Let's Talk about GitHub and Microsoft

Zane Blalock

Zane Blalock

— 3 min read
Let's Talk about GitHub and Microsoft

If you’re into the tech and software world, you may have heard about a really pseudo-random-out-of-the-blue announcement from GitHub. And depending on you personal take on big companies and a stance on open-source…ness, you may either be for it, against it, or neutral. More than likely one of the last two.



The news in question, as announced by both Chris “Defunkt” Wanstrath, the CEO of GitHub, and Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft, is that Microsoft bought GitLab! For 7.5 Billion USDs no less. It’s not something I expected, especially since I’ve been in communication with workers from GitHub for a few months (unrelated to EoZ), and nothing even hinted at this… or perhaps I’m just out of the loop of a bigger picture, I don’t know.



Regardless, it’s going to be an interesting next stage of development. With Wanstrath commenting on the close partnership with Microsoft due to MS using GitHub heavily and even utilizing the Electron platform that was created by GitHub for more of their open source projects.



Microsoft is the most active organization on GitHub in the world. Their VS Code project alone is beloved by millions of developers, entirely open source, and built using GitHub’s Electron platform. Beyond that, today major enterprises regularly embrace open source. The world has realized how important happy, productive developers really are. And also, people have smartphones now.

– Chris Wanstrath



I’ll be returning with some information on MS and smartphones again in the future but on the current subject: Speculation from my colleges range from Microsoft wanting to close off Electron (which doesn’t seem in line with GitHub’s post), to Microsoft wanting to embrace open source as a way to revitalize their software and hardware for a changing environment (which is the more ‘surface level’ assumption – that does seem to be more inline with what GitHub and MS have stated). And of course GitHub has stated their commitment to the open source community hasn’t changed, but we shall see — MS has a way of really screwing over companies that it consumes and acquires.



Microsoft is also committed to empowering communities, from the world’s professionals to IT professionals to gamers. We believe in the power of communities to achieve much more than what their members can do on their own. It’s our ability to work together that helps our dreams become reality, and we are dedicated to cultivating and growing communities to do just that.– Satya Nadella



Spike in imports to GitLab

With all that being said, if you’re skeptical, it’s understandable. Others seem to be. GitLab is seeing a massive spike in projects imported from GitHub to their GitLab platform, suggesting people are jumping ship.



I may begin hosting a few of my projects elsewhere as well, but at the moment I’m just looking forward to seeing what happens with this acquisition. The acquisition closes out later this year – as for when that ‘exactly’ is, I’ve not been able to find a solid confirmed date.



Either way, I’m popping popcorn, and I’m going to sit back and watch the show.

sources: GitHub | Microsoft | Verge

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