Microsoft Buys GitHub, Community Not Happy
American tech giant Microsoft confirmed on Monday that it is buying GitHub, a web-based code repository, popular with developers, for USD 7.5 billion in stock. GitHub was valued at USD 2 billion in its last funding round in 2015. However, the crypto community is not very happy with these news: they believe Microsoft will ruin GitHub. (Updated first and second paragraphs, GMT 2:50 PM).
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement, “Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation. We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges.”
According to people familiar with the matter, GitHub preferred selling the company to going public and chose Microsoft partially because it was impressed by the CEO, Bloomberg reported. He was moving Microsoft away from its dependence on the Windows operating system, instead investing in open-source technology – an approach that threatened Microsoft’s business model. The deal could even be announced today.
The crypto community did not take well this deal. Most crypto projects are hosted on GitHub for the community to tinker with, or at least have some insight into it.
On the subreddit r/cryptocurrency the news was met with comments such as “I’d rather they keep their grubby paws off it.” and “This is sh*tty. We do not need another great project to be absorbed by an another large reckless company…”
People still did not lose their trademark sense of humor, full of biting sarcasm: “The Linux Foundation will just launch HitGub and everyone will use that instead,” commented one user, referencing Linux being a favorite among those who categorically refuse to use Microsoft products. Another writes, “I guess someone’s gonna have to fork GitHub then.”
