Code-hosting platform GitHub has announced that 100 million developers are now using the platform.
The figure represents a substantial hike on the 3 million users GitHub counted exactly 10 years ago, the 28 million it claimed when Microsoft acquired it for $7.5 billion five years ago, and the 90 million-plus it revealed just three months ago.
GitHub has come a long way since its launch back in 2008, and now serves as the default hosting service for millions of open source and proprietary software projects, allowing developers to collaborate around shared codebases from disparate locations.
For Microsoft, GitHub serves to help ingratiate it with software development sphere, having initially treated open source software with more than a little disdain, while it’s also using GitHub and its associated data — somewhat controversially — to develop a new AI-powered pair programmer called Copilot. But perhaps more importantly for Microsoft, in the near-term at least, is that