Microsoft to buy GitHub for $7.5 billion

Microsoft on Monday announced that it will acquire popular software development platform GitHub in a $7.5 billion deal.

GitHub was founded a decade ago as a platform for developers to share code. The platform is now the largest code repository on the internet, used by 28 million programmers worldwide. The firm has been a major player in the open-source software movement.

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Microsoft’s decision to purchase the firm is the latest sign of the tech giant’s embrace of open-source software under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella.

“Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation,” Nadella said in a statement.

“We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges,” Nadella said. 

GitHub will still operate independently from Microsoft, with Nat Friedman, currently Microsoft Corporate’s vice president, assuming the role of GitHub CEO. The company’s current CEO, Chris Wanstrath, will become a Microsoft technical fellow.

“We both believe GitHub needs to remain an open platform for all developers. No matter your language, stack, platform, cloud, or license, GitHub will continue to be your home — the best place for software creation, collaboration, and discovery,” Wanstrath wrote in a blog post announcing the deal.

“We both believe that software development needs to become easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and more open, so more people can become developers and existing developers can spend more time focusing on the unique problems they’re trying to solve,” Wanstrath said.

Microsoft will pay $7.5 billion in company stock for Github, which was valued at approximately $2 billion back in 2015. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year.