Pages with tag Microsoft

Github buys npm: Might cause more angst about npm as de-facto package manager for Node.js? From the beginning of Node.js, npm has been a faithful companion providing useful package management service to the Node.js community. Node.js would not have risen so high without a good package manager, and npm served that role. By rights we should celebrate that Github is buying npm since a big question mark about npm has its level of funding. But - it raises a big question mark about the continued independence of the npm registry once it falls into the clutches of a big corporation (Microsoft owns Github).
Microsoft announces readiness to join OpenJDK project, any sign of Hell Freezing Over? Today Microsoft sent an email to the primary mailing list of the OpenJDK project making an announcement many thought would never happen. That Microsoft is ready to contribute work to the OpenJDK project. Those of us with long enough memory recall the turmoil in the software industry because of Microsoft's predatory approach to Java nearly twenty years ago. In recent years Microsoft has had a huge change of policy, and is now readily working with all kinds of open source projects. That Microsoft is willing to join the OpenJDK project is a grand step forward, and is incredibly welcomed.
Microsoft is buying Github, the end of the world?

Invoking memories of The Empire Strikes Back when Lando Calrissian warns everyone in his city that the Empire has taken over, I awoke this morning to news that Microsoft is buying Github. Microsoft has long been the arch enemy of open source advocates like myself. But the irony in this is that I'm a happy user of Microsoft's Visual Studio Code, and am using that editor to write this post. Truth is that Microsoft is seeming to be changing for the better.

Microsoft throws its patent library behind Linux, not quite open-sourcing its patents As a software developer coming of age in the 1980s, Microsoft was the enemy. During the 1990s I worked for three companies that died or nearly died because Microsoft yawned and stretched its arms a little bit. Microsoft was brutal about dominating the PC market with its operating systems, and software developers chafed under their restrictions. But, something shifted, and over the last few years Microsoft got the open source religion. The various actions Microsoft has taken should make us all rethink labeling Microsoft as the enemy. Today Microsoft has pivoted its strategy around patents. Where Microsoft was formerly threatening the open source world with its patent pool, Microsoft has now joined the Open Invention Network, a multi-company patent pool that is protecting Linux.
Will Microsoft be able to steal from private Github repositories?

The biggest concern with Microsoft's Github acquisition is whether Microsoft will do something evil with the private repositories stored on Github. Some of Microsoft's competitors use Github, and they should be concerned. Any company has to be worried about leakage of intellectual property -- with Microsoft ownership, does that risk increase?