Microsoft announced today that it plans to acquire GitHub, and I am still trying to decide how I feel about it.

A few years ago the idea of Microsoft buying GitHub would have sounded almost impossible. Microsoft has changed quite a bit under Satya Nadella, especially when it comes to open source, Linux and cross-platform development, but GitHub is such an important part of the developer community that this still feels like a very big move.

Microsoft says GitHub will continue to operate independently and remain an open platform where developers can use the languages, tools, operating systems and cloud platforms they choose.

I hope that is exactly what happens.

I use GitHub because it is useful without really having to think about who owns it. That is probably the biggest thing Microsoft needs to preserve. Developers need to continue seeing GitHub as a place for everyone, not as a Microsoft development service.

At the same time, Microsoft has been doing a lot lately that I would not have expected from the company ten years ago. .NET is open source, Visual Studio Code runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and Microsoft itself has become one of the biggest contributors on GitHub.

So I am cautiously optimistic.

Microsoft may end up being a very good home for GitHub, but this is one of those announcements where I think it will take a while before we know whether that optimism is justified.