Video: What to expect from the Microsoft-GitHub deal.
Rivals of now Microsoft-owned code host GitHub[1] are touting gains from developers who aren't happy with the acquisition and what it could mean.
GitLab and Atlassian's BitBucket are both playing up to negative reactions towards the acquisition and uncertainty among developers about the future. Both sites say developers are migrating in larger numbers[2] to their respective sites.
GitLab said[3] yesterday it had imported over 100,000 repositories from GitHub since news of the deal was confirmed on Monday.
Microsoft said it is paying $7.5bn in stock for GitHub as part of an effort to win developers and give a boost to Azure and the other developer tools it offers. Despite losing some developers, these numbers migrating are minuscule compared with the 28 million repositories on GitHub.
BitBucket also claims[4] to have seen a noticeable spike in GitHub migrations since then, too. It hasn't provided numbers but highlights developers who felt sour about the acquisition and vowed to leave GitHub.
There have been mixed feelings among developers about the deal. As Steven J Vaughan-Nichols pointed out this week[5], some open-source advocates still distrust Microsoft, even under the friendlier leadership of Satya Nadalla compared with Steve Ballmer, who in 2001 called Linux "a cancer"[6].
Others argue it's time to move on and accept that Microsoft is no longer an evil corporation hell-bent on killing open source. Instead, due to the cloud, it has every reason to support it.
And some believe it could be a competitive threat, allowing Microsoft to peer into rivals' software under development.