> Meanwhile, I'd really like for people to stop hating Microsoft just because "Microsoft"
Why is that? Why should people forget how evil MS was and still is?
Why is that? Why should people forget how evil MS was and still is?
I'm not asking for that, but making wild baseless predictions of how the service will go to shitter or how suddenly all private code will be ripped off and "I'm going to gitlab now, because Microsoft sucks!" is not part of a healthy discussion.
I do have some privacy concerns but they're no less than when Github was not owned by an enterprise software company; If anything I'd be more concerned about privacy if it were Google or Facebook making this acquisition.
The problem is deeper than that though. Unless you were developing an Editor or a Git hosting service, you were not in direct competition with GitHub. Suddenly a lot of startups will find their private code hosted by a direct competitor. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I was them.
Not that because it happens, it is nice; but at-least at this point the source code access concern is more of a conspiracy theory if anything.
While it's not a complete 1-1 mapping, I keep thinking of Stac Electronics disk compression lawsuit against MS when it comes to handling source code:
To be honest, even with regards to private repos, I can't see Microsoft reading the source code because that would be a massive law case waiting to happen. What I'm more concerned about is Microsoft trying to integrate more of their own suite into Github. I'm also concerned about the future of Atom; which I specifically chose over VSC because it wasn't managed by Microsoft.
MGS did right by Bungie/Halo circa XBox; though Halo hadn't yet been released, and it's initial fanbase were all Marathon fans.
It knows what these things are. If it wants to stop doing them, then I'm happy to use some of its products. Until then, I'm going to gitlab now, because Microsoft sucks!
But they're not baseless predictions, they're based on past information and it tells us it would be prudent to minimize reliance of Github sooner rather than later.
All I need do to have concern about this acquisition is look to last year. https://archive.codeplex.com/
How long before they get bored of github then? Codeplex wasn't as good or popular as github, but did seem to have many valid reasons for existence if you were Windows focused. So they killed it.
If the company that ships OS with preinstalled, hidden keyloggers (using that as a pars pro toto) acquires the platform I host my code on, that's not a basis on which to be concerned?
If it's the first, that's not exactly Microsoft's fault, in the same way it's not exactly Mocrosoft's fault that if you buy a Dell it might come with McAfee preinstalled.
Although, it could be argued that if the driver was verified, perhaps they should extend their verified driver program to cover that instead of just crash protection. Then again, since the arguments here are centered around not trusting Microsoft with your source code, I can see why they may not require that...
https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-speech-inking...
Because this isn't slashdot.
However knee jerk responses are today out of line with MSFTs behavior and actual ability.
Simply they are anti-objective and inefficient in discussing current reality.
Also, not getting convicted isn’t a very high bar.
All large global corporations are constantly involved in legal battles, because that's how conflicts are resolved in our society. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose and are convicted. Quite often they settle before they are convicted. That's not the difference between good and evil.
Microsoft took the view that they could bundle IE with Windows and that they could license Windows to PC manufacturers on an exclusive basis. A US court decided that given their market share they were not allowed to do that.
Google is in a similar bundling conflict now with the European Union. So far Google has lost and they may or may not ultimately lose before the European Court of Justice. Or they may settle before it comes to that.
In 2015 Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe were caught trying to keep wages down by agreeing not to poach each others' employees. They paid $415 million to settle that case.
Please look up [Company Name] litigation on Wikipedia and you will find countless cases of large companies being convicted for something or settling this or that case.
Is any of this evil? That is a question everyone has to answer for themselves in each particular case, because "evil" is a moral term. The simple fact of losing a legal battle does not qualify as evil according to my moral compass.
I'm not interested in doing business with any company that has the track record of acquiring and killing as many products as they have. I've personally lost useful tools to them on multiple occasions and I don't use MS software for anything more than I'm forced to on provided hw for my employment.
My one Win10 laptop experience was enough to tell me that MS is still untrustworthy when it comes to forcing behavior on users.
If my work situation ever shifts enough to allow a Linux machine, I'll happily never look back.