Microsoft’s GitHub Acquisition Celebrated by Linux Foundation

• Linux has publicly shown support in favor of Microsoft’s recent acquisition of GitHub.
• Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin stated that the acquisition could benefit the world of open source greatly with added resources.
• Despite Linux’s backing, the industry has shown mixed reactions towards the acquisition with some claiming that they are “shocked” at the news.

Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin showed support in favor of Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub. With Microsoft and Linux being hostile towards each other for years and bad blood between both companies, Linux seems to have put aside its differences. Zemlin claims that the acquisition can benefit open source companies like Linux to a great extent as Microsoft’s resources can help open source development better than ever.

Despite the Linux Foundation showing its support, many internet users are skeptical of the move with some even claiming that they are “shocked” at the news. There has been no official confirmation on what Microsoft wants to do with the platform.

Nat Friedman of Microsoft is set to take over the platform once the deal closes. He was part of a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) yesterday to discuss the company’s plans. Friedman has been part of the open source development community since his early days in app development and joined Microsoft two years ago. He cleared the air over concerns that Skype, Bing or Office integration may hurt the open source platform. He stated that Microsoft knows the importance of developers and the importance of the platform in the open source community and the tech giant will not implement any radical changes to the platform.

Reports claim that developers are already moving on to other platforms due to their skepticism. GitLab has experienced ten times the number of developers posting their repositories after news of the acquisition surfaced. Friedman commented on the situation stating that developers act as independent thinkers and Microsoft will work hard to gain back the trust of the developer community. Despite many developers moving to GitLab, very few have actually closed down their GitHub accounts and the Microsoft-own platform has also been experiencing a surge in memberships following the acquisition.