Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Not about OpenMW? Just about Morrowind in general? Have some random babble? Kindly direct it here.
tomangelo
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by tomangelo »

One question - what does MS ownership of GitHub change anything for this project? What would be a reason to do such migration if GitHub still wouldn't be bought by MS? I know that Microsoft did many things in the past, but what changed now?
I know, they might do something in the future, but unless everything is same and they don't require code to work only under Windows 10, then what's the matter?
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psi29a
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by psi29a »

Already explained in previous threads.
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drummyfish
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by drummyfish »

tomangelo wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 14:49 One question - what does MS ownership of GitHub change anything for this project? What would be a reason to do such migration if GitHub still wouldn't be bought by MS? I know that Microsoft did many things in the past, but what changed now?
I know, they might do something in the future, but unless everything is same and they don't require code to work only under Windows 10, then what's the matter?
Yeah, take a look at previous posts.

I'd add that big projects, which OpenMW definitely is, should, in a similar way to people who stand inspiration to others, stand as an example of what they stand for, in this case free/open-source development. While it is possible that GitHub will work the same technically, I think most of us agree that the idea of developing a free project under a company that is practically the definition of proprietary software and oppressing behavior and just hoping for the best is not the example a good project should set. Whether OpenMW wants to set moral examples or not, it does bear part of responsibility for forming the mentality of open-source developers. If OpenMW does stay at GH, developers will simply be able to say - it's okay to be controlled by Microsoft because one of the biggest open-source game project - OpenMW - is okay with it.
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werdanith
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by werdanith »

NullCascade wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 10:48 Jesus Tapdancing Christ you guys are paranoid AF.
A certain type of people require a level of trust and control over their tools. The kind of people that build and use Linux, or open source game engine recreations written from scratch. Without that mindset projects such as these would not exist. There would be no need for them.
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Zini
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by Zini »

At least regarding the website gitlab seems miles ahead of github. Just found the user setting for fluid layout (vs fixed width layout). That alone is a huge improvement. But still, that's only the website.

Regarding self-hosting (still theoretically speaking; not endorsing a full-scale exodus at this time): I still think that we would be better off with using the public servers, with self-hosting serving only as a backup solution (which is extremely nice to have, admittedly).
tomangelo
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by tomangelo »

Ok, at first I should ask a better question. I'm just trying to understand this whole global heat about big migrations from GitHub, not just OpenMW project, where so much devs recently run in panic to other hostings. About this project I see there are few features like pull requests by email that seems to be comfortable for you, but does everyone else recently discovered that GitLab have features that GitHub doesn't? Not telling that GitHub was always closed source and no one bats an eye about that, so many projects had grown up on it, until recently it became big obstacle.
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Thunderforge
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by Thunderforge »

drummyfish wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 15:51 While it is possible that GitHub will work the same technically, I think most of us agree that the idea of developing a free project under a company that is practically the definition of proprietary software and oppressing behavior and just hoping for the best is not the example a good project should set.
No. The Microsoft of 2018 is not “the definition of proprietary software”. Visual Studio Code, Powershell, TypeScript, Chakra JavaScript engine, .NET runtime, and quite a few other Microsoft projects are publicly developed on GitHub. And not just a half-assed “dump your internally-developed code every once in a while” open source that other companies do (*cough* Android *cough*), they do it all the same way OpenMW does, accepting PRs from the community, and even doing issue tracking right on GitHub.

Yes, Microsoft did evil things 15-20 years ago Under Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Today, the former does charity work and the latter owns the LA Clippers. Microsoft under Sataya Nadella is quite a different company, and to be blunt, it seems that many Microsoft critics are unaware of the changes he brought to the company over the last four years, especially with regards to open source.

Besides, independent GitHub is not a charity. It’s a for-profit company bleeding money hand over fist. The only realistic outcomes were to close shop or get bought out by a Microsoft-level company. Would you have preferred a buyout from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, or Oracle? Of those, Microsoft is probably the most open source friendly of those choices in recent years. I sure trust them more than Oracle.

Sooner or later, GitLab is going to have the same problem. I doubt the projects that are being moved from GitHub to GitLab were the ones generating any money. Within the next few years, GitLab too will either have to find some magical new source of revenue, get bought out, or close up shop.
werdanith wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 16:35 A certain type of people require a level of trust and control over their tools. The kind of people that build and use Linux, or open source game engine recreations written from scratch. Without that mindset projects such as these would not exist. There would be no need for them.
And a certain type of people just want to play Morrowind on a Mac, or play multiplayer Morrowind, or take advantage of any other features that vanilla Morrowind can’t provide. I don’t want to get involved in any ideological FOSS wars. I just want OpenMW to be created on whichever platform will attract the best developers. Then again, I’m a Mac developer who primarily chats about OpenMW on Discord and uses JetBrains CLion, so maybe I’m already too far gone in the eyes of some.

To put it bluntly, I would rather stay on GitHub and risk whatever imagined evil Microsoft is feared to do than switch to another platform, or self-host, where we will have fewer developers that will hinder the growth of the project.
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drummyfish
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by drummyfish »

Thunderforge wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 18:27 No. The Microsoft of 2018 is not “the definition of proprietary software.
AFAIK the main MS product is still a closed OS that's basically malware that forces upgrades to new version and can't do basic things others OSes have been capable of for many years now. With the occasional pieces of software they open they're just buying support of open-source community and getting devs they don't have to pay.
Thunderforge wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 18:27 Yes, Microsoft did evil things 15-20 years ago Under Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Today, the former does charity work and the latter owns the LA Clippers.
Gates giving money to charity is basically him saying he's so rich he can't even spend the money and so he'll rather buy some publicity and an image of a good folk. It has nothing to do with software ethics but it seems to be working very well to somehow convince people he has good intentions.
Thunderforge wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 18:27 Would you have preferred a buyout from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, or Oracle?
If you're asking me to choose the lesser evel, I'd rather choose none, whatever it means. But I understand people can often justify wrong choices this way.
Thunderforge wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 18:27 Sooner or later, GitLab is going to have the same problem.
Well then it's gonna be forked because you know, you can do this. I'll leave for the fork then. Or should we rather let the perfect be the enemy of the good and say if we can't achieve 100 % victory it's better to not try at all?
Thunderforge wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 18:27 And a certain type of people just want to play Morrowind on a Mac, or play multiplayer Morrowind, or take advantage of any other features that vanilla Morrowind can’t provide.
Yeah, let them play it. We're talking about development which requires some more responsibility.
Thunderforge wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 18:27 I just want OpenMW to be created on whichever platform will attract the best developers.
For whatever the cost? Josef Mengele probably wanted to just make the best medical research he could too.
Thunderforge wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 18:27 To put it bluntly, I would rather stay on GitHub and risk whatever imaginary evil Microsoft does than switch to another platform, or self-host, where we will have fewer developers that will hinder the growth of the project.
Overall it sounds like you've accepted that MS can simply buy you and have already given up. You might rather want to get involved in proprietary game development then - they target the largest platforms, hire the best devs, have the best of everything without caring about the consequences or the context other than market.
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psi29a
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by psi29a »

Thunderforge wrote: 05 Jun 2018, 18:27Sooner or later, GitLab is going to have the same problem. I doubt the projects that are being moved from GitHub to GitLab were the ones generating any money. Within the next few years, GitLab too will either have to find some magical new source of revenue, get bought out, or close up shop.
GitLab has a product, GitHub has just a service. Two totally different things, GitHub was bleeding money because it was a startup that grew big in hopes of landing a whale. The whale was Microsoft and that makes sense because of the amount work and cooperation between the two for hosting Microsoft's repos and work on git itself, congratulations to GitHub, they deserve it.

GitLab, on the other hand, has a product that you can self-host with features that Enterprises love (and pay for) with a community edition that actively contributed to by an open-source community. The self-hosting bit is important, because many Fortune 100 (not just 500) would rather pay the licensing fee to self-host than to deal 'as as service' that is GitLab. My company is no exception to this, we've been using it for years now.

GitLab is in it for the long run, they have a product that they license _and_ a service if people want to use it that way.
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scrawl
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Re: Microsoft Buys Github for $7.5 Billion

Post by scrawl »

self-host, where we will have fewer developers that will hinder the growth of the project.
I'm curious. Why do you think a self hosted instance will result in fewer contributions? You can sign in to different gitlab instances using the same account (OAuth), so there's no hurdle of creating accounts or anything like that. In any case, I could even turn this around and speculate that fewer 'drive-by' contributions from people that could hardly be bothered to create an account otherwise will drive up the quality of submissions and result in less work for the maintainers.

If your concerns are about people discovering the project for the first time by browsing the list of projects or related projects on GitHub.... eh, I seriously doubt that many people find us that way.
Last edited by scrawl on 05 Jun 2018, 20:26, edited 1 time in total.
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