Anyone who has known Microsoft from back in the day knows attributing anything positive to them is likely an error

Or anyone using azure at scale today

Keeping ancient software working without rebuilding is quite impressive, to be fair.

Which ancient software?

All of them have been rebuilt IMO.

Windows Executables. For applications not touching hardware, they should still run on any newer version of Windows provided the Windows build still supports that instruction set. i.e. the original Windows 1.0 Hello World demo (16-bit exe compiled in Win 1.0) still runs on Windows 10 x32 [1].

1. https://virtuallyfun.com/2020/05/22/examining-windows-1-0-he...

Yes, we get it. Microsoft bad. Very good. The reality is that quite a lot of “us” are still using GitHub, including the Microsoft-built/directed parts of it, willingly. A company can be hideously evil and still make a single useful thing in ~50 years.

I use it willingly, but I feel bad. I hate that Microsoft owns it. But it's essentially a social network (at least in the way that I use it), and network effect dictates that I use it (as opposed to, say, GitLab). :c

Oh stop it. Microsoft has made/done plenty of positive things, you're just blind to them because you have somewhere between a mild dislike and a hatred for the company. Open your eyes and see.

> you're just blind to them because you have somewhere between a mild dislike and a hatred for the company.

Sophisticated enough to understand the utility of Github, but too stupid to understand their own biases? The idea that someone is faulty in their understanding is an uncharitable take. The benefit of (MSFT's) history, is you can learn from it, or ignore it and claim that those who have are being irrationally ornery.

> Oh stop it.

Microsoft is one of many indifferent profit-seeking tyrants. I will never stop pointing out how positive characterizations are, at best, misinterpreting their intent. I'm much more likely to believe any feature is a stepping stone that MSFT plans to leverage later to extort its own users. This plan may or may not come to fruition, which is incidental.

> Microsoft is one of many indifferent profit-seeking tyrants

As opposed to all of the other companies that aren’t seeking profits?

As opposed to all of the other non-tyrants companies, including profit-seeking and non-profit companies.

Which companies are those that aren’t “tyrants”?

> As opposed to all of the other companies that aren’t seeking profits?

One of many is right in the quote.

The obvious difference is how the power in an industry has been wielded. Railroad barons were the closest historical equivalent, imo.

What power is Microsoft “wielding” as far as hosted git repositories? Literally anyone can set up a git server

> What power is Microsoft “wielding”

Again, this is about historic context. They wielded power widely enough (monopolistic practices, predatory acquisitions, etc) that they earned the distrust. Every move, however magnanimous is carefully weighed as to how it can be monetize at a maxim (now, without drawing Govt scrutiny).

Weird post to defend. Are you seriously criticizing my post when the post you're defending is worse?

> Are you seriously criticizing my post

Yes. Personal attacks are unwarranted here.

> the post you're defending is worse?

I'm not sure what you mean by "worse" here.

> Anyone who has known Microsoft from back in the day knows attributing anything positive to them is likely an error

I agree with this fully.

> Personal attacks are unwarranted here.

Neither is hyperbole.

>> Personal attacks are unwarranted here.

> Neither is hyperbole.

So we agree? Personal attack and unwarranted are a correct characterization. That's nice to hear.

Xbox was good! (But Windows remains very, very bad.)

”A noteworthy discovery was made today in Edinburgh, marking another great British breakthrough.”

“In London today, further advancements were made in <blah> technology, showing the strength of English academia.”

Guess how your son got himself into trouble now

Our son is on the honor roll

Oh they're "YOUR KIDS" when they misbehave, huh??

I feel that deep down inside, Github is dead or will be dead, we just don't yet have anywhere to go...

That's why people talk like that. There's the GitHub the world loved, then there's the Micro$oft version, which we're starting to see problems with.

I think "GitHub" is the old good place, Microsoft Github, is the problematic version we're going to see more of.

GitHub was stagnant before and GitLab had basically overtaken it. Since the acquisition they have massively picked up the pace and delivered several exceptionally good features.

GitLab is still a very viable alternative but there is just very little reason to want to leave GitHub. The vast majority of devs either don’t care about or enjoy copilot. It’s just a small number of HN whiners who make most of the noise on the topic.

I think Copilot is very in sync with GPLs Idea of Copyleft and learning form code. Alle projects using Copilot should therefore also be GPL or AGPL

It isn't compliant with GPL's attribution requirements. If it were made so, then yeah, I'd agree – with the caveat that it'd also have to be MIT, BSD, Apache etc. compliant.

Everything GitHub has done since Microsoft's acquisition has been great! The product is getting so much better – Copilot is wonderful, Actions are great, issue improvements. More please!

Sounds like you might like: https://sourcehut.org (it's also completely free of crypto/web3 schemes, as an added bonus)

If GitHub (M$) continues this path of stomping on licenses/copyright of the people who made it great in the first place (i.e repo authors/contributors), I'm definitely gone.