Github is now a fully owned, proprietary tool of Microsoft.
It's time to decide.
Do we as a community allow our future to depend upon commercial interests of a company that to this day spreads FUD and minimizes our impact when it suits their plans?
Or do we step up, do what we do best and take our code to somewhere created by the us for us and the good of the community?
This isn't about hating Microsoft. It's about loving our own sovereignty and controlling our *own* future.
Please Boost.
@satanya Yes, it was. That was a problem. Now it's a problem being actively exploited by Microsoft for their own gain. Does that mean we shouldn't fix the original problem?
@satanya It's not "just" about data privacy. It's control over whether the features of the website work for what you believe in, or against it.
By using the site, you're making it harder for others who don't wish to. Right now it's hard to contribute to many FOSS projects if you don't wish to use GitHub. Why? Because so many others do. The network effect. I'm not saying to boycott GitHub projects, so much as to see this opportunity to deprecate it for something of our own design.
@satanya Also, "just choose what data to give them" is problematic as it becomes harder and harder to "choose" to not give data.
Take Facebook for example. Even if you choose to never post there, they have a profile created for you based on all the websites that you've visited that use their pixel/like button/comments widget. Having to run software to try and block all that, is yet another barrier to opting out, catching more people unaware. Why support that kind of thing?
I do agree that it's sad that people ignored this issue before the MS buyout, and that all businesses are under the same pressure to put profits before people.
The creation of the public benefit corporations in the US goes a small way to mitigating the problem by limiting liability when one puts public good before profit. Companies are run by people though, with different ideologies that get them doing more or less evil things, so I do think some companies are worse.
