Microsoft reboots the way it works with software developers

In 2014, Microsoft Corp. cloud chief Scott Guthrie wrote up a proposal to acquire GitHub Inc. Then he filed the plan away in a drawer. Every once in a while he’d take the plan out and look at it, and then return it to the cabinet.

Guthrie felt Microsoft just wasn’t ready to acquire the popular open-source company — a widely used digital hive where millions of software programmers collaborate on, share and store code. “We would have screwed it up,” Guthrie said. What’s more, developers – many of whom viewed Microsoft as public enemy No. 1 for its attacks on freely distributed open-source software – would have rioted.