PM (#687737)

      GitHub has wikis, bug-trackers, fork-tracking, and most importantly, community.

      None of those are features essential to Github are things that can't be had elsewhere.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Pino P on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:23PM (7 children)

        by Pino P (4721) on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:23PM (#687750) Journal

        GitHub has wikis, bug-trackers, fork-tracking, and most importantly, community.

        None of those are features essential to Github are things that can't be had elsewhere.

        For each of these, which "elsewhere" would you recommend? Or should every project be required to lease a virtual private server* and pay a sysadmin to maintain all this stuff on a VPS?

        * Trying to host from your home or office instead of a VPS doesn't work well when your Internet service provider doesn't let you forward the appropriate ports from the Internet to your network. An ISP can implement this legally using acceptable use policy (AUP) or technically using carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT) or both.

        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:05PM (3 children)

          by Thexalon (636) on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:05PM (#687767)

          For each of these, which "elsewhere" would you recommend? Or should every project be required to lease a virtual private server* and pay a sysadmin to maintain all this stuff on a VPS?

          1. Many devs are passable sysadmins. Alternately, there may be sysadmins who would benefit from your project and be willing to volunteer time. That solves that problem.
          2. Cloud servers are quite cheap these days.
          3. If you can't afford cloud servers, you can at least ask any business or institution you're affiliated with to give you some space.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday June 03 2018, @11:53AM (2 children)

            by Pino P (4721) on Sunday June 03 2018, @11:53AM (#687984) Journal

            Many devs are passable sysadmins.

            "Passable" means "I know enough to be dangerous." University and high school computer science programs teach programming, not the technical or legal aspects of administration of a public-facing Internet server. Thus an armchair sysadmin is likely to miss some major detail of security or compliance, such as how to make notifications from Bugzilla go to the contributor's inbox rather than be rejected as spam, or when a project based outside the European Union that accepts a patch from a contributor in the Union is required to hire a representative in the Union pursuant to article 27 of the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) because it is now the "data controller" of "personal data" of a "data subject" in the Union.

            Alternately, there may be sysadmins who would benefit from your project and be willing to volunteer time.

            Provided the application is in a class of applications that have direct benefit to sysadmins. A library useful on Python or Node servers might. So might a text editor extension. But a completely client-side application that isn't used in the process of running a server, such as a video game, might not. Or what am I missing?

            Cloud servers are quite cheap these days.

            How long will they remain so, particularly for access by users behind networks with no IPv6 connectivity, as the supply of scarce IPv4 addresses grows tighter?

            If you can't afford cloud servers, you can at least ask any business or institution you're affiliated with to give you some space.

            The situation I was in for several years involved being between institutions, such as having graduated from university and looking for a place to host a portfolio where prospective employers can see.

            • (Score: 1) by babywombat on Sunday June 03 2018, @06:13PM (1 child)

              by babywombat (2880) on Sunday June 03 2018, @06:13PM (#688073)

              ... or when a project based outside the European Union that accepts a patch from a contributor in the Union is required to hire a representative in the Union pursuant to article 27 of the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR)

              That's just spreading some FUD. The same article 27 which you are quoting also says this obligation does not apply if the processing of personal data is not large-scale and is "unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons". It might be that storing a git user name in the repo history can be considered as "processing of personal data" in some stretched way, but surely it is not large-scale and surely it it is not likely to risk any rights or freedoms.

              • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday June 04 2018, @12:24AM

                by Pino P (4721) on Monday June 04 2018, @12:24AM (#688161) Journal

                The same article 27 which you are quoting also says this obligation does not apply if the processing of personal data is not large-scale

                True. But in practice, I'll believe it once a judge sets forth a test for what's "large-scale" and what's "occasional".

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)

          by requerdanos (5997) on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:08PM (#687769) Journal

          For each of these, which "elsewhere" would you recommend? Or should every project be required to lease a virtual private server* and pay a sysadmin to maintain all this stuff on a VPS?

          The choice of either using github or paying zomg expensive salaries to someone is a false dichotomy. It isn't that hard to find among volunteer coders someone who can volunteer sysadmin (1) the setup of a VPS (5 minutes instantiate + a weekend installing your repo, wiki engine, and bugzilla, and setting up access and permissions) and (2) its upkeep (sudo apt-get* update; sudo apt-get upgrade; sudo rinse; sudo repeat).**

          That's not to say that github is without value in already having mostly done these things and keeping them up in an ongoing manner--it can be nice to just use a server that someone else keeps up-to-date for you gratis--but "finding a server" isn't that hard nor time-consuming.

          A trip to Low End Box [lowendbox.com] pretty reliably nets you a VPS for around US$1 - US$2 a month, and poof, you are your own cloud. I maintain several of these "low end boxes" from a few different providers, and I find that they (http://virmach.com [virmach.com] and http://budgetnode.com [budgetnode.com] in my case) generally renew at the end of your term at same dirt cheap rates, and uptime and service have been top-notch. The costs are so low that I just pay out of my pocket instead of bothering to spread the cost around to the members and contributors.

          Trying to host from your home or office instead of a VPS doesn't work well [with EVIL ISPS who block you] using acceptable use policy (AUP) or technically using carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT) or both.

          Yes, it's possible to get stuck with an ISP that doesn't fulfill the I and P in its acronym. It's even (less) possible that everyone on your team is stuck on such an ISP. If it's that bad, part with the one US dollar and get a VPS *shrug*. (My ISP does the annoying CGNAT but for an extra $10/month they will rent you a static IP which solves that problem. But frankly, all my several VPSes put together are cheaper than my static IP, and anyone can get them, even if their Internet access is by public library.)

          For each of these, which "elsewhere" would you recommend?

          I know this might be rhetorical, but there are good answers.

          Bug tracker: Bugzilla [bugzilla.org] (Mozilla Public License) (Or your favorite one)
          Wiki: Mediawiki [wikimedia.org] (GPL2+) (Or your favorite one)
          Fork Tracking: Makes less sense in terms of a small repo/server, but use pointers in your bug tracker and wiki.

          Again, none of those are features unique to Github. For most projects, you could easily host them all on a single-board ARM computer stuck to your router with velcro.

          -----
          * or yum or dnf or pacman or whatever suits you
          ** I don't mean to suggest that being a sysadmin is simple or easy. But if you only have one or two or even twelve users, neither is it a full-time job to set up a server to host a project that you love. (or even like.)

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Pino P on Sunday June 03 2018, @12:40PM

            by Pino P (4721) on Sunday June 03 2018, @12:40PM (#687994) Journal

            Or should every project be required to lease a virtual private server* and pay a sysadmin to maintain all this stuff on a VPS?

            The choice of either using github or paying zomg expensive salaries to someone is a false dichotomy. It isn't that hard to find among volunteer coders someone who can volunteer sysadmin

            By "pay" I didn't mean full time or even part time. But even monitoring a server for intrusions, interpreting data privacy regulations, and maintaining deliverability of notification mails takes more ongoing time than just putting an update script in the cron job. And someone who recently graduated from university (in a specialization other than web application development) and is looking for a host for his portfolio so that he can land a first full-time job might not have the bucks to pay for a weekend of a sysadmin's time.

            Fork Tracking: Makes less sense in terms of a small repo/server

            You'd be surprised. Even in the emulation and chiptune community, you see a lot of forks cross-pollinating one another. j0CC-FamiTracker was forked from 0CC-FamiTracker, which was in turn forked from FamiTracker. bsnes-plus was forked from bsnes-classic, which was originally forked from bsnes before it became higan.

        • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:31PM

          by Wootery (2341) on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:31PM (#687776)

          which "elsewhere" would you recommend

          Atlassian's BitBucket.org [bitbucket.org] is a solid alternative to GitHub, with similar features. Pretty source-browsing in-browser, bug-tracker, wiki. I forget if they have project-planning or code-review support. They're cheaper than GitHub, and they offer private repos for free. (Which makes sense - they're desperate to compete with GitHub.) They have fancy features reserved for those who pay enough.

          They don't have GitHub's community though. It seems to be one of those winner-takes-all things.

          An example public repo on BitBucket is the old SCons repo. [bitbucket.org] (Ironically they've moved to GitHub.)

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday June 03 2018, @02:24PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday June 03 2018, @02:24PM (#688027)

        Community isn't to be underestimated.

        If you control all your developers, then it doesn't matter - but when you're making stone soup, you need exposure, ease of access, and trust to make it work.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Sunday June 03 2018, @06:03PM

        by TheRaven (270) on Sunday June 03 2018, @06:03PM (#688072) Journal
        There is only one feature that GitHub has that is hard to replicate: the likelihood that all of your potential collaborators already have a GitHub account. I moved a couple of projects to GitHub a few years ago. Now I get issues opened (from people who will actually provide feedback and help you track down a problem) and pull requests opened. I've used several other code hosting platforms, but GitHub is the only one where I've had contributions from people who weren't already members of a community that I was involved with.
        --
        sudo mod me up
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:33PM (#687778)

    Actually it takes about 5mins to spin up a Linux VPS on DigitalOcean with an SSH key and a Git repo.