After a weekend of rumors[1], Microsoft officially announced Monday[2] that it will acquire the code repository site GitHub[3] for $7.5 billion in stock. The platform is an important resource for some 28 million developers[4] and home to billions of lines of open source code. It's in many ways a natural fit Microsoft, which has in recent years warmed up[5] to open source.
But the beloved developer platform may also introduce moderation headaches. Microsoft will soon need to formally decide what will happen to the many GitHub repositories that conflict with its own interests. The tech giant will face similar content moderations challenge that peers like Facebook and Google have, but with code instead of speech.
Created over a decade ago, GitHub is where developers at nearly every major software organization, from Google to NASA, collaborate. It hosts projects as diverse as Bitcoin's code[6] and all of the German government's laws and regulations[7]. The platform functions as a kind of social network for coders; their contributions to the site can serve as a stand-in for a traditional resume. Anyone can publish open source code to GitHub for free; the platform makes money[8] by charging individuals and corporations to keep their code private.
GitHub's 85 million repositories help to make it one of the world's most popular websites. They include, however, projects that GitHub's new owner might take issue with.
Microsoft's Burden
Take as an example the Xbox emulators[9] hosted on GitHub. These often-homemade programs allow people to play console games on their computers. Microsoft owns Xbox, and ostensibly loses money when gamers decline to buy consoles and play on desktop instead. These emulators