On 20/08/2021 11:45, Jim Henderson wrote:
> (But yes, Microsoft does now own Github)

Which is a good thing, in a way. While I'm not a great fan of Microsoft, 
they do seem to be keeping their fingers out of interfering with github, 
which makes perfect sense when you think of it.

Some of us will remember the time that SourceForge was the place for 
open-source projects to host public repositories, and will also know 
what happened when SF got sold to someone who didn't really care about 
software but just wanted to make a quick buck regardless of the damage done.

They started used techniques such as dark design patterns to trick 
people who just wanted to download the latest version of, say, GIMP to 
instead download something else entirely (I know of a few people who got 
trapped by this and ended up with PUP's on their systems). They even 
went as far as wrapping some projects legitimate installer inside their 
*own* installer which would install junkware before running the 'real' 
installer.

These tactics quickly *nuked* sourceforge's reputation and developers 
abandoned the site in droves. It has never recovered from this (and 
never will, even though it's under new ownership).

See 
https://www.howtogeek.com/218764/warning-don%E2%80%99t-download-software-from-sourceforge-if-you-can-help-it/

if you're interested in more background on what happened to SF.

Now someone may wonder how this relates to a discussion about GitHub and 
its ownership, and my answer is that it relates a *lot*. GitHub isn't 
unique; it's not created or run by the makers of Git. it's just a 
open-source software hosting site - like SourceForge is/was.

Microsoft bought it because they saw it as a good investment as it had 
become a popular destination for OSS projects and their own OSS host 
(CodePlex) wasn't doing nearly as well (and in fact they since shut it 
down).

GitHub (and sites like it) lives and breathes on its *reputation*. While 
it has some neat features (like build automation) the basic technology 
(Git) is portable and as such there's not a lot preventing a project 
just moving somewhere else. Microsoft are well aware of that fact and 
would have to be insane to do anything that would jeopardize their $7bn 
investment in GitHub as almost all of that value is tied up in 'good will'.

Just as importantly they're *also* so cashed up they they are unlikely 
to ever say "we need a few extra dollars, let's sell GitHub" - meaning 
GH is unlikely to ever end up in the hands of anyone who wants to make a 
quick buck regardless of the damage done to the reputation of the site 
(which is what happened to SourceForge).

-- Chris

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