GITHUB NOW ACQUIRED BY MICROSOFT
Microsoft is paying $ 7.5 billion for the popular coder hangout GitHub as the maker of Windows further embraces the types of open- source projects it used to shun.
CEO Satya Nadella said the all- stock deal pairs Microsoft with the “world’s leading software development platform,” a destination where developers around the world go to share and review each other’s code.
As Microsoft built its business on proprietary software such as the Windows operating system, it came to be seen as an antagonist to the open- source philosophy of free software written by a collaborative community of developers. The company has been working for years to shed that reputation, especially after Nadella took over in 2014.
This is not the first time Microsoft has bought into a community. Its biggest- ever deal was its $ 27 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016. GitHub, a San Francisco startup, was founded in 2008 and has grown sharply since announcing its first outside investment in 2012. It now counts about 28 million software developers around the world who use it to share code and build businesses. Microsoft said GitHub will retain its “developerfirst ethos,” operate independently and rem ain an open platform. The deal is expected to close this year.
It’s free to use GitHub for open- source projects, but some developers and businesses pay a monthly fee to access private code repositories and other services. Nadella said developers can still use whatever programming languages and operating systems they choose for their projects.