Microsoft and GitHub Strengthen Their Hang On Open Source

Microsoft will quickly manage more of the open source software advancement ecosystem.

GitHub, which Microsoft purchased in 2018, said Monday that it will get NPM, which offers a crucial service for JavaScript designers. Terms of the offer were not disclosed.

GitHub is the most popular location to host open source software application online and is house to around 100 million code “repositories.” NPM, short for “node plan supervisor,” hosts packages composed for the popular JavaScript programming platform Node, and offers tools for managing those plans. According to a article from NPM cofounder Isaac Schlueter, the business hosts 1.3 million bundles, which are downloaded 75 billion times monthly. The company’s site states consumers consist of Slack, Netflix, Visa, and Nike.

The companies are essential because developers today tend not to write applications entirely from scratch. Rather they typically stitch programs together from open source plans of code– like those hosted on NPM– that manage typical functions, like interaction with databases or confirming passwords.