Microsoft has acquired GitHub for $7.5B

Microsoft has acquired popular code repository GitHub for $7.5 billion in company stock, confirming the rumors that had been flying around over the weekend.

The U.S. tech giant is one of the biggest contributors to GitHub, which is used by over 20 million developers to store, share, and build vast swathes of code.

The company currently has over 1,800 code repositories on the website, including the original source code for Windows File Manager and the code for Visual Studio. 

Notably, Microsoft has attempted to ease concerns surrounding the move by claiming it's going "all-in" on open source.

"We have been on a journey with open source, and today we are active in the open source ecosystem, we contribute to open source projects, and some of our most vibrant developer tools and frameworks are open source," wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a blog post.

"When it comes to our commitment to open source, judge us by the actions we have taken in the recent past, our actions today, and in the future."

Microsoft claims GitHub will retain its "developer-first" ethos, and will continue to operate independently so it can provide an open platform for all developers across all industries. 

That means devs will still be able to use the programming languages, tools and operating systems of their choice for their projects, and will still be able to deploy their code to any operating system, any cloud and any device.

Nadella says he sees three clear opportunities for GitHub moving forward, and hopes to empower developers at every stage of the production lifecycle, accelerate enterprise developers' use of GitHub, and bring Microsoft's various developer tools and services to new audiences. 

Following the purchase, Microsoft Corporate vice president Nat Friedman will step up as GitHub CEO, with current CEO Chris Wanstrath being made a Microsoft technical fellow. 

In his new role, Wanstrath will work on strategic software initiatives for Microsoft, reporting to the company's executive vice president Scott Guthrie.

"I'm extremely proud of what GitHub and our community have accomplished over the past decade, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead," commented Wanstrath. 

"The future of software development is bright, and I’m thrilled to be joining forces with Microsoft to help make it a reality. Their focus on developers lines up perfectly with our own, and their scale, tools and global cloud will play a huge role in making GitHub even more valuable for developers everywhere."

You can find out more about the deal, and what it means for GitHub, by heading on down to the Microsoft blog.