Why Open Source Software Is Moving to GitLab After Microsoft-GitHub Deal | Hacker News Reader

Why Open Source Software Is Moving to GitLab After Microsoft-GitHub Deal

itprotoday.com

17 pointsWinObs18 comments

I'm not sure why this is an article. It's obviously because Microsoft has a reputation for harming open source software. That reputation was very fairly earned, regardless of the company's current stance. The sad part is that no matter what happens now, Microsoft will never get any credit for doing anything right with GitHub.

If a new feature is released and people don't immediately like it, it will be, "See, I knew Microsoft would ruin GitHub," or "It doesn't matter that this is optional, it means that Microsoft is trying to control our workflow!"

If a new feature is released and people like it, it will be, "I bet Microsoft is going start charging for feature," or "Yeah, but if you spend 50 times the effort, this other forge site kind of almost does the same thing," or "This is just Microsoft trying to shove GitHub down our throats."

If GitLab or similar open source forges fail because it can't find a sustainable business model or because GitHub remains an actual better product, people will blame Microsoft for "intentionally destroying GitLab to get a monopoly over forge sites."

Regardless of how paranoid the reactions to GitHub are in the future, you can bet that a large portion of the community will be unable to look past their hatred of the company. That's not entirely unwise, and Microsoft isn't the only company with this kind of extremely poor reputation (Oracle and Facebook) or just increasingly unfavorable reputations (Amazon, Google, and Apple), but that doesn't make it less reactionary, either.

"While Microsoft talks a nice game now with regard to Linux and FOSS, it hasn't really backed it up with significant actions that merit our trust,"

https://hub.docker.com/r/microsoft/mssql-server-linux/

https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet

https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode

https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore

https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-mic...

https://www.networkworld.com/article/3120774/open-source-too...

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/powershell-is-open-so...

What the heck more does this person want? I mean I understand that old feelings die hard but come on!

Look, I'm not a Microsoft fan and was around for evil Microsoft, but I have to roll my eyes at a lot of the reaction and panic for this whole Github purchase. Looking at the recent purchase of LinkedIn, the product hasn't changed much from the original purchase, and I don't expect Github to change that much either. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it, but I think that's a stronger argument for leaving Github than "Micro$oft is going to kill FOSS!"

A counter example is Skype. They have destroyed the reliability, and turned the app into an embarrassing toy in an attempt to push serious users towards Skype for Business. They are also basically requiring the use of the Windows App Store version, which is seriously lacking in both features and usability. A true study that MS has not changed it’s stripes that much.

This is definitely true. I think a couple things went wrong with Skype, the main problem is that it just didn't fit cleanly anywhere in their portfolio. They had some stuff that could consume it (Windows Phone needed a face to face video messenger to compete with Android/iPhone, Xbox Kinect had just came out and they could kinda put it in there, there was a need for it to maybe fit into business meeting use cases, and Live messenger usage was dwindling). These were all really different use cases and they kind of shoved it into all of them, and really broke Skype UX.

Github at (least for now) serves a clear purpose. Microsoft has been positioning itself in the developer productivity space. Right now they have Linux (some) and Windows code productivity tools (vscode and all of the Visual Studio stuff), and end services (Azure/SQL Server/Windows) but no source control or code deployment tools that anyone can speak to (TFVC and VSTS are used, not widely popular, and aren't free to use). I bet Microsoft will start integrating more of their services to use Github Enterprise, build out CI/CD features (or offering them in an online "app" store) in Github, and then continue building out their free developer toolset.

I think you should look into how shady the P2P model of Skype was and how easily super nodes could eavesdrop on other users.

It was also completely unreliable when a large chunk the user base switched to mobile messages won’t send, send out of order, would go into the limbo only to appear X days or even months later and if you were signed into multiple devices you were out of luck since if your desktop would’ve received a message while your mobile didn’t you would never see it on your mobile.

Skype died for many reasons MSFT not continuing with its botnet like network model as it’s a huge liability for them isn’t one of them.

Is Skype really dead? I still use it and it works and other people that I know use it. So, I wouldn’t really call it dead I guess.

I think it died with a certain crowd maybe.

I stopped using it even to talk to my mother who’s almost 80 everyone I know dropped it for WhatsApp and FaceTime.

Because software engineering stopped being rational and has largely become a game of emotions and marketing? If you can trust Google and Facebook, then you can trust Microsoft.

No one currently trusts either of those two with their projects, and very little in tech actually trust them with private information, their main source of revenue.

Also remember the Halloween Documents?

Google does not have the same history of hostility towards Open Source and the market in general. Microsoft continues to be adversarial to almost all players in most markets, so why would one expect them to be different here? Only those who have short memories and are not students of history.

I actually not trusting Google for source code. Have they killed theirs you know.

I'm curious if someone at MS or GitHub tipped GitLab on Saturday evening to be prepared for additional traffic. Seems like it would have been a nice thing to do.

Going by my webhooks firing upwards of 15 minutes after the git push to my (already on GitLab) repos when the migration started I'm going with no, it feels reactive rather than proactive

Any big projects that moved already? Or those thousands of repositories are dot files?

Honestly once Microsoft takes over GitHub I may migrate my GitLab / BitBucket projects to GitHub. It will not surprise me if they open source GitHub and allow private repositories to be hosted for free. They ran CodePlex for 0 profit. They can make some profit off GitHub but probably can afford not to turn it into a cash cow and thats ok for them to do because their profits will come from elsewhere. GitHub is going to be their way to ultimately give back like never before to all developers on all platforms. Disclaimer I don't work for Microsoft I just don't drink the Koolaid of blind hatred.

Yeah, you could already have private repositories for free pretty much everywhere but GitHub.

Yeah given how much they paid it’s clear they’re not intending to directly profit from Github’s sales. Allowing free private repos seems a logical step

The key issue is you cannot trust whatsoever and whosoever if they were the key cornerstone of your movement. You have to have diversity and difference shall be embedded in any movement that ultimately rely upon self independence not rely upon the mercy of a big group - Facebook, Google or Microsoft. No. Can't.

Similar to Communist China. During the first two decades in its reform, it is fine. We have hope. There is democracy. And if one shout hard enough, it let some air in and some human rights lawyer can survive.

But once it grow to the size that is no longer viable to let it go. Then dictatorship (even within their ranks) and no-freedom using IT.

We cannot wait until the Microsoft will be bad, good a bit and may turn bad. Unless we have a say and ensure that it is not the monopoly, we cannot be rest. The world is nasty and best intent may not be good enough. The structure of unity power end with bad.

Choice first. The rest can sort it out in due course.

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