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Comment by l5870uoo9y | Hacker News Reader

> GitHub will operate independently as a community, platform, and business.

Had Github been bought by an foundation operating outside the confides of the market, then such statement would have been believable. Microsoft will naturally use Github maximise its wealth, thus when disagreements arise then Microsoft will put its will through.

It is of course easy to imagine ways Github could be used by Microsoft, fore instance mere access to valuable user data, strategic focus on integration with Microsoft products or sigle sign on with Azure, Github, LinkedIn and Skype.

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I work for Linkedin, MS is very respectful of our independence (sometimes in puzzling ways).

It's kinda painful and annoying to read about all the negativity and tinfoil hat theories but that's the price to pay (I guess) and we'll see what happens. Microsoft has every interest in playing nice with the community and everything to lose from trying to do anything hostile to it.

> It's kinda painful and annoying to read about all the negativity

I can imagine. You may wish to switch employers.

> and tinfoil hat theories

Are you saying that all complaints about MS conduct are delusional?

> Microsoft has every interest in playing nice with the community and everything to lose from trying to do anything hostile to it.

So let's have a candid discussion about telemetry. Or sneaky Windows 10 upgrades. Or vague patent threats.

I'm sorry, but few software developers who follow Microsoft's actions will accept you crying martyr.

I'm saying most complaints I'm reading here have no basis in reality. Microsoft felt negatively in the past about OSS when it felt an existential threat from it. In the past few years the work of many inside Microsoft helped shape a new vision of OSS inside the company and it's pretty evident to anyone that's not trying to be blind that things have changed.

So yeah, let's talk about telemetry, or Windows updates, or patent threats. Every business makes decisions, some good, some bad. We might not agree 100% on which ones are which.

We're in the business of creating software and not running charities, we all do what's in our best interest trying not to be too evil, there's plenty of good folks and also plenty of assholes in every big co out there and all the negativity doesn't help the good ones pushing for the right outcomes.

Hey, thanks for replying!

I'm sympathetic to your point about large organizations having a mix of employees with different ethical standards.

In this particular case, as CEO Nadella is fully responsible for allowing the various nasty practices I enumerated above. (I tried to only list those which happened under his leadership.)

This is why I'm not persuaded about Microsoft's general trustworthiness by either of the following:

(a) Outsiders referring to Nadella's leadership of MS, or

(b) Nadella himself suggesting that people judge MS by its recent behavior.

> It's kinda painful and annoying to read about all the negativity and tinfoil hat theories but that's the price to pay (I guess) and we'll see what happens.

That's the price for being a deeply un-ethical company for many decades.

For the last 20 years or so, Microsoft lost a lot of mind-share. They are good at developer tools and GitHub provides them with the venue for the community. Unless Microsoft sees amazing value on the Community platform of GitHub they would not have spent $7.5 Billion on it. They do realize developer brain-trust is the long game they need to win, and GitHub fits that strategy.

> They do realize developer brain-trust is the long game they need to win, and GitHub fits that strategy.

Only problem is that this move was net-negative wrt developer trust.

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