[GLLUG] GitHub and Microsoft

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Fri, Jun 08, 2018 at 06:08:32PM +0200, stuart taylor via GLLUG wrote:
> are any of you wary of using GitHub now, or do you believe
> Microsoft have changed?

I don't know what makes anyone think that GitHub of old was any
better of a company than Microsoft of now.

It is the way of data silos that they get sold to the highest
bidder. Congratulations to GitHub on turning the value-add / lock-in
into $7bn.

Of course one could jump ship to Gitlab. Who are currently hosted
on Microsoft Azure, but are planning a move real soon now - to
Google!

There is a price we pay for the force multiplier of social
networking; they tend to extract that payment by centralising it,
locking users in, and then selling their data. At least it is
possible to self-host Gitlab I suppose, and have a familiar
interface, though still without the force multiplier of having
access to a large community of users.

Distributed services are hard nuts for free software to crack. Look
at the state of GNU social (aka laconica) and Diaspora.

Cheers,
Andy