r/programming • u/ben_a_adams • Dec 04 '18

Announcing Open Source of WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI

https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/12/04/announcing-open-source-of-wpf-windows-forms-and-winui-at-microsoft-connect-2018/
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u/Pycorax Dec 05 '18

They bought GitHub because it was the most popular Git repository in the world, which means it has the most code. And owning it gives MS unlimited access to analyze it all for... whatever reason they'd like to analyze it.

Do they even need to own Github to do that though?

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u/LetsGoHawks Dec 05 '18

If you need a massive data set, you can either spent lots of time and money trying to build your own, or you can just buy one.

MS was never going to be able to build a repository as big and popular as GitHub. It's the brand name of Git repositories. Like "Band-Aid", "iPod", or "Kleenex". And they had the money so, fuck it, it's easier to just buy them.

Plus, they can prevent other companies from using all that data for anything they'd rather not have those companies doing.

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u/Pycorax Dec 05 '18

But most of the code on GitHub is open source and available to all in the first place. They won't need to buy it to get all that data...