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Comment by ch_123 | Hacker News Reader

Given Microsoft's ownership of Github, I suspect it's inevitable. If anything, I'm surprised that it hasn't already happened.

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There is no point in killing something which is already dead.

You will only get bad press. Much easier to let it rot.

There's plenty of point. Rotted projects are bad press.

That sounds like something you wish is true, not a reality. I can't think of a project left to rot that got notable bad press, but I can think of tons of cancelled ones that left sour tastes in people's mouths. From a brand perspective, rot is 100% the right call.

Google AppEngine (python variant) has been rotting forever. It's still stuck on Python 2 and has received no API improvements.

1. That doesn't mean killing it is worse, and I'd go as far as to say this case is objectively better to let rot. Imagine the outrage and brand stink that would create for Google, who is already known for killing things liberally, in a product space that is focused on longterm reliability. By letting it rot, people who deployed and are just leaving on autopilot don't have to do anything, and GCP offers lots of alternatives that can use Python 3.

2. Bad product management / development speed seems to be the case here, not rot or killing, as it seems it's actually not stuck on Python 2 anymore, or for long [1]

3. Even if neither of the two things above were true, I have seen no bad press on GCP due to this, and I'm a heavy GCP user, though just not in this niche. I've used Python cloud functions as well as GAE though.

[1] https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/python3

That is typical Microsoft though, they won't shutdown the plug, but will stop talking about it, you won't see any references anywhere and eventually everyone moves away.

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