Many people seem to be unhappy about Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub. The most common sentiment I see is a preference for GitHub to remain "neutral". But the status quo was not one of the available options. 1/
GitHub did not find a business model which could be sufficiently profitable to meet the expectations of their investors. IMHO, there was never a chance of that happening. 2/
A long-term independent GitHub became unlikely in July 2012 when they got a 100M investment. And three years later, after they got another 250M, their only possible destiny was acquisition. 3/
When you raise $350M in VC money and want to stay independent, you can't just be profitable. You have to be insanely profitable. 4/
Revenue and profits aside, GitHub has been very successful. Perhaps too successful. So many organizations and open source projects depend on GitHub that its failure would be an industry disaster. 5/
Somebody had to acquire GitHub. There was no other alternative. This acquisition was a bailout. A rescue. 6/
I'm sure many people wish that someone besides Microsoft could have been the GitHub savior. But I would certainly prefer Microsoft over one of the other likely suitors. 7/
In part, yes, this is selifh. The Microsoft ecosystem is where I work, and it would have been disruptive to me for GitHub to become part of, say, Oracle. 8/
But I actually do believe that Microsoft is the most trustworthy company to take on this important responsibility, especially with @natfriedman at the helm. 9/
Some people will never stop looking at Microsoft through their 1998 lens. But the truth is, here in 2018, nobody is doing open source better than Microsoft. 10/
If you are in the Microsoft ecosystem, I claim that you should see the GitHub acquisition as either a good thing, or as the least-bad option. 11/
If you are in one of the other dev ecosystems, it is harder for you to see this as good news. But I claim that you should keep an open mind. Watch and see what happens. 12/end
s/selifh/selfish/
