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Comment by brennebeck | Hacker News Reader

How so? As far as I can tell there’s no evidence of that? I mean, I get MSFT’s past, but for quite some time they’ve shown they support OSS and developers in general. I haven’t seen any change in GitHub and MSFT, in general, has become much more supportive of OSS efforts.

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Not the OP, speaking for myself.

I guess the thing that concerns me (not speaking for anyone else) has largely been the (admittedly late) realization that Github can be bought.

I had, for some indiscernible reason, thought of Github as this near-benevolent entity that existed exclusively to facilitate open-source and distribute Octocat stickers. When they were purchased by one of the largest megacorporations on the planet, it pulled-back the curtain, and showed that, no, they are a for-profit business, not a charity.

I shouldn't have thought that way, but I did, and as a result the MS-buying-Github thing has not sat well with me.

Fair enough; I understand that point of view, and even had it myself, to some degree. But I also think that has little to do with MSFT. The same would be said if SF, or Amazon, or (insert any other large corp) would have bought them.

I also think GitHub, essentially, positioned themselves that way. However, that, if viewed a bit cynically, could easily be seen as just marketing or PR.

Oh, I don't know that I made this entirely clear, but I'm not saying that this is MS's FAULT necessarily. I agree, if Amazon or Google had purchased Github, it would have been the same thing.

I think the slight difference is that MS does have a history of shitting all over open-source software (Ballmer famously said Linux was cancer years ago). While I'm aware that companies change people all the time, it's unsurprising that some people get a little bit uneasy about them owning the largest distributor of open-source.

Yup, I definitely agree. And rereading your original comment I think it’s fairly clear and I probably just misconstrued your intent: /any/ large corp buying GitHub would’ve resulted in a similar reaction and it’s just a bit stronger given some of MSFT’s history.

I mean, it’s not that difficult to make the case that their support of OSS over the last decade was specifically to buy developers’ goodwill, though I don’t think that’s the case and think GitHub was headed this way anyhow.

a16z invested $100MM in Github (when they did not need the money) to help Github become the dominant "OSS Social Network". a16z was always going to want a return on that investment. Prior to their acquisition, Github was pursuing the enterprise market.

Yeah, I'll admit that my mentality was flawed and short-sighted. Developer-time isn't free, of course they need a way of making money. I don't even blame the investors or Github for the acquisition; if I were in their shoes of course I would do the same thing.

On one hand, I think the history is enough to be highly skeptical of MS: how many times does someone have to show you who they are before you believe it?

But that aside, I don't see how any corporation should be trusted to host such a large percentage of OSS. Whether it's a year from now or 10 years from now, what do you expect to happen when Microsoft's material interests cease to align with supporting OSS? Do you think they will subvert their own interests in the support of some "greater good"? Given the history of how corporations behave, I think that would be very unlikely.

I think your second point is really the crux of the matter. Even an independent GitHub controls far too much of the ecosystem. There’s really no way around that in the current situation. Had they followed a similar path as Gitlab, we might not be having this discussion (regardless of an acquisition). Sourceforge is an obvious point here.

> how many times does someone have to show you who they are before you believe it?

It's dangerous to anthropomorphise corporations (or nations). Yes, corporate culture is sticky but you can more easily change a corporate culture by a radical demographics change both at the base and at the top, and redesigning the incentives.

That goes both ways and it's why you cannot have inherently "good" corporations either (no matter what their positive track record is).

You're absolutely right, and I was probably being a bit too poetic in my wording. What I mean to say more precisely is: when a corporation has a documented history of using benevolence to acquire market share, and then leveraging that market share to pivot in an anti-competitive, anti-consumer direction, then it is more rational to approach their new-found benevolence with skepticism rather than optimism.

> but for quite some time they’ve shown they support OSS and developers in general.

I would be hesitant to describe a single CEO's tenure as enough time.

How much time would be considered enough? I’m not disagreeing, just an honest question. Would it need to be 50% of the company’s life, rather than ~11%? 25%?

My semi-facetious answer to this case is "The time span of 3 Microsoft post-Ballmer CEOs." The first CEO to implement open source (Nadella), the second to continue the strategy, and the third to prove the second CEO wasn't a fluke!

The honest answer is at best I can forgive their bad behaviour. But I'll never forget it.

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