By now I’m sure you’ve all heard of Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock. This is a hugely successful exit for GitHub, and another interesting pickup for Microsoft.
Unfortunately I can’t find the tweet anymore, but I appreciated what I saw someone say about GitHub, in that it is a successful exit for a company that’s been in business for 10 years, never did any selling of data or other stuff that’s unbecoming. They just built a great product, allowed open projects to use it for free, and created reasonable upsells for an outstanding paid product. That’s impressive, and good for them.
I highly doubt this will dramatically affect the way GitHub operates. While I’m happy for GitLab to receive an influx of new users over the news, I think GitHub will be just fine with this transition. If you do want to read about the potential conflicts Microsoft will face, Wired presents some of Microsoft’s potential ethical quandaries.
