Microsoft to acquire open-source code repository service GitHub

Image: GitHub official website

Microsoft Corp., may be on its way to acquire the open-source code repository service GitHub Inc.

The company has yet to announce the deal, but it has already agreed to make the acquisition, as reported by Bloomberg.

GitHub had been searching for a new CEO since 2017. Co-founder Chris Wanstrath agreed to step down as CEO as soon as a replacement was found.

GitHub ultimately chose to be acquired by Microsoft rather than going public. The report stated this is partly because GitHub’s current leadership was impressed with the work of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

The acquisition by Microsoft essentially follows up with the current culture being promoted by Nadella; a culture which dependeds less on the Windows operating system while nurturing more acceptance of Linux and open-source models to improve Microsoft’s products.

Microsoft currently stands as one of the biggest contributors of open-source code to GitHub.

GitHub generally acts as something like a social media platform for software developers. Through the service, developers could share the code for their programs and collaborate with other developers to make improvements. Large technology firms like Microsoft even collaborate with developers from Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

The service currently hosts 27 million software developers, who are in turn working on 80 million repositories of code, on and off in the span of a few years.

Talks of Microsoft acquiring GitHub apparently first came to light in a report by Business Insider. The two companies had been meeting since June 1, the report stated. Alfred Bayle/JB

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