On 04/06/2018 18:36, KatolaZ wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 04, 2018 at 06:06:33PM +0100, Mark Rousell wrote:
>
> [cut]
>
>> I don't want to get into an argument about this as I am not exactly a
>> fan of Microsoft but...
>>
>> My statement that MS were the largest single contributor on GitHub comes
>> from GitHub's own statistics specifically for *open source*
>> contributions (admittedly dating from 2016).
>>
>> Source: http://businessinsider.com/microsoft-github-open-source-2016-9
>> 'Microsoft just edged out Facebook and proved that it's changed in an
>> important way'.
>>
> You've been confused by marketing, again. By reading through the very
> same source used by the article you are citing with an unbiased eye,
> it becomes clear that what is happening is that Microsoft's vscode
> repository (yes, just *one* repository) is the first GitHub repository
> for number of contributors:
>
> https://octoverse.github.com/
>
> This is what the journalist "mis-read" and "mis-cited" in the article
> you mentioned. And this does not make MS the largest single
> contributor to GitHub

Actually that most certainly *does* make Microsoft the largest single
contributor to GitHub. They made more contributions than any other
single contributor. The fact that it was all into a single repo doesn't
change that at all!

> only the project initiator who got the largest
> number of contributors (about 15000) to one of its projects. And the
> contributions to that repo belong to the 15000 contributors, not to
> Microsoft (unless the journalist is implying that most of those 15000
> contributors are Microsoft employees themselves, which wouldn't be
> surprising at all).

Surely the point is precisely that they are all MS employees. The fact
that they are MS employees is the thing that made Microsoft the largest
single contributor to open source GitHub.

You may dismiss this if you wish since it is mostly to one of
Microsoft's own repos, and I'd see your point, but the fact remains that
this still made them the largest single contributor.

> Biased marketing has a strange way of putting numbers together,
> indeed...

I can only say that the conclusion appears to precisely match the
numbers stated by GitHub.

To dismiss it because the *distribution of those contributions* is not
to your liking doesn't change the truth of it.

As I said, I'm not fan of Microsoft but you've said nothing to indicate
that (in 2016 art least) they were genuinely the largest single
contributor to open source projects on GitHub (yes, their project, but
no less real and no less open source just because it is MS's project).

--
Mark Rousell