Microsoft's Acquisition of GitHub

Holy crap!

It's come to my attention that Microsoft is in the process of buying GitHub for USD 7.5 million. Like, why? Wasn't LinkedIn, Skype and Nokia enough?

Apparently not.

GitHub, within the software development industry, needs no introduction. It is a code repository company and service which developers use to store their code online. The service is free, as long as users adhere to open-source conditions.

What could Microsoft want with GitHub?

Microsoft buying over GitHub would seem an odd move considering that Microsoft hasn't exactly endeared itself to the open-source community since 2003. On the other hand, it's been over ten years, and things change just like that. Perhaps Microsoft has gone with the inevitable and embraced open-source. Hey, stranger things have happened.

Developers could be forgiven for thinking this is bad news. After all, Microsoft is pretty much synonymous with the word "proprietary", which in layman's terms, means, "you use my stuff, you pay for it". Which actually sounds pretty reasonable in any context outside of software development.

Perhaps Microsoft has finally cottoned on to the fact that a sizeable chunk of the world's developers, perhaps even a staggering majority,  all benefit regularly from open-source code. And that hoarding shit might have been the way to go in the past, but is looking ridiculously outdated now. A move like this, properly done, could go a long way in restoring some measure of trust and respect.

Or, Microsoft might have simply decided now that so many developers are depending on GitHub, a really profitable dick move would be to take over GitHub and start charging fees. Which is pretty much what many developers are thinking. This is silly because while GitHub could possibly be the world's most popular code repository, it's still one code repository out of many. Finding an alternative, for cheap bastards like myself, isn't that big a deal.

Does this mean GitHub is no longer free?

Well, this was one of the reasons we all loved it, right? It enabled us to share our code with the world, collaborate with each other, and lowered the barrier to entry. You didn't need to buy a lot of expensive software or attend expensive courses just to learn how to code.

In order to provide the service to us free, the assumption was that GitHub probably could afford it. But in the evidence of its impending sale to Microsoft, maybe not. You see, this could be the case of GitHub going the way of Uber. Uber was giving ultra-cheap cab rides to users without turning a profit (To this day, I'm pretty sure Uber still hasn't turned a profit yet) in return for a huge consumer base, popularity and a supreme level of visibility. But these things aren't sustainable, and at some point the buck has to stop somewhere.

Perhaps GitHub has reached that point, though no one can argue it hasn't achieved the same things Uber has, albeit within the software development community. GitHub has played quite a central role in software development over the years. 

Microsoft says that GitHub will remain free for use, and it has no plans to change that. I'm gonna have to reserve judgement on that one.

Will you be deleting your GitHub account, or migrating your code?

What, to prevent the eventuality of Microsoft abusing their power to snoop through my code and steal it?

Dude, my code is really basic. It's there for anyone who wants to use it, but honestly, it's so rudimentary that I'd be flattered if someone wanted to grab it. So, unless your code is so revolutionary and life-changing that tech giants like Microsoft must never get their hands on it, I'd suggest staying put.

That's it for now. Git outta here!
T___T