In case you have been following the rumour about Microsoft reportedly buying Github, well it is all true. Business Insider first reported about Microsoft’s interest which was later confirmed by Bloomberg that the software giant has agreed to acquire Github. The official statement though rolled out a few hours ago.
Founded 10 years ago, Github today is the most popular web-based code hosting service for version control using git. Everyone from individual software developers to big tech giants use it to host their codebase and documentation and work on it collaboratively. Github has a huge presence amongst the open source community as it provides a social coding platform for anyone to pitch in.
Microsoft led by Satya Nadella has been investing a lot on open source technology. Microsoft has open-sourced PowerShell, Visual Studio Code and Java Script engine on the Microsoft Edge. They have also partnered with Canonical to bring Ubuntu libraries on Windows 10. Apart from all of this, they have been using Git a lot for their projects and apparently, Microsoft is the top contributor on the site with 1000 active users pushing code to their repositories on Github.
Microsoft acquiring Github changes a lot of dynamics about how its users will perceive the platform. Obviously we can expect a closer integration of the code-hosting service with Microsoft development tools. Microsoft will also encourage the use of its cloud service and other products bundling an easier workflow in the software lifecycle.
Owning all of that codebase seems a bit skeptical to me with direct access to all of the work done by millions of developers, working at millions of companies. We aren’t sure what would be the fate of GitHub after the acquisition but it won’t die. It’s hard to imagine Microsoft rebranding GitHub because of its market share but let’s see what Microsoft has planned for its latest acquisition. Microsoft spending their money on open source technology should ideally lead to a promising future but it also creates an opportunity for a dominant player in the industry.
For those who wish to move out, there is Atlassian’s Bitbucket and Gitlab which are already serving a lot of projects already. Head over to their websites, create an account and move your projects.
