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Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:53 pm
by Vezzra
I'm sure all of you (that is, all of you that use github) have seen the notification displayed on github recently, about Microsoft acquiring github.

Link to github blog entry on this: https://blog.github.com/2018-06-04-github-microsoft/
Link to Satya Nadella's statement on this: https://blogs.microsoft.com/?p=52553832

I'm a bit curious how you guys feel about these news. TBH, I'm not exactly thrilled. When companies like MS take over things, the results can be questionable (or worse). I really wonder what this will mean for the github platform, especially long term, and if that might negatively affect projects like ours...

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 1:05 pm
by adrian_broher
> I'm a bit curious how you guys feel about these news.

Good for them I guess...

> TBH, I'm not exactly thrilled.

Why? Do you listen to the 80% trolling, 10% fanatics and 5% reasonable critiques on $(arbitary tech "news" page) and associated comment sections?

From the two news this week I consider the "Apple deprecates OpenGL on OSX" the more concerning one for this project.

> I really wonder what this will mean for the github platform, especially long term, and if that might negatively affect projects like ours...

Any migration with Git is way easier than with SVN. Fetch the latest status, add a remote to the new hosted git repository, push to that remote. The limiting factor here is really the speed of your internet, not any work required to get the repository from your hoster.

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 1:08 pm
by Ophiuchus
For FO i think this doesnt matter much, i think its not so hard to migrate the repo and build to other alternatives when it makes sense. So wait and see.

Only real risk i see is if microsoft suddenly closes github, and everybody has to move at the same time. Maybe other alternatives get overloaded. Maybe it makes sense to reserve a freeorion account on another repo in advance to be sure its there when it's needed.

Else github without MS was certainly more trustworthy than github with MS. At least certainty will be gone for a while, as github's priorities will change.

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 1:34 pm
by Ophiuchus
adrian_broher wrote:From the two news this week I consider the "Apple deprecates OpenGL on OSX" the more concerning one for this project.
Ugh. Is it about time for gigi on html5-canvas?

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 1:52 pm
by Vezzra
adrian_broher wrote:Why? Do you listen to the 80% trolling, 10% fanatics and 5% reasonable critiques on $(arbitary tech "news" page) and associated comment sections?
Nope, this is based solely on past experiences with the Redmond guys (and their products). My primary source for tech news is the German magazine "c't", btw. ;)

In my "Who made me pull my hairs most often" hall of fame MS firmly holds the top position. Although Apple starts to catch up... :evil:
From the two news this week I consider the "Apple deprecates OpenGL on OSX" the more concerning one for this project.
Ugh, that must have slipped my notice. Yep, that's certainly a lot more worrisome. Seriously, what kind of obnoxious, dickhead move is that supposed to be?! Apple is getting increasingly annoying... :(
Any migration with Git is way easier than with SVN. Fetch the latest status, add a remote to the new hosted git repository, push to that remote. The limiting factor here is really the speed of your internet, not any work required to get the repository from your hoster.
I'm less worried about migrating the repo to another collaboration platform in case such a move becomes necessary (for the reasons you pointed out). My concern is the loss of all the "metadata": the discussions in the comment sections, the issue and PR trackers, etc. Not insurmountable, and it won't outright kill us if we loose some of these informations, but still a lot of work and difficulties I'd prefer not to have to deal with...

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 1:54 pm
by Vezzra
Ophiuchus wrote:Ugh. Is it about time for gigi on html5-canvas?
Please, you shouldn't joke about things like that... ;)

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 2:05 pm
by adrian_broher
Vezzra wrote:My primary source for tech news is the German magazine "c't", btw. ;)
Der Kommentar bezog sich explizit auf Heise(.de) und Golem. Wa die dort für einen Dreck schreiben geht einfach nicht mehr klar.

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 2:27 pm
by Vezzra
adrian_broher wrote:Der Kommentar bezog sich explizit auf Heise(.de) und Golem. Wa die dort für einen Dreck schreiben geht einfach nicht mehr klar.
Oh, verstehe. Naja, auf die Heise Homepage bzw. deren Foren schau ich praktisch nie, ich lese nur die Print-Ausgabe. U.a. aus den von dir genannten Gründen - was man da so in den Kommentaren lesen kann, ist idR eher unterirdisch. Zeitverschwendung.

Nicht, daß die Kommentar-Sektionen der meisten anderen IT-Seiten (und solchen, die es gerne wären) viel besser sind...

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 6:14 pm
by o01eg
Vezzra wrote:I'm less worried about migrating the repo to another collaboration platform in case such a move becomes necessary (for the reasons you pointed out). My concern is the loss of all the "metadata": the discussions in the comment sections, the issue and PR trackers, etc. Not insurmountable, and it won't outright kill us if we loose some of these informations, but still a lot of work and difficulties I'd prefer not to have to deal with...
At least it possible to export all this metadata as json via Guthub API.

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:38 pm
by Dilvish
o01eg wrote:At least it possible to export all this metadata as json via Guthub API.
Would you by any chance have time to explore using something like https://github.com/josegonzalez/python-github-backup to make weekly (or perhaps even more often, I'm not sure how big the download would be) snapshot backups of our issues, PRs and related discussions? At least until the acquisition actually completes and things settle down enough to us to be somewhat confident of what service MS would actually be continuing to provide?

I would rather not trust MS to keep that API functionality, nor to give us advance notice of it going down.

Re: Microsoft is acquiring GitHub

Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 4:26 am
by o01eg
Dilvish wrote:
o01eg wrote:At least it possible to export all this metadata as json via Guthub API.
Would you by any chance have time to explore using something like https://github.com/josegonzalez/python-github-backup to make weekly (or perhaps even more often, I'm not sure how big the download would be) snapshot backups of our issues, PRs and related discussions? At least until the acquisition actually completes and things settle down enough to us to be somewhat confident of what service MS would actually be continuing to provide?

I would rather not trust MS to keep that API functionality, nor to give us advance notice of it going down.
As I see the script has a incremental backup support so it shouldn't be big burden to call it frequently.

Not sure if MS could close API but the script uses old REST API instead of actual GraphQL.