Alphabet Bets On GitLab Following Microsoft's GitHub Acquisition

[Lucian Armasu]

Alphabet backed GitLab in a new round of investment for the company, as Alphabet begins showing signs that it's worried Microsoft will not keep GitHub a neutral platform for developers.

Alphabet Bets On GitLab Following Microsoft's GitHub Acquisition : Read more

 

[ThisIsMe]

This is nothing more than Google vs. Microsoft. They are competitors. Why would Google want to pay for a service that's owned by Microsoft? Why would Google want to pay for a service that's running on Microsoft's cloud services? So Google invests a ton of $$$ in another service to offset the cost of moving to their cloud platform and to upgrade features to make them more competitive. Now they need to make that investment worth while, So here comes the anti-Microsoft campaign.

Google - "Don't use their service. They'll do nefarious things with it. And it'll give you crabs! Come over here to our new service, because we'd never exploit anyone else's open source programming endeavors by integrating them into our "free" products to squash competition and make boat loads of cash."

 

[kenjitamura]

This is nothing more than Google vs. Microsoft. They are competitors. Why would Google want to pay for a service that's owned by Microsoft? Why would Google want to pay for a service that's running on Microsoft's cloud services? So Google invests a ton of $$$ in another service to offset the cost of moving to their cloud platform and to upgrade features to make them more competitive. Now they need to make that investment worth while, So here comes the anti-Microsoft campaign.

Google - "Don't use their service. They'll do nefarious things with it. And it'll give you crabs! Come over here to our new service, because we'd never exploit anyone else's open source programming endeavors by integrating them into our "free" products to squash competition and make boat loads of cash."

I feel like in recent years Microsoft has been much less...evil, than what they were previously like and Google is certainly no saint however what Google has working for them is they have still to, yet, fall to the lowest point that Microsoft had once reached.

 

[bit_user]

This is nothing more than Google vs. Microsoft. They are competitors. Why would Google want to pay for a service that's owned by Microsoft? Why would Google want to pay for a service that's running on Microsoft's cloud services? So Google invests a ton of $$$ in another service to offset the cost of moving to their cloud platform and to upgrade features to make them more competitive.

Couple of issues with that. First, the article says Google bid against MS to buy github, which is probably why the purchase price was so astronomical. So, this move shouldn't be seen as purely reactionary.

Second, I feel like google did/does have its own site (code.google.com?), but it shared a similar fate as Google Plus - no one uses it. So, to engage the opensource community, I guess they figured you've got to meet developers on their own turf. Their gitlab investment is definitely not about saving themselves the cost of upgrading their own services.

Finally, all they really have to do against github is not screw up gitlab. There was already a mass exodus of developers and projects, when MS bought github. Too many people don't trust MS. In fact, that exodus probably ramped up gitlab's burn rate, making the need for more investment imperative.

 

[bit_user]

I feel like in recent years Microsoft has been much less...evil, than what they were previously like and Google is certainly no saint however what Google has working for them is they have still to, yet, fall to the lowest point that Microsoft had once reached.

The only thing that changed at MS is they're more embracing of OSS and Linux. Also, they stopped pushing their phone platform on a wold that doesn't want it.

But, while they might be less evil in some of their old ways, the spyware in Windows 10 should worry you about new lessons they're learning about being evil. I'd say their closest competitor is now probably Google, and they seem to have adopted much of its playbook, as well.

 

[siryes]

Similar mishandling, although not so terrible, may be discussed in case of LinkedIn. This too was acquired by Microsoft, and not all the changes on the site are welcomed ones...