Dion Wiggins
Dion Wiggins
CTO at Omniscien Technologies | Board Member | Strategic Advisor | Consultant | Author
16 août 2025
16 August 2025
Dear Mr. Nadella (Satya Nadella) ,
As a developer of more than 40 years, across 33+ programming languages and even more platforms, I have seen the rise and fall of countless technologies, communities, and ecosystems. While I cannot speak for the global developer community as a whole, it is clear that a very large number of us feel the same deep sense of betrayal and alarm over Microsoft’s actions regarding GitHub. This letter is written not only from decades of professional experience and personal investment, but in solidarity with the thousands of developers, project maintainers, community leaders, and digital sovereignty advocates who have raised these same alarms. The issues are systemic, not individual.
Satya Nadella (2018): “We recognize the responsibility we take on with this agreement. We are committed to being stewards of the GitHub community, which will always remain open to all developers.”
In the above Microsoft Blog post, you promised that “GitHub will operate independently and remain an open platform for all developers,” and committed to “keeping GitHub independent and developer-first.” GitHub leadership assured the world that “GitHub will operate independently… That means GitHub retains its developer-first values, distinctive spirit, and open extensibility.”
Public promises on the Github website at the same time made simpler promises that have now been broken.
Nat Friedman (2018): “GitHub will operate independently… That means GitHub retains its developer-first values, distinctive spirit, and open extensibility.”
While Microsoft continues to highlight its open source credentials and assure developers that “nothing has changed” for users, the core issue is not superficial continuity, but the structural and strategic shift of GitHub from a genuinely independent, community platform to a fully integrated corporate asset. This is not about branding, but about irreversible changes to control, incentives, and accountability.
Microsoft Press Release (2025): “This transition enables us to accelerate GitHub’s contributions to Microsoft’s AI ecosystem.”
Today, those commitments are in question. As TechRadar reports: “Rather than appoint a new GitHub CEO, Microsoft will integrate GitHub more directly into CoreAI, led by Jay Parikh… GitHub will now report directly into its CoreAI division.” (TechRadar)
This reporting is echoed by The Verge, which noted that “Microsoft isn’t replacing Dohmke’s CEO position, and GitHub will be fully part of Microsoft instead of being run as a separate entity.” (The Verge)
These moves directly contradict the 2018 promise of independence and stewardship. They are not continuity but consolidation. For many in the community, this is not simply a broken promise but an outright lie. Your words from the past: “We recognize the responsibility we take on with this agreement. We are committed to being stewards of the GitHub community, which will retain its developer-first ethos, operate independently and remain an open platform”, now stand exposed as empty assurances at best, or an intentional lie at worst.
I repeat these phrases because you have not lived up to them and they seem unimportant to you today. Just a tool of the past, discarded once the acquisition goals were complete.
Microsoft’s decision to absorb GitHub into its CoreAI division, eliminate its independent leadership, and embed it deeply within the company’s AI and cloud business directly contradicts these promises. The official press release states this is to “accelerate GitHub’s contributions to Microsoft’s AI ecosystem.” Microsoft executives openly describe how “GitHub’s vast code corpus is foundational for the next era of Copilot and AI model development.”
This is not just a broken promise. It is an assault on open source itself. A collapse of credibility with the global developer community, and a direct threat to technological self-determination for every contributor, organization, and nation that depends on independent infrastructure.
Here is just a small sample of the many negative reactions to this announcement. These articles show a clear consensus across reputable tech publications: GitHub’s absorption into CoreAI is widely seen as a major structural shift, and for many, a direct betrayal of its once independent and developer-first identity:
The Verge – “GitHub just got less independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation”
Discusses how GitHub’s autonomy ends as leadership shifts under Microsoft’s CoreAI structure, posing a clear signal of deeper absorption. (The Verge)
TechRadar – “GitHub CEO resigns – is this the latest sign of its Microsoft absorption?”
Highlights the absence of a successor and emphasizes the strategic assimilation into Microsoft’s AI ecosystem. (TechRadar)
IT Pro – “What Thomas Dohmke’s departure means for GitHub”
Analyzes how the CEO’s exit signals major governance changes and closer alignment with Microsoft’s AI strategy. (IT Pro)
Windows Central – “GitHub Just Got Assimilated—CEO Out, Copilot In, Microsoft All Over It”
Signposts the end of GitHub’s independence and elevated priority of AI within Microsoft’s internal structure. (Windows Central)
Tom’s Hardware – “GitHub folds into Microsoft following CEO resignation—once independent programming site now part of ‘CoreAI’ team”
Explicitly frames the move as ending GitHub’s independence and compares it to other Microsoft acquisitions that lost identity over time. (Tom’s Hardware)
The Collapse of Trust: Big Tech’s Greed, Digital Sovereignty, and Its Consequences
Trust is the foundation of every open source project, community, and movement. Open source cannot function without the assumption that platforms and stewards act in good faith, respect contributors, and put the long-term health of the ecosystem ahead of short-term profit.
The breakdown of trust caused by the actions of Microsoft and other Big Tech firms is more than a single betrayal. It signals to the entire world that the social contract underpinning open source and digital agency can be bought, sold, and quietly rewritten by whoever controls the infrastructure.
It is disingenuous to claim that developers are “free to leave” when practical migration is obstructed by technical and network effects, and when so much of the world’s open source and digital sovereignty ecosystem is already tied into GitHub’s infrastructure. Genuine freedom requires open exit, true interoperability, and transparent guarantees. None of these can exist in an environment of creeping lock-in and vertical integration.
When companies that present themselves as stewards of community assets choose instead to exploit those assets for proprietary gain, they undermine not just their own credibility, but the very possibility of global cooperation in technology. Each time a platform is captured, centralized, or redirected to serve corporate interests, it pushes developers and innovators away from openness and into silos of mistrust and fragmentation.
No security, compliance, or anti-abuse argument can justify stripping developers, organizations, and nations of their digital sovereignty, or transferring unilateral control over critical digital assets to a single commercial actor. Security and compliance can and must be implemented in ways that preserve agency, transparency, and open governance.
Digital sovereignty is not a slogan. It is a core policy objective of governments, regulatory agencies, and open source communities worldwide, with documented legal frameworks and active enforcement across the EU, China, India, and many others. The concerns raised here are not hypothetical or parochial. They are echoed by policymakers, technologists, and civil society leaders globally.
This is not an isolated incident. The industry has seen similar betrayals before: Oracle’s handling of Java, Google’s abrupt shutdown of Google Code, and previous pivots by Microsoft itself. Each time, the developer community paid the price: wasted effort, lost code, broken commitments, and a new wave of skepticism toward platform promises.
The long-term impact is already visible:
Developers are increasingly hesitant to share their best work on public platforms for fear it will be extracted, repackaged, and monetized by corporate actors without consent or fair return.
Communities fracture, as trust erodes and contributors seek alternative venues or attempt to rebuild trusted enclaves outside Big Tech’s reach.
Innovation slows, as the collaborative advantage of open source is replaced by guarded, siloed development and legal maneuvering to prevent exploitation.
Governments and institutions start to question whether global digital infrastructure can be trusted at all, leading to regulatory walls, data localization, and a new era of digital sovereignty where nations must assert control over their technology dependencies to protect their agency and interests.
This is not just about code or business models. It is about the collective investment of millions of developers worldwide—years of unpaid, voluntary, and mission-driven work that made GitHub the backbone of modern software. That trust, once lost, cannot be restored by marketing or legal boilerplate. It is about digital agency and the fundamental right to control one’s own digital assets, collaborations, and infrastructure choices without the threat of unilateral interference, commercial extraction, or external lock-in.
Big Tech’s willingness to break trust for short-term advantage is sowing the seeds for a world where the promise of open, global collaboration and shared digital sovereignty is replaced by suspicion, legal battles, and technical walls. The more platforms like GitHub are captured and redirected for private enrichment, the less likely it is that the next generation of developers, communities, or nations will believe in or participate in open source at all.
Without trust, open source collapses. Without sovereignty, collaboration corrodes. And once credibility is gone, it is almost impossible to rebuild.
The world is watching, not your assurances, but your actions.
These concerns are not academic or hypothetical. They reflect the real and growing alarm expressed by thousands of developers, project leaders, digital sovereignty advocates, and policymakers worldwide. Digital sovereignty is not a slogan, but a legal and strategic reality, shaping government, enterprise, and technical policy from the European Union to Asia and the Global South. No reassurances, PR statements, or cherry-picked open source releases can substitute for the specific, transparent, and enforceable commitments demanded here. The complexity and length of this letter are necessary because the stakes—for global innovation, autonomy, and trust—could not be higher.
The following questions must be answered directly, with transparency, not PR spin. This is about the survival of open source as a trusted, collaborative foundation for global innovation, and about the preservation of digital sovereignty and agency for everyone who relies on these platforms.
1. Do you acknowledge that folding GitHub into Microsoft’s CoreAI division and revoking its independence directly contradicts your explicit public commitments to keep GitHub open and independent? If not, what specific facts justify your claim that these moves are not a corporate takeover and betrayal?
Microsoft pledged that GitHub would remain independent, open, and developer-first. Integrating GitHub into CoreAI, eliminating operational independence, and repurposing it as a pipeline for Microsoft’s AI ambitions is the very definition of a corporate takeover.
2. What concrete, legally binding measures will you implement, beyond policy statements, to guarantee that GitHub will never be used as a captive data source for Microsoft’s proprietary AI models or to lock developers and organizations into your ecosystem, undermining their digital sovereignty and agency?
The world sees this as a strip and extract operation: first mining community content, then enclosing it, and finally locking developers, communities, and entire organizations into Microsoft’s ecosystem, which is the opposite of open source and sovereign control.
3. What immediate, auditable steps will Microsoft take to repair the breach of trust with developers and platform stakeholders—including independent oversight and enforceable guarantees—to prove that GitHub will not be exploited for Microsoft’s commercial gain or to undermine the digital sovereignty of its users?
Repeated public promises were made that GitHub would retain its developer-first values and open extensibility. The loss of trust is not just about business decisions—it is about whether open source contributors, organizations, and governments can ever again believe in the commitments of those who control their code, collaboration, and infrastructure.
4. Will Microsoft commit, by enforceable policy and public documentation, that no public GitHub repositories will be used for training proprietary AI models or commercial products without explicit opt-in consent from project owners, thus protecting the digital agency and autonomy of all contributors?
Developers globally are concerned that their open source contributions are being silently harvested for commercial AI without consent, attribution, or compensation.
5. Will Microsoft provide developers and organizations with granular, real-time tools to track and control every instance where their code or metadata is accessed, processed, or used for AI or commercial purposes, along with a public log of such activity—empowering all users to exercise digital agency over their work and assets?
Developers have a right to track and control use of their code in AI and data pipelines. Sovereign organizations and communities have an equal right to transparent control over their assets and digital infrastructure.
6. Will Microsoft legally guarantee that all GitHub users retain unrestricted rights and technical means to export or migrate their code, data, and issue history at any time, without penalty or delay, and that no feature or license changes will restrict this freedom or diminish their digital sovereignty?
The health of the open source ecosystem depends on freedom of movement, agency, and interoperability—not closed integration with any vendor’s stack or barriers that undermine organizational or national self-determination.
7. Will Microsoft commit, by contract and technology, to never implement, enable, or cooperate in any form of kill switch, access denial, or politically motivated censorship affecting GitHub projects, regardless of pressure from governments or commercial interests—thus respecting the digital sovereignty and agency of all users worldwide?
Centralization amplifies the risk of politically or commercially motivated interference in developer access, especially during periods of geopolitical tension. Digital sovereignty means ensuring no single entity can unilaterally block, censor, or deny access to critical digital assets.
8. Will Microsoft agree to continuous, binding, independent audits of GitHub’s operations, with real enforcement power and board representation for open source foundations such as the Linux Foundation, FSF, or OSI, to safeguard the sovereignty and agency of the broader community?
A platform of GitHub’s global importance cannot be accountable only to its corporate owner. Recognized foundations must be invited to participate in this oversight. No internal Microsoft committee or advisory board can substitute for independent, enforceable, foundation-driven oversight with real transparency, developer representation, and binding authority. Only governance with teeth can rebuild trust and protect digital agency.
9. Will Microsoft publish a full, advance public record of all technical, legal, and policy changes that affect GitHub’s integration with Microsoft’s AI and cloud infrastructure, including any changes to data access, contributor rights, or project governance—providing all stakeholders with the information they need to protect their digital sovereignty and agency?
Developers, organizations, and governments need to understand the real scope of integration, dependencies, and any hidden impacts on autonomy, sovereignty, or compliance.
10. Will Microsoft publicly accept binding legal and financial liability, including retroactive remedies, if any use of GitHub code, data, or metadata for AI or commercial purposes is found to violate open source licenses, contributor agreements, relevant law, or the digital rights and sovereignty of its users?
The risk of legal and ethical breach is not theoretical—it is a live issue globally. This letter calls for binding, publicly auditable commitments, not ambiguous legalese, policy footnotes, or unenforceable pledges. The stakes demand real-world, transparent, and contractually enforceable action.
Specific Remedies the Community Expects
To ensure that trust is restored and preserved, and to provide the minimum foundation for moving forward in a world where digital sovereignty and agency matter, the following concrete remedies should be enacted:
Restore an independent GitHub CEO and governance board, separate from Microsoft’s AI, cloud, and product divisions, with real authority and transparency to protect community interests and platform autonomy.
Publish and enforce a clear, public data use and extraction policy for AI and all other Microsoft product development, including explicit opt-in or opt-out for project owners regarding code, metadata, and issue data, respecting the digital sovereignty of every contributor and community.
Submit to regular, external audits by recognized organizations such as the Linux Foundation, Free Software Foundation, or Open Source Initiative, with findings published in full to ensure accountability and agency for all stakeholders.
Contractually guarantee migration and export rights for all repositories and developer data, ensuring there are no technical, legal, or policy barriers to leaving the platform, thus safeguarding the freedom and digital sovereignty of every user.
Publish quarterly transparency reports detailing code access, AI extraction activity, and all data-sharing between GitHub and Microsoft’s internal systems, giving all users the visibility needed to maintain their own agency and control.
Pointing to isolated positive actions or PR initiatives does not address the irreversible structural shift underway, nor does it remedy the breach of trust caused by consolidating platform power without transparent, community-backed guarantees.
What happens next matters. If these concerns are not addressed openly and concretely, many developers, projects, organizations, and even governments will have to reconsider their continued trust in GitHub’s stewardship and Microsoft’s commitments to open source and digital sovereignty. Major voices in the community are already calling for alternatives and greater scrutiny of platform governance. I encourage other developers, open source advocates, digital sovereignty experts, and independent observers to follow this issue closely and demand real accountability for the future of digital collaboration and autonomous control.
I invite Microsoft, and you personally, to respond to these questions in a public forum or published statement so the entire developer and digital sovereignty community can judge for themselves whether these concerns will be taken seriously and addressed with binding commitments. Setting a clear, reasonable timeline for such a response—for example, within 30 days—would show respect for the global community that helped make GitHub what it is.
If no substantive answers are provided, many will conclude that Microsoft is unwilling to rebuild trust or respect the values that made open source and digital sovereignty possible in the first place. If silence or spin is all that follows, developers, communities, and national stakeholders will begin organizing alternatives, engaging with independent foundations for oversight, and calling for regulatory scrutiny of platform stewardship on an industry-wide scale.
What Microsoft does next will set a precedent for all of Big Tech. This moment is about more than one company or one platform. It is about whether open source, digital sovereignty, and the collective trust, investment, and creativity of millions can survive in an era of corporate consolidation and broken promises.
While I am only one voice among many, thousands of developers, project leaders, and digital-sovereignty advocates echo these concerns. The false assurances made in 2018, documented above, are the root cause of this collapse of credibility. We have no interest in PR spin, empty reassurances, or legal jargon. Only real, specific action and binding commitments will be accepted by the community. Thank you for your attention. The world is watching what you do next.
Sincerely,
Dion Wiggins
A concerned developer of 40+ years, writing in solidarity with the global open source and digital sovereignty community
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