All heads up for this
If Microsoft owns github … things may be scary
For every one which already suffer MS greed and how things go
that is not acceptable - heads up on what can be the outcome of this
new “owner” and all the big pocket of their hidden patent troll folks
I consider that BAD NEWS.
Paul
MS does not necessarily mean bad news. Keep calm and see how the terms of service change (if they change at all).
Regarding patent trolls: Patent trolls do not care who owns the platform that hosts the project in question. They care about what part of the project might violate a patent they own.
And in regards to that we (the kicad library) are quite save. It is just a collection of data sets not an algorithm that could fall under a patent.
Actually unfortunately, because launchpad sucs for hosting.
Github is just a service. The code is always safe because of git. If you are worried about other things like issues list etc. see for example https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/import/github.html.
When considering things related to MS - as their past history shows
There is nothing to trust in their actions.
Such amount of money invested is not for charity
They do have their own agenda which obviously is not disclosed
and obvious is not to be open source friendly
The assets in github may be the target of a large unthinkable interest
That would bear the money invested.
They manged to crap a slash in proprietary reverse-slash
The x86 BIOS into a crappy lockout “safe” feature
Even HTML into proprietary markup tags.
There is no reason to think they will do any other way.
That would justify the money dropped there.
Fortunately I (myself) have no project there
but only a 3 dozens others I use daily.
Which … I (myself) would be glad to see moved away…
Just to make sure…
Paul
The topic itself is interesting and may have some effects on some KiCad users, especially because there are Open Source enthusiasts among them and GitHub really seems to be the de facto standard for KiCad related projects. But posts full of emotional opinions about Microsoft don’t belong to this forum. It would be interesting to talk about practical issues about KiCad related GitHub projects instead, if any will arise.
My concern is the huge amount of assets deposited
on github which will now be owned by MS.
I have no emotional attach with MS, i ditched their crappy OS
by mid 90s and never used again.
The amount of money and time they costed me is irrecoverable tough
Being rid of them for such a long time gives me a far distant and non emotional opinion - fortunately
Paul
Microsoft learned the hard way that their old model is no longer sustainable. (Android and apple showed them that it is more important to have a good platform for programmers. Android especially proved to them that there is money to be made even if your operating system is completely open source. There is even talk that windows it self might be released as open source in the future.)
And the current panic is a bit early. (The news is just out) Most people just do not like change.
We really need to wait and see what MS wants to achieve with github. Will there be changes? Well of course. Will these be bad for users of github? Maybe.
But there is a decent chance it will be better than any alternative. (Github like a lot of cloud services lost money in the last few years. It was only a matter of time till they go bankrupt or be bought by somebody with enough money to keep it alive even if it looses money. So lets be happy they have not been bought by the likes of google or FB.)
I think watching is the correct thing for now.
Nevertheless, it should be at least considered to move in the future to Gitlab for example. Numerous projects do that right now (GNOME and Freedesktop for example), and it would be some way to get all parts of KiCad into a single place (Yes, I talk about Launchpad and the current way of handling patches).
In the long run, adding KiCad support into Gitlab could be a game changer for open hardware projects (visualize symbols/footprints and doing diffs). This would be not possible in a closed-source platform.
That logo creeps and freaks me out
so until the end of the year … my hope is to see
the dozens projects I rely upon daily to move out
for a better (safer) hosting
Paul
That amount of money is certainly bearing an undisclosed agenda
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-7.5-Billion-GitHub
I forget exactly which M$ owned entity, but I think it was hotmail? when they tried to sneak into the terms of service they owned everything that transversed the system. M$ has a history of taking other peoples ideas and incorporating it into their software. Look for them to start mining Github for ideas at the minimum.
A good link… but I could not pass the 3rd slide.
It reminded me the late 80s when some folk with almost
EXACT SAME PHRASE says:
“One computer in each house in the world” (w/ a road as background)
Needless to say the sub lines: “as long as that computer is MS”
which became clear through the 90s 00s …
and all media and medium property is MS either
from 3rd slide is critical - it resumes everything else
mostly the non public agenda (with that smileeee faces)
Paul
I hope MS buys Linux next time. Maybe then, 2019 will be finally The Year of Linux On The Desktop 
Tom
Unfortunately, github was losing money, so without a buyer would probably have gone bust. I expect Microsoft to ruin github, they have to get something for their $7.5 billion, and that means finding ways to monetize the platform, that means ads, having to create an appstore account to use it, pushing MS cloud services.
There is a bad precedent, which is what happened to Thingiverse with Makerbot.
Currently, github don’t own any of the hosted content, but they have rights to use the data in providing their service. They probably also have the right to “change terms of use any time they like”, so they could decide to use your data in ways you don’t want.
No need to panic yet, but Microsoft’s track record of ruining things is quite long. I think they forgot how it was to be a developer in the '80s, since then they are just a corporate money machine. Their ethos is really the exact opposite to the typical FOSS developer,
EXACTLY! Just look at MS DOS, nothing more that a plagiarized tape OS followed by Windows , nothing more than a graphic interfaced to a poor attempt at a disc operating system! I spent the past 12 yrs working in an IT dept. trying to get my head around Windowzzzz before i retired. MS is just about making money , period!
Interesting comment, & how will they go about buying an open source operating system?
