I can say for myself that I am not very happy about it. We just recently moved our code repository to Github and now we are going to have to implement our own internal git repository yet again. We have been stuck on MS for so long that breaking the chains is not only painful but very necessary. We are even abandoning Linkedin as we create our own replacement for our industry with LiMSforum.com. The quality of MS products is sooooo poor that we will not use them at any level as best we can. I can only imagine how MS will screw up Github. It is a real shame but at least it is easy for developers to leave it.

Getting off of Linkedin, Skype, Windows, Office and SQL Server is a bit tougher but well worth the effort. Time is ripe for a new code repository. The beauty of Git is that vendor lock-in is next to impossible. MS has paid a lot of money for something that will turn into vapor pretty quickly.

I think this is tragic. Microsoft products are often poor quality. Poor support, and even worse working together with each other. I imagine github would find itself unrecognizable and unable to function under Microsoft ownership. It's getting harder and harder to escape Microsoft and its stranglehold on the industry, and they still ruin everything they touch. I'm so sad to read this...

Microsoft bought LinkedIn, this social network we are currently using. So what? Did you notice any difference? I don't think we should be worried about Github. Oh yeah, I can understand a kind of fear where somebody could say: 'Microsoft will steal my code on Github!'. Well, Github was a commercial company before, so there's no difference between past and current situation.
One additional word, I was a Java programmer for 10 years and I used Linux for my work during m/l 7 years. First time I heard about dotNet, I just laugh. Now, I'm using C# and dotNet for my work instead of Java. Why? Well, just consider what company bought Java (and MySQL and all Sun Microsystems good work): Oracle. And from my point of view, Oracle policy is just terrible where Microsoft is promoting Open Source culture (still to be improved nevertheless).
To me, Microsoft is building another business model, a mix between proprietary and open/free world.

I have noticed a tremendous amount of things (problems) with Linkedin since MS bought it. I have noticed the same things with Skype and live with both every day. The quality of MS software is terrible and that is being kind. Linkedin software has gone downhill since October 2015. Skype used to be great and now I spend more time trying to figure out why it is not working than I ever used to before MS bought it. If MS gets their developer hands on Github, we can expect the same poor quality to infiltrate it.

There is no nefarious plot from MS. It is simply that their software has all the aromo after walking through a field of cow pats. ;-) So for me, I just find alternatives to MS software and thankfully, Github is easy to replace. Other developers will find the same. Thankfully there are tons of open source replacements to most MS software that has much better quality. For instance, I just moved off of Windows today to Linux and am absolutely loving it.

Why do I feel worried by this?

Hi John Hopkins, it depends on your dependence on Github. If you do not rely on Github as part of your development operation or if you are already MS centric, you have nothing to be worried about. Many of us in the developer community are not MS-centric and we do / have relied on Github as part of the development process.

I guess in the end, it is no big deal to the majority of folks and for developers, it is easy to abandon the use of Github and move to bitbucket or your own hosted repository. The fundamental problem is the central control of social networking. Github is very much a social network for developers as Linkedin is for business and there is a lot of overlap. We need a distributed, non-centralized, open social network. We need something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)

John Jones, I reckon my feeling of impending doom cubes from two places. First, as I understand it, GitHub can be used as a source of example code for student developers and programmers, giving them the best way to do something specific in a particular language. Will this go away? Of course of you place your code in an open source environment, you need to be selective and not put anything commercially sensitive there, and whether MS or anyone else controls the repository, this still true.

Second, the example of LinkedIn highlights the disdain shown to users and the status quo. There is a ton of useful functionality gone from LinkedIn, and when feedback was proffered, the lack of reply was deafening!

John Hopkins, with respect to your first concern, I personally do not have issues about this with respect to MS ownership of Github. As to your second concern... I agree completely with that. Linkedin is a great example of how not to run a social network. Github is a social network and as such, I expect it will become worse after MS gets its hands in it.

My biggest concern is that MS is one of the more incompetent software companies in the marketplace. Their quality of products are absolutely terrible and getting worse. That poor quality reflects in skype, windows, linkedin and I suspect Github will be next. There are a few things MS does right like SQL Server and Office but I suspect the only reason they are still good is because some original developers are still around. Once they are replaced with the current round of crappy developers, we can expect those products to live up to the usual MS quality. All I can say is.... Bill Gates, please come home and fix this.