[Perseids]

Market concentration is really the underlying problem. Microsoft should never have been allowed to buy GitHub. Microsoft Windows should have long been split into a separate company to Microsoft Office etc. If there wasn't this one gigantic business, then whichever smaller business made Teams would have a much more equal footing with other competitors, as they would not be at an unfair advantage for integration into other currently-Microsoft-owned products as well as the aggressive bundling Microsoft does with Teams.

[ThunderSizzle]

The number of anti-Microsoft people that still use Github is astounding to me, and then just blame Microsoft for buying it.

At some point, if people want an alternative to Github, perhaps it starts with people not using Github and switching to alternatives.

Honestly, it would seem people like market concentration. I don't think people like having to use multiple repository management websites. However, I do wish it was centralization in experience over a federated system, rather than what we have noe. e.g. a "source control browser" that normalizes github, bitbucket, sourceforce, sourcehut, etc. into a single seamless interface.

But even that doesn't seem to be high on anyone's list.

[swores]

> "The number of anti-Microsoft people that still use Github is astounding to me, and then just blame Microsoft for buying it."

Voting with your wallet (or with your attention & time for free things) makes sense if there's an alternative you can choose that's as good as the one from the company you dislike, or if you consider the impact on you of any deficits in the alternative to be less important than sending a message by voting with your wallet/time.

But it's completely understandable, and very common, for people to be in a situation that while they want to boycott a company/product because of how they act in some way (from software UI decisions to using child labour in sweatshops to...) but are faced with the choice between using/buying one of their products or suffering from what they consider to be a significantly worse and/or more expensive product.

And if you wish that one or both of Microsoft selling / giving away Github, or MS changing how they run Github, would happen, then why not publicly express blame in the hope that enough similar complaints build pressure, regardless of whether you're avoiding it or feeling you need to use it?

(Personally I don't feel I use Github enough to be a useful voice on how MS have handled it since the acquisition, but I feel like many people have expressed being pleasantly surprised that they've broadly let Github be Github, at least compared to worst-case fears of how much they might try to make it more Microsofty.)

[godzillabrennus]

Network effect. Especially for open source. The thinking is basically that GitHub is where developers find your project so if you don’t use GitHub you won’t find developers.

[ClumsyPilot]

> The number of anti-Microsoft people that still use Github is astounding to me

This is silly, they will just buy up all the competition, what choose will you have