In “Three Takes on Microsoft Acquires GitHub” posters are conflating free software and open source. For reference, consult the GNU Project’s two essays on this topic (older, newer).
The Techdirt.com discussion includes an anonymous comment, “Windows 10 includes WSL [Windows subsystem for Linux — nonfree software for Windows which allows one to run a GNU/Linux OS on top of Windows] now… Microsoft has become a major promoter of free software.”. Actually Microsoft continues as they were: they develop and distribute proprietary software, the opposite of free software.
Microsoft didn’t promote free software before and continues to not promote free software now. Microsoft shifted from calling the GNU General Public License (GPL) a “cancer” including screeds from company reps who claimed “The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source” and “Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody, [but] open source is not available to commercial companies” which is wrong for multiple reasons. Saying that now would make them look foolish because that misinterpretation of how the GPL works would mean all of Microsoft Windows would come under the GPL. That was one of many errors in Steve Ballmer’s claim at the time and Microsoft knew it, but they had an enemy in software freedom and didn’t have a better response than to lie about their adversary. Given that history we’re supposed to believe Microsoft now when they promote their “love” for open source, and that it is wise to depend on Microsoft in order to run free software such as these GNU/Linux distributions.
Open source is not the same as free software. Long ago free software activists knew that free software with nonfree software dependencies made for free software that was useless in the free world precisely because adopting such software means a loss of one’s software freedom. Thus the free world doesn’t need a Linux kernel based operating system with Windows kernel dependencies (such as GNU/Linux running atop Windows) despite that this now exists. Open source doesn’t encourage anyone to want or defend software freedom. Therefore abandoning software freedom for convenience seems like a right and proper thing to an open source advocate. That’s one of the major points in the newer of the two essays linked above in the section “Different Values Can Lead to Similar Conclusions…but Not Always”:
[…P]eople from the free software movement and the open source camp often work together on practical projects such as software development. It is remarkable that such different philosophical views can so often motivate different people to participate in the same projects. Nonetheless, there are situations where these fundamentally different views lead to very different actions.
The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users’ freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.
A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, “I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?” This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.
The free software activist will say, “Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. I will get my work done some other way, and support a project to develop a free replacement.” If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.
I don’t see why one would choose to let Microsoft host their software, nor do I see how it is in any user’s interest to not have control over their own repository. So running one’s own instance of GitLab strikes me as a reasonable choice but not hosting one’s data on GitHub. Thus it’s no surprise to me that GitLab earned a “C” rating back in 2015 and GitHub an “F” rating from back in 2016 well prior to any talk of Microsoft buying GitHub. And this is yet another example of how (as Eben Moglen puts it in numerous talks) “Stallman was right” or the GNU Project got there well before it became in vogue to reevaluate one’s Git-related hosting options and move away from GitHub.