But if you want to take it seriously: You might not be able to buy Linux but you could definitely buy a distribution. So for example if MS would acquire Red Hat they would then own Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well. (And all the contributions by Red Hat to the kernel. Meaning the kernel can then never change the license without consent by MS. Even if they make no further contributions.)
Luckily the GPL prevents them from simply taking over the source code. The worst they can to is stop contributing.
Github is already monetized. You get more features if you pay for it. (And yes it is not enough. Currently they loose a few million dollars a year. That’s the reason they have sold the platform.)
I don’t see it as dark as you do. We really need to wait and see how their therms of service change. (Remember they have to ask every developer if they agree to the change. If you do not like the change you can then move your data to a different platform.)
I think in the long therm we (users) have two options. Either we accept that we pay for the service or we accept that we are the product. (The current bubble regarding cloud services will burst at some point in the future.)
I am more concerned about intelligence agencies than MS here. And they do not need to own the platform to achieve that. (simplest way is manipulate the elliptic curve used for one standard pseudo random generator. Or simply do not publish a cropto analytically tool you have. See the differential analysis they clearly had when they designed DES.)
And to be honest you do not really need to actively introduce backdoors in most software. I heard really well educated people in charge of security critical applications say that you can simply set the nonce of a stream cipher to 0. (Hint: No that makes the cipher easily attack able. There is a reason it is called nonce and not constant.)
The kernel as a whole is under GPL. There is no way to get parts of it licensed differently. (As far as i know GPL would not allow that.)
Of course a kernel module can have a different license. (See for example the proprietary graphics drivers.)
I would say wait a bit and see what they want to do. MS wants github alive and well. (otherwise they would not have bought it.)
They should be aware that a stupid move can result in destroying the platform. (See sorceforge) So i doubt they will do something really stupid.
A small project can easily switch to a different platform. A large project like the kicad libraries take a lot of manpower to achieve this. (And we will loose contributions along the way.)
Right now there is no evidence that MS will make github unusable for our purposes so there is no need to switch right away.
The infringments for android are not about the kernel but mostly about the software that is above the kernel.
And you do not need to own the platform to sue linux for patent infringements. (So owning github has nothing to do with that.)
git is a distributed version control system. To get rid of any repo you would need to delete it on every users system first. I also doubt that MS would ever delete repos. (That would destroy their valuable asset quite quickly.) Unless the repo in question contains illegal data. (Copyrighted material, or something worse.)
Recommend reading the whole thing but the shorter version is that there aren’t many other options. They needed funds and the only reasonable options (discounting unicorns) would be another round of VC, an IPO, or being bought out. They pretty much have exhausted the VC bucket and an IPO takes a long time. So, sell.
Not many fairy godmothers out there so the list of potential buyers isn’t that large. Read the article but it may be that being bought out by MS is the least bad option.
I am by no means a Microsoft supporter, but I would hesitate to use Android as an example of good engineering (same goes for Arduino). Both have opened the doors to inexperienced designers to have input into systems that many people have now come to rely on. Both are very difficult to debug.
interesting reading - if only money would account it would explain…
But that other consideration justify any fear as well
The irony of GitHub, as pointed out by Benjamin Mako Hill,
Assistant professor at the University of Washington's Department
of Communications, in a May 22 keynote at the OpenDev conference,
co-located with OpenStack Summit in Vancouver, is that GitHub, has
actually done the opposite of what Torvalds originally intended for Git.
Git was created as a way of escaping the reliance of a proprietary
software company running a centralized service and in many ways
GitHub has created many of the problems that get was created
to solve, Hill said.
Hill argued that although GitHub began initially as a website to host
git repositories, it is now a large proprietary service. He noted that GitHub
has its' own terms of service and a user can be kicked of the service at any
time. Hill's overall message, was that open-source software should be built
with free tools.
Usually git is smart enough (or github is smart enough?) to be able to clone directly from the main url of one of the many repositories, but even adding a --recursive does not help here
How many Jigga Bytes would you get if that command would clone all (accessible) projects on github?
Edit:
http is one of the many protocols natively supported by git, so no trickery from github required.
The difference between (profesionally written) open source software and commercial software is that the open source sw is written to be usefull, and commercial software only the part that makes the most money is implemented. There is a large overlap between these two, but they are not the same.
For example on the level of interoperability these 2 often conflict. Open source CAD software tends to support lots of file formats, while the commercial sw used to only support their own proprietary format.
Why would MS buy GitHub that make losses every year ?
The “EULA” gives them access and 100% right to use anything in GitHub, which means give free access to all software and the possibility to fork,
Promote and tighten the bond between MS visual studio, MS cloud service and GitHub.
You could compare it to purchase of Skype, Why buy skype? Well, to get access to the user database.
The technology is less important, essential IP hole punching, the community was by far more valuable.
To MS’s Defence I have to point out the two good things they made, creating C# and got ride of Ballmer.
And as Ballmer said recently about his war on open source for 10-15 years ago compared to MS position today, it does not matter that MS changed position today compared to then, MS did tons of money because of my crusade.
I foresee something like this:
Buying github will give them illicit access to all private repositories on github.
(Or they simply change the eula to give themself “legal” acces to those repositories).
Then they run some scripts to comb out any possible patent infringements, give that info to their patent lawyers which obfuscate the source of the info by creating plausible other path by which they could have gotten that info and they get there 9 billion back with profit from the lawsuits, which all will get settled out of court and do not reach the news and will not put any blemish on Microsofts impeccable shiny surface.
That’s just so untrue. Please, check out the facts before spreading FUD.
EDIT: althgouh it’s true in very limited sense, it certainly doesn’t mean they can use the projects however they like.
