Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

[psi29a]

We cam always mirror to gitlab, just in case.

[Thunderforge]

We cam always mirror to gitlab, just in case.

In case of what? I genuinely don’t know what Microsoft could realistically do to GitHub that would hurt OpenMW as an open source project. And even if they did do something, it wouldn’t be until 2019 after the deal is complete.

[AnyOldName3]

Possible ways Microsoft could do stuff now they own GitHub:

• Make a GitHub account equivalent to a Microsoft account, proving a nuisance for people using the same email for each, especially those with a real-name M$ account but a screen-name GitHub account who'll end up with things being linked. Even if seemingly minor, people will find reasons to complain about this.
• Break things, like how Visual Studio occasionally won't do something it's supposed to and needs reinstalling six times before it comes back to life or how Microsoft Office's OneDrive integration makes things work amazingly for some people and yet for others does weird things (which are the cause of almost all the complaints about OneDrive I hear people making).
• Use the extra data they can gather about the open-source community to target ads and products at them. This is a privacy concern, a way to trick people into buying more shit they don't need, and a way to make Windows and Visual Studio better in the future.
• Very illegally steal code from privately hosted projects. This is unlikely, though, as it would be very naughty.
• Introduce more ads.
• Kill off Visual Studio Team Services version control without it looking like they made something bad and handing market share to another company.

[Chris]

Microsoft also owns LinkedIn and Minecraft, yet they operate as though they were separate companies.

Be aware that Minecraft is being smothered, just slowly. After being bought by Microsoft, they started developing separate new versions for Windows 10, XBox, and other very specific platforms. Notably absent from these versions is support for Windows Vista/7/8, OSX, and Linux. Then along with their "Better Together" update, they rebranded those separate "Windows 10 Edition", "XBox Edition", etc, versions to simply "Minecraft" (no *Edition moniker). The original Minecraft, the one written in cross-platform Java, was given the moniker "Java Edition" to separate it from Minecraft proper. Ironically that means the "Better Together" update leaves Minecraft supporting fewer systems, fracturing the community instead of making them more together.

Yes, "Minecraft Java Edition" is still seeing updates, but you can be sure development is focusing away from it as Microsoft encourages use of the non-Java versions.

This is what Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is all about. Not an immediate destruction, just the opposite; the appearance of being nice and working together, helping with and adding to, while ultimately eroding the original so it leaves either nothing, or only theirs as the viable option. Make no mistake, Microsoft is a public corporation, their sole purpose is to make money. They're only "working with open source" in the ways they are now because it looks like the most profitable option to them. Once they figure they can make more money another way, all that good-will they fostered will mean absolutely nothing to their bottom line.

[psi29a]

We cam always mirror to gitlab, just in case.

In case of what? I genuinely don’t know what Microsoft could realistically do to GitHub that would hurt OpenMW as an open source project. And even if they did do something, it wouldn’t be until 2019 after the deal is complete.

In case people would want to work on gitlab instead of github, it's trivial to mirror (in both directions).

I couldn't give two farts that MS bought github, I'm just being pragmatic.

[Zini]

Just registered an account on gitlab (just in case). Not overly impressed so far. The sign-up process was really sluggish. Had to resend confirmation email and wait quite a while. Still, first impressions are overrated and I'll keep an open mind about it (still very much interested on hearing about first hand experiences people have with gitlab).

If we ever decide to move to gitlab, the idea would be to use the official servers and not host ourself, right?

[NullCascade]

Jesus Tapdancing Christ you guys are paranoid AF.

[psi29a]

Jesus Tapdancing Christ you guys are paranoid AF.

Once bitten, twice shy.

[Ferk]

FWIW, just an opinion from a Github lurker watching the project: being able to centralize issue tracking and PRs in one place would be a lot more interesting and easier to follow, so I wouldn't be afraid of losing followers when moving to Gitlab (I can lurk there too ). Those people really following the project have to go to Redmine anyway.. so migrating to Gitlab with Redmine integration does make sense.

About Github being owned by MS, in my opinion I doubt this would have a significant effect, specially in the short term (except for the initial drop in users that panic and migrate away from it). I doubt MS will mess with it within the first few years, for their own sake, probably they'll just keep maintaining it as it is, it's likely they only acquired it in order to more confidently manage the version control for every single of the Microsoft private projects, since it appears MS was already "the most active organization on Github in the world" (quote from Github announcement). I don't think Github is gonna be any more closed source than it already is. If this was a question of principles you should have migrated to Gitlab earlier.

[scrawl]

If we ever decide to move to gitlab, the idea would be to use the official servers and not host ourself, right?

I imagine gitlab's servers are going to be stressed a lot in the near future, so we'd need to self host for best results. I've heard that with docker, gitlab instances are not that hard to setup.

If this was a question of principles you should have migrated to Gitlab earlier.

Yes, we should have, and I think many people would have liked to, but peer pressure kept them on Github. Now that there is a convenient excuse for a mass exodus to platforms more compatible with the open source ideology, why not do it?

it still feels like a somewhat worse interface with too much wasted screen space and too much unnecessary Javascript.

Just registered an account on gitlab (just in case). Not overly impressed so far. The sign-up process was really sluggish. Had to resend confirmation email and wait quite a while. Still, first impressions are overrated and I'll keep an open mind about it (still very much interested on hearing about first hand experiences people have with gitlab).

Try gitea, its lightweight, has fewer javascript and looks more similar to github. We'd lose a few features that we're used to, though.

I agree the gitlab interface is far from perfect, but neither is github's.

Good news is how gitlab allows creating merge requests by email in addition to just replying to comments by email as github allows, so you can rely a little more on your good old email client / git console and not have to use clunky websites as much.