Open-source developers: "Microsoft should embrace open source, it's the one true way!"<p>Microsoft: <i>embraces open source</i><p>Open-source developers: "They're trying to control us! They're trying to control us!".
Well, Microsoft is a Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation.<p>It would be really weird to see anything but a positive reaction from a consortium which receives a substantial amount of money from Microsoft.
I like his good vibe about all of it, and I agree I love to see that MS is doing more moves into the right direction. However I feel we should not trust him too quickly. Every big company tries to claim they have changed, will change and are currently in a process of change. But in reality most companies stay stuck at exactly that point in time where they were most successful. that means Microsoft is likely stuck ~10 years go, where Windows XP was at its peak.<p>It's not just a CEO who can change that. It needs all kinds of changes on all kinds of levels. For instance if department leader's KPIs and bonus structure hasn't changed, they will continue to actively fight open source. Even if there is now a new, fancy department with even big names from open source communities, that doesn't mean all the other departments changed.<p>Also what happens to the devs who are there for 20+ years now, probably quite a few of them in senior dev and architect roles. Will they drop all that they've grown up with? Can Microsoft afford to let them go for big money and hire new, unknown people instead?<p>If they manage to get this github integration right, I may start to think about them in a positive fashion but until now there's too much doubt and too many things that might go wrong. Compared to the size of a huge corp we've only seen fluff up till now.
Can't really write something on the Linux foundation that'd annoy a platinum partner though, can you? :)<p>Though I'm in the middle on this, I'll see what microsoft does with github. The company has shown a different approach to the 'old microsoft' but it's still a company with the aim of making a profit. Github was losing money IIRC and MSFT has a lot of data on people as it is. Github might be a good way to target devs for advertisements :)
I wonder how many companies have considered selecting GitHub as the place for their source code, wikis, process, issue tracking, etc but hesitated or went with another vendor simply because the financial future of GitHub was an open question. Now, with Microsoft making that question a moot point, I think a lot of companies will now make the move to GitHub knowing it will not go away.<p>Ironically... having Microsoft behind GitHub and being willing to lose money on the company forever could actually be the reasons it has a hope to turn a profit some day.
this has a huge spin/politics feel to it, when you get to "it used to be easy to make fun of Microsoft, but.. I have grown up"<p>I call BS -- it was very grown-up of Microsoft to abuse repeatedly their clients and partners, and it is just and right to call them out on it.. that one statement is obsequious whiteash, plain and simple.
From the OP: "Whether it’s an established company or startup that’s gained mass appeal like GitHub, GitLab or Stack Overflow"<p>Thanks for the recognition for GitLab! We hope that for many people that switched <a href="https://twitter.com/develosysadmine/status/1005061323405873152" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/develosysadmine/status/10050613234058731...</a> was the case: "For me, I already knew GitLab was better than GitHub in a variety of ways. Microsoft just gave me the slightest nudge to actually make the switch."
I seem to recall earlier, in 2016 I think, that Microsoft already acquired The Linux Foundation.<p>Acquired might be replaced with other euphemisms like "joined" or "became a member of".
Something is missing from this reaction: AI.
MS is buying a privileged access to billions lines of code with their history and corrections. In 5-10Y times most code will be produced by AI and the simplest way to train a AI system is to to have access to data. That's what they bought, data. Unfortunately this is another step towards more concentration in IT...
It's not for sure but highly likely that Microsoft will do some things that are not desirable. From now on, should you believe trending repos are not filtered by Microsoft? Don't you think they might put some advertisement for their own projects / products? What will they do with the massive amount of data they have now access to, including private repositories?<p>Those saying there is no reason to worry are just hoping for big amount of luck. Yeah I hope so too, but let's face it, it's very unlikely they're not gonna do anything undesirable and only improve the platform.
<i>> Most of the important projects on GitHub are licensed under an open source license, which addresses intellectual property ownership.</i><p>This can be tricky in a legally messed up environment. In US, courts sided with Oracle about copyrightability of APIs. And guess who supported Oracle in that dispute? Microsoft. So how should open source projects feel about it, especially when they let's say implement MS own APIs?
I think what I don't appreciate is how many people are trying to calm peoples fears about the acquisition.<p>Feels like a parent chiding a kid<p>I guess Github was in worse shape than they looked like on the outside. Happens; the fact that the 3 founders made a fortune off of this is unfortunate.<p>One of those founders stepped down and yet he still won.<p>It's just a game; wether you play blackjack or poker or big stakes with companies.
Ah, a voice of reason.<p>I'm no MS lover; I've been off their products both at home and work for over 15+ years, at home since basically forever except for some apps that only ran on Windows.<p>The MS of now is a far difference MS a decade ago, even five years ago. Things change--sometimes people don't.
" I will own responsibility for some of that as I spent a good part of my career at the Linux Foundation poking fun at Microsoft (which, at times, prior management made way too easy). But times have changed and it’s time to recognize that we have all grown up – the industry, the open source community, even me."<p>What is this guy talking about? Maybe he's changed but Microsoft hasn't: they're still a company doing evil things on a large scale that simply sees more value (for them) increased FOSS support. I'll especially highlight the patent suits with them pulling billions of dollars from Android vendors despite them not contributing anything to Android. They were working on displacing it with Windows Phone. Yet, they use legal threats to pull hundreds of millions a year for their "inventions" on paper from those actually building things we want to buy.<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/11/01/microsoft-android-patent-income/#74d9f7195c6c" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/11/01/microsoft...</a><p>Both stevelord and I had a few more examples at the link below where we last discussed it:<p><a href="https://lobste.rs/s/zknzmj/microsoft_acquire_github_for_7_5_billion#c_yskzgz" rel="nofollow">https://lobste.rs/s/zknzmj/microsoft_acquire_github_for_7_5_...</a><p>EDIT: In case anyone wonders, I was hoping a company like Red Hat acquired them. One that is a bit less evil with more incentive to keep high investments in FOSS. Given the numbers involved, one can't hope for much more.
People relax. If M$ really does go Weyland-Yutani on us with GitHub we'll just move to another git hosting service and they'll be out 7.5B. Unfortunately for them as a company they need costumers to exist, and we are those costumers, so, we just have to keep an eye out for shady stuff and act on them. Like always.
Microsoft is on the board of the Linux Foundation and a Platinum sponsor. Nothing the Linux Foundation says about Microsoft can be truly objective.<p>I find this article distasteful and lacking integrity.
Ahh yes, Jim Zemlin the man that famously Attends Linux conference using a apple mac Computer and not Linux.... (am sure that will soon be replaced with the Surface running Windows 10 with the "Linux Subsystem" ...)<p>The Linux Foundation... the Business Organization that rejected the individuals of the community and focus solely on its corporate sponsors one of the largest being Microsoft<p>It is not shocking that the Linux Foundation supports their Corporate Master Microsoft in their acquisition of Github.. To do otherwise would cost them many many thousands of dollars
(previously asked and unanswered)<p>If you want to develop software for Microsoft’s Linux distro/kernel (Azure Sphere for IoT), it appears you must use Windows 10 + Visual Studio, <a href="https://seeedstudio.com/productDetail/3052" rel="nofollow">https://seeedstudio.com/productDetail/3052</a> & <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/developing-an-azure-sphere-experience-with-visual-studio/" rel="nofollow">https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/developing-an-azure-s...</a><p><i>> To use MT3620 Dev Board for Azure Sphere, you’ll need a Windows 10 PC with the latest Windows Updates, along with the Visual Studio Tools for Azure Sphere (which will be available for download from Microsoft). These tools will include application templates, development tools and the Azure Sphere software development kit (SDK).</i><p>Can someone clarify if Windows 10 will be a hard requirement to use the Microsoft Azure Sphere Linux SDK for IoT/embedded boards?