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by im3w1l-alt
2179 days ago
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If any of these projects should pose a risk to Microsoft it will be able to pull the rug from under them. Code hosting gone, sponsor income gone, forums gone, bug tracking gone. At the same time. They will have to take care to always respect Microsoft's business interests and conduct codes. It is a much more severe threat to freedom than running all the proprietary code in the world. I wouldn't be too surprised if one day they say Stallman has to go. |
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He lives and breathes free software and arguably coined the term. If Microsoft deems Stallman a threat after 30 years of being heckled by him I would be very surprised. Additionally the developer community within Microsoft and outside Microsoft would become militant. A decision like erasing all GNU repos would punish thousands of people other than Stallman.
Additionally, Github's value is derived in part from how many people use it. Lots of people use it because it's trustworthy. When Microsoft took over Github there was a lot of skeptecism about MS$ maintaining impartiality. If they start throwing up red flags by taking down prominent open source repos and messing with Richard Stallman (the literal figurehead of open-source) they would be betraying open-source in general and the reprecussions would be swift. That was everyones biggest fear, and if Microsoft proved that fear true the exodus to other SCM platforms would be instant. Within a week there wouldn't be any worthwhile projects left on Github.
[1] https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html
[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/microsoft.en.html
[3] https://stallman.org/microsoft.html