Free Flight, Free Speech

Microsoft, fully embracing a model it once saw as a threat, said on Monday that it was buying GitHub, an open software platform used by 28 million programmers, for $7.5 billion.

“Developers are the builders of this new era, writing the world’s code,” Mr. Nadella wrote in a blog post. “And GitHub is their home.”

Individuals can use GitHub for free. But there are monthly subscription charges for extra storage, development tools and private repositories. The company does not disclose its revenue, but analysts estimate it is running at $200 million a year.

The open-source model was once anathema to Microsoft, the largest commercial software company, which had favored keeping its code proprietary. Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s former chief executive, once called Linux, the popular open-source operating system, a “cancer” in the body of the technology business.

“Developers by their nature are often suspicious of corporate ambitions,” said Ed Anderson, an analyst at Gartner. “Microsoft will have to demonstrate its willingness to put the interests of developers ahead of any Microsoft-specific agenda.”

The $7.5 billion purchase, an all-stock deal, is the second-largest acquisition Microsoft has made since Mr. Nadella became chief executive in early 2014. The bigger deal came in 2016, when Microsoft bought LinkedIn, the social network for professional workers, for $26.2 billion. (GitHub ranks third in Microsoft’s history, also behind the $8.5 billion purchase of Skype in 2011.)

If GitHub will remain a neutral home for developers, as Microsoft insists, why did the company pay so handsomely to own it?

The multibillion-dollar deal is a long way from GitHub’s hobbyist, hacker origins. In a blog post, Chris Wanstrath, the company’s chief executive and a co-founder, who will become a technical fellow at Microsoft, wrote that when GitHub started up a decade ago, he could have “never imagined” the outcome announced on Monday.

KB7 wrote:I'm seriously considering switching to XPlane 11 now.

KB7 wrote:I was wondering the same thing as soon as I saw the announcement. However after buying a new 1050 Ti graphics card and 4K monitor and finding that I am still getting sub-10 FPS framerate, and don't have the money to up my RAM or Processor, I'm seriously considering switching to XPlane 11 now.