The worm is spinning in his grave like a top! Microsoft buys Github

Some years ago I was asked to present to MOE Kazakhstan about open-source software. (Why me? Because I was there, I think.) At the time, Microsoft was in a pitched battle with the FLOSS community, nascent at the time. I can't, looking back, figure out what was the battlefield. Servers? Mainframes? Desktops? And, judging from the news, Microsoft can't quite remember either. 

Microsoft Buys GitHub for $7.5 Billion, Moving to Grow in Coding’s New Era

At the time (and for a long period thereafter) Windows XP was the OS du jour in developing countries. Microsoft was selling a licensed version for a couple hundred USD, with that version performing marginally better and resisting malware marginally better than an unlicensed version. (Plus... Updates!)

Asked basically to defend software licensing, I launched into my preso. Early on, I was interrupted by a guy who wanted me to understand that we were dealing with concepts that were already well-known in Almaty: 

"But sir, SIR!" he said, possibly raising his hand, "We know all about open-source software, and we love it. In the government we buy one copy of Microsoft Windows, and we make hundreds of copies!

"We use it in our offices. We use it in our schools."

This practice was not something Microsoft wanted to hear about. I soldiered on, but the battle—which I had zero interest in fighting—was already lost. 

NextGen coders, totally unconcerned about who owns the code

(image is from Wikimedia Commons, students are from Providence Middle School)