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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

I got a bit of a shock when I visited https://github.com/readme/unseen-oss and it wasn't a GitHub repository, it was a custom designed page!

Not a lot of URLs on GitHub sit outside of their regular /owner/repo pattern - the only other section I can think of that does that is https://github.com/about - things like documentation tend to live on separate subdomains, like https://docs.github.com/

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I also was a bit confused, because I mistook this for coming from Readme.io, which is on GitHub at https://github.com/readmeio, and I thought about how the heck they convinced GitHub to add a custom design for their repository.

I expect Microsoft marketing to continue to do splashy, unexpected things like this as they milk the still-as-yet-trusted GitHub brand for all it's worth to expand Microsoft's control over the open source ecosystem.

The GitHub.com namespace is quite limited, though. I wonder if they had to delete or rename anyone's GitHub account or org for creating this page or if it was preserved for a long time.

According to wayback machine Sandy McMurray [0] used to own it [1], but it has been commandeered for quite some time as well [2].

[0] https://readme.tumblr.com/

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20090709114358/github.com/readme

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160218095949/github.com/readme

Exactly, what's the catch?

How does Microsoft come to own all of open-source? That's the plan, right?

VS Code becoming standard tools, alongside GitHub and NPM which they own now. This affords a tremendous amount of steering control and opportunities for lock-in. Some of the existing ones are the proprietary plugins for VSC, and GitHub Actions.

I wouldn't be surprised if they end up picking up Docker for a song now that Docker has utterly failed to find a workable revenue model. (Microsoft sponsored Docker's surprisingly-complete Windows support, IIRC.) The extremely-widely-used Docker Desktop products are already nonfree, as well as the dockerd that runs on Windows.

Ouch. What's a good docker alternative? Something with similar dockerfile semantics but can be linux only for sure.

IIRC RedHat offers podman

Presumably it's like I'm assuming Win10 is, a slow burn.

Coax people slowly over time to give up other options until there's nothing else to choose, then flick the switch and fleece them harder than hardness itself.

Based on past performance I just assume we're in an elaborate version of the 'fleece tourists with inordinate drinks bills' con trick.

#GetOffMyLawn

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