Microsoft welcomes social talks on GitHub

Microsoft GitHub: Microsoft at its core was always a great IT vendor it was never a social media, internet, or hardware company, and it is amazing to see that they seem to be playing on their strengths i.e applications /platform/tools for businesses to succeed.

Microsoft acquired Github, for $7.5 billion in stock. GitHub is the world’s largest software development platform. It provides cloud storage for source code, supports all popular programming languages, and streamlines the iteration process. 

By teaming up with Github, CEO Satya Nadella said, “we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation.”

GitHub is a Git repository hosting service, but it adds many of its own features. While Git is a command line tool, GitHub provides a Web-based graphical interface. It also provides access control and several collaboration features, such as a wikis and basic task management tools for every project.

Reaction by developers to Microsoft becoming the steward of GitHub has been mixed. Some, noting changes happening at the company since Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014, some said they believed Microsoft would provide a good home for GitHub.

Others have said they are still wary of Microsoft and are considering moving away from the platform once Microsoft takes it over.

Microsoft’s access to all the code on GitHub could mean that they could virtually control much of the development of both open-source and closed-source software.

Accounts held on GitHub for the purpose of developing software for many of Microsoft’s newer competitors like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, would be at a high risk of competitive disadvantage. Moreover, the acquisition would also give Microsoft a taste of open-source hardware and public datasets.

When Microsoft announced its GitHub acquisition plans, Nat Friedman said, "We are not buying Github to turn into Microsoft;we are buying GitHub because we believe in the importance of developers, and in GitHub's unique role in the developer community. Our goal is to help GitHub be better at being GitHub, and if anything, to help Microsoft be a little more like GitHub.”

"We will start by focusing on the daily experience of using GitHub and will double down on our paper cuts project," said Friedman in a blog post announcing the acquisition's completion. "We will improve core scenarios like search, notifications, issues/projects, and our mobile experience. And of course we are excited to make GitHub Actions broadly available."

Microsoft putting its money where its is,and giving Github a foundation to grow for the long haul.

In May, GitHub said it would launch GitHub Discussions, a chatting interface that allows developers to have conversations within the platform.

Simultaneously, it introduced an add-on feature called README that enables users to mention elaborate details of their coding work and background on their profile using text and pictures - the rest of the platform is fraught with coding languages like Java, Python, and Ruby, among others.

Microsoft might be able to revive GitHub as a platform and start bringing back meaningful innovation to our open source tooling — and still allows free choice. After all, Git is a decentralized file system, so if Microsoft screws this up, it’s actually trivial to move elsewhere.

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Github acquisition is another step for Microsoft to stay influential in the IT business since most of the software development work for themselves or for businesses will be done by freelancers or new age web-tech companies on the cloud.