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[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.
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Microsoft Agrees to Acquire GitHub... for $7.5 Billion [Updated]
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Two is not equal to three, even for large values of two.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday June 04 2018, @02:34PM (11 children)
On the contrary, I think this is a success of the FSF.
Git is GPL'd software. That means that Github didn't control git legally. Which is important, because it meant that there are a bunch of competitors to Github, and the moment people didn't want to use Github they could switch to a competitor in a matter of hours without losing any features or being in any legal trouble. That's good for users, good for the state of the art of technology, and good for business competition.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday June 04 2018, @03:11PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @03:36PM (4 children)
git is gpl. 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. MS is just a billion dollar child breaking other peoples toys because it can't have them.
The only way to fight back against this, is to license software in a way that it is resistant to this kind of thing. Which is why the activist public license was written. It is free to humans, and small organizations, but requires large institutions to seek other licensing. Similar to a typical student software license, but restricting based on institutional size rather than for commercial use. It allows developers to develop in the open, but have some say over their products when they are used by large companies that abuse the public.
apl.folkcamper.com
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday June 04 2018, @03:59PM (3 children)
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.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:46PM
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
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
"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.
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday June 04 2018, @04:58PM (1 child)
Trust me, Microsoft is gonna want to buy Git too. So that they can own the whole shebang. Whoever owns Git is about to become very very rich!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @11:01PM
You mean Linus Torvalds?
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Monday June 04 2018, @08:20PM (2 children)
Actually, this is great news. I was really annoyed that git, this grand decentralized revision control system, was in practice being used almost entirely on one big centralized service.
So then my heroes from Microsoft are fixing the problem for me. You can bet Github is going to start sucking, and the decentralization will happen as a consequence. Hooray Microsoft! Maybe someone at the top has decided they like the FSF and this is their guerrilla tactic to help out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @08:48AM (1 child)
Git != Github. Github is a service using Git. Kind of like water is great, but bottled water is big business.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday June 05 2018, @02:53PM
I know git != Github. My point is that git source code hosting by the very nature of git should be spread across dozens of providers. There just shouldn't be One Revision Control Hosting Site To Rule Them All. There should be competition in the space. Also, there are a number of free-as-in-freedom source code hosting platforms out there that never got much attention because everybody is on Github. It's another form of the same problem that keeps Facebook and Twitter so popular. "I don't care how nice Mastodon/Friendica/Status.net/Diaspora/Fritter/whatever is, all my friends and family are already on Facebook!"
If Github starts to be mediocre, then it will cease to be the king of project hosting. Project owners will be more likely to host code on competing services, including fully free ones. The attitude "Either it's on Github or it doesn't matter" will die.