Title:It's official: Microsoft will spend a whopping $7.5 billion to buy GitHub, a startup at the center of the software world

Microsoft is  buying GitHub, a massive software-development platform with 24 million users, for $7.5 billion.

微软(Microsoft)正在以75亿美元收购大型软件开发平台GitHub。

The deal is expected to pass regulatory review and close by the end of 2018. GitHub's most recent private valuation, as of 2015, put the software company at about $2 billion, after raising $350 million in venture capital since its founding in 2008.

这项交易预计将于2018年底通过监管审查并结束，GitHub最新于2015年进行的私人估值表明，该软件公司自2008年成立以来共筹集了3.5亿美元的风险资本，价值约为20亿美元。

The $7.5 billion being offered to GitHub is to be paid in Microsoft stock. As  Business Insider reported last week, the two companies have talked about a potential acquisition for some time — at one point, a $5 billion price tag was floated.

提供给GitHub的75亿美元将以微软股票支付，正如《商业内幕》上周所报道的，两家公司已经讨论过一段时间内可能收购的问题。

As the result of the acquisition, Microsoft's vice president Nat Friedman is taking over as CEO of GitHub, taking over for current CEO Chris Wanstrath. Wanstrath said 10 months ago that he would step down, but had remained in the role while a search for his replacement was ongoing.

收购结束后，微软副总裁纳特·弗里德曼(Nat Friedman)正接任GitHub首席执行官，接任现任CEO Chris Wanclash。Wancaleh在10个月前表示，他将下台，但在寻找替代他的同时继续发挥作用。

GitHub is an online code repository: Programmers all over the world use GitHub to host the code that powers their software projects. Once the code is on GitHub, anyone anywhere can download it, make their own tweaks and changes, and merge their changes back into the original project.

GitHub是一个在线代码存储库：世界各地的程序员使用GitHub托管授权其软件项目的代码。一旦代码在GitHub上，任何地方都可以下载，进行自己的调整和修改，并把它们的更改合并到原来的项目中。

Because of this functionality, GitHub has found itself at the center of the world of open-source software development — making this deal somewhat ironic, as Microsoft spent much of the '90s fiercely competing with open-source initiatives. Nowadays, though, Microsoft has warmed up to open-source, and Microsoft is the single biggest contributor to open-source initiatives on GitHub, making this acquisition a more natural fit than one might think.

由于这一功能，GitHub一直处于开源软件开发的中心，这使得这项交易颇具讽刺意味，因为微软曾将大部分90年代与开源举措激烈竞争。但是，如今，微软已经向开放源头猛进，微软是GitHub公开源举措的最大捐助者，这使得这项收购变得比人们所想的更自然了。

As  Business Insider reported last week, the protracted search for a replacement CEO led to trouble at GitHub.

The company was once looking to pursue an initial public offering, but employees said it became rudderless with Wanstrath on his way out.

The sale to Microsoft puts GitHub back on a more solid foundation. Friedman, the incoming CEO, has a history with software development as the founder of Xamarin, a software-development startup that Microsoft purchased in 2016. And several teams at Microsoft already use GitHub's software tools.

即将上任的首席执行长弗里德曼(Friedman)有软件开发的历史，是微软2016年购买的软件开发新创企业Xamarin(Xamarin)的创始人。微软的几个团队已经使用GitHub的软件工具。

From Microsoft's perspective, this deal plays nicely into the company's push into cloud computing, which is one of its biggest and most important initiatives. Bringing GitHub into the fold gives Microsoft a way to push its Azure cloud-computing platform to millions of highly engaged software developers.

从微软的角度来看，这笔交易恰如其分地推动了云计算，这是微软最大和最重要的举措之一。将GitHub纳入折叠为Microsoft提供了一种将Azure云计算平台推广到数百万高度投入的软件开发人员的方法。

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