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Comment by natmaster | Hacker News Reader

Steve Ballmer is no longer CEO. Companies are run by people - they are not people.

And what makes you think 1) company culture is no longer a thing and 2) that microsoft won't swing back towards being openly hostile or worse, 'secretly hostile' towards open source software when someone else is at the healm?

I hope time will prove me wrong, but this acquisition is literally the 'embrace' phase of E3. Next comes the 'extend'.

Microsoft has shown themselves to be very pro-open-source in the last 5+ years. Just look at things like VS Code. Microsoft is just the Nickelback of software, its cool to hate on them for no real reason (any more).

Why would they acquire github just to turn on it and run it into the ground? You can do that if your users are locked-in or maybe you have a competing service but neither are the case here; there are numerous alternatives and it's pretty easy to switch, as we are already seeing. If they have anything but good intentions this would be just a giant waste of time/money.

I’m personally worried that they might do it unintentionally. They seem to be very good at mismanaging and fucking up all their mainstream products.

They did it with Skype. They don't have good but rather business minded intentions or how to make money from a product. This can change the product for the worse or at least for another audience (business users).

Lets rephrase that shall we "Why would they acquire Nokia just to turn on it and run it into the ground?"

It doesn't need malice but Microsoft have a talent for this kind of thing

The mobile hardware division of Nokia had been heading this way for a long time - I have no idea why they went through with that. Is it fair to say all Microsoft's attempts at hardware (except XBOX) have failed?

The other example would be the Kin phone. A feature complete working phone that Microsoft decided needed to be rewritten from scratch to use the Windows Mobile / Phone stack

It took 18 months and nearly $1B to rewrite only to find the market had moved on. Canned and written off

I can imagine a situation where Microsoft thinks that GitHub would benefit from being re-implemented using Microsoft tech. Rewriting in APS.net, using Microsoft Login, integration with Office 365. The whole enchilada :)

It would take years, cost billions and, at best, deliver exactly the same experience as GitHub today

Worse case would be that GitHub stagnates during the rewrite as the alternatives spend their time and money developing new features

People can decide who to work for. If they go to a company they probably like how it is when they join it, at least a little bit.

I was contacted by a recruiting firm for an interview in Microsoft, probably in the 90s or maybe in the early 2000s. I answered no thanks.

Of course they can, but this decision is based mostly on money. Most of the time, people would just pick the company that would offer them more.

Do you believe that on Mr Ballmer's last day he put the company culture into a box along with some desk plants and framed photos and walked out of the building with it?

Company culture doesn't transform within a few years.

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