Bloomberg:
For Microsoft Corp., acquiring GitHub Inc. would be both a return to the company’s earliest roots and a sharp turnaround from where it was a decade ago.
The software maker has agreed to acquire GitHub, the code-repository company popular with many software developers, and could announce the deal as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Interesting that GitHub would choose this route over going public.
Lots of talk over the weekend over concerns with Microsoft having access to all the world’s source code. Doesn’t concern me. I password protect my private archives and trust GitHub to protect my privacy. I’ve got no reason to think that Microsoft will value that privacy any less.
This deal makes a ton of sense to me. I believe Microsoft have some of the most active and largest GitHub repositories on the planet. They know the value of GitHub, they probably have some solid ideas on tweaks to make it more useful for developers, and it makes good revenue as a business. Seems a smart move.
UPDATE: Here’s the official Microsoft announcement [H/T setteBIT].
Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock. Subject to customary closing conditions and completion of regulatory review, the acquisition is expected to close by the end of the calendar year.
I don’t get the “Microsoft having access to all the world’s source code” concern. They could have downloaded all it from GitHub already.
One thing I haven’t seen noted in any of these stories is that Microsoft is a huge user of Github itself. Github even hosts the Windows and Office source. I work in documentation for another company and was looking at How Microsoft handles docs. I know that for many of their doc sets, users can even fork and edit documentation, then submit a pull request back to Microsoft with the changes.
This is an older story, but covers the gist of the topic: https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/24/microsoft-now-uses-git-and-gvfs-to-develop-windows/
I wouldn’t be surprised if the first results of this acquisition are more support for AD SSO in Github.
“…they probably have some solid ideas on tweaks to make it more useful for developer”
I think that’s what scares people. Look at Skype. Good program before the acquisition, now… not so much.
Well, private repos. But still, that doesn’t worry me. If I were a MSFT competitor with private repos, I’d move off the platform just from an abundance of caution but in general, yeah, I’m with you.
Sure, but if it was that concerning before, they shouldn’t ever have used a GitHub private repo. 😉
(I’d personally argue MS has even more incentive to be ethical and careful about such things.)
Microsoft seems to be a lot more organized and focused in the developer/cloud spaces than their disastrous execution of Skype and other consumer platforms.
*cough* https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1002696910266773505
Microsoft doesn’t want to steal your source code, no.
(And if it’s Really Private Trade Secret Stuff, you already shouldn’t trust anyone else with it.)
Yeah, Microsoft’s developer tools are actually … good.
(Their documentation, for new things, often leaves a bit to be desired, but that’s almost universal, that I’ve seen.)
This could help get GitHub more accepted in enterprises (which tend to like paying someone like Microsoft large license fees for technology instead of dealing with open-source or smaller community driven services).
Companies concerned about this would likely use the self-hosted, enterprise version of GitHub.