With Microsoft Corp acquiring the world's leading software development platform GitHub, there seems to be some apprehension among top executives of various tech companies about the continuance of the openness of the platform.
While speaking at Fortune Magazine event in San Francisco Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene said, “I really hope Microsoft can keep them totally neutral,” adding that “But I think that would be hard to do after paying $7.5 billion.” Two Google products – Kubernetes and TensorFlow – are among the most popular now used on GitHub.
Similar views were expressed by Susie Wee, VP and CTO of DevNet at Cisco. The networking giant software division is growing like never before. Cisco DevNet has crossed the registered member mark of 500,000. Majority of them are active on or come via GitHub. During her keynote address at Cisco Live 2018 in Florida, she said: “I know it is now a Microsoft company but I really hope, they will keep it open for everyone.”
Microsoft which has been the biggest single contributor to GitHub, initiated an acquisition of GitHub for $7.5 billion in June 2018. For Microsoft, GitHub is a key asset for appealing to developers in the competitive cloud computing market. With Azure and other key products getting significant traction among enterprises, GitHub will be a great asset for the Redmond based firm. So far, the technology giant has not indicated if the platform will remain open source.
Earlier, while talking to CNBC GitHub's new CEO, Nat Friedman had admitted that he planned to run GitHub independently for the time being, but that it will eventually become part of Microsoft's commercial cloud business.
According to various reports, Google was also in the race to buy GitHub but Microsoft's bid was high enough to keep it at bay. During the Fortune Talk, Greene said, “I wouldn't have minded buying them, but it's Okay.”
