GitHub to be integrated into Microsoft's CoreAI.

[CarlR9]

As described here: https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/github-ceo-steps-down-as-microsoft-integrates-platform-into-coreai-division-amid-rising-competition-in-the-ai-coding-market-10184067/ GitHub is being integrated into Microsoft's CoreAI. I'm wondering how this will effect the Bangle App Loader, if at all. I'm imagining a lot of code being pulled from GitHub in the wake of this announcement.

[gfwilliams]

I think we'll need to see how this actually pans out - short term I'd be amazed if anything actually changed short of some minor rebranding. It's possible some contributors may stop though.

Espruino and the Bangle.js App Loader are hosted by me, so even if GitHub died overnight the only effect would be the loss of the development app loader and how PRs were handled.

The only real issue is right now we use a lot of free compute for 'GitHub Actions', which auto-build cutting edge firmwares and test each PR. I can imagine that may disappear at some point, in which case I may have to self-host something.

Basically I wouldn't worry!

[CarlR9]

That sounds reassuring. You'll probably get a good indication of how many devs really don't like this by the percentage of GitHub links on the App Loader that start to break. Could be fun to monitor that. The first I heard of this was people on social media suddenly deciding they need to backup their GitHub. Like tonight! :))

[gfwilliams]

people on social media suddenly deciding they need to backup their GitHub

The whole point of Git is you have a local copy of everything anyway (albeit not the issues/PRs).

I'm not a Microsoft fanboy (I use Linux, and only boot Windows rarely) but honestly since they bought GitHub in 2018 I feel like it's been hard to fault their handling of it. I'd be hard pressed to think of any other company that'd have bought GitHub and then not tried to rebrand and monetise it intrusively over the next 7 years.

Maybe I'm just a hopeless optimist, but I feel like with VS Code, Ubuntu for Linux and GitHub, Microsoft has been working pretty hard to win over developers, and I find it hard to believe they're going to throw all that away.

... but even if they did, Bangle.js/Espruino isn't dependent on any particular company so it'll be fine.

(Google killing Web Bluetooth would be a bit of a nightmare, but even then there are options - it just wouldn't be quite as easy to connect to your devices)

[CarlR9]

I get the feeling it being integrated into CoreAI is what they don't like. MS has had big layoffs this year, and AI will be used wherever it can be to make up for that. And the programming side of AI will presumably be partly trained on GitHub code.

[gfwilliams]

Yes, I totally get that. I'm sure it will put some people off (but many already don't use GitHub because of Microsoft)

I'm pretty sure everyone's training AI on public repos for years already (for GitHub and everything else), but putting GitHub in charge of a team called CoreAI is just rubbing our faces in it :)

[CarlR9]

Indeed. "This group will also build out GitHub Copilot, thus having a tight feedback loop between the leading AI-first product and the AI platform to motivate the stack and its roadmap." That's from CoreAI's announcement at the beginning of this year...
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/01/13/introducing-core-ai-platform-and-tools/
Sigh.