Microsoft buys JavaScript developer platform npm; plans to integrate it with GitHub.
https://zdnet.com/article/...

Now it's npm. MS is taking on the open source world slowly. What if later they change their motto of "Microsoft loves open source".

I feel smell of totally automated development.

Microsoft does not buy open source, it buys closed source infrastructure critical for open source and its communities.
If they change their mind they could hit the open source world very hard, at least for a good while.

If this wasn't software but some real life market I'd be absolutely sure a competition regulator would have prevented this long ago.

Yeah let's wait until they make you pay for npm packages.

@Benedikt
Agreed on all except regulation. Things aren't regulated until someone gets hurt and the cover-up fails.

@SortOfTested The main task of competition regulators is in most countries to proof such fusions of cooperations and to not allow them if it risks to create a monopoly or prevent good competition.

You cannot simply buy all the infrastructure.
The last time Microsoft did something like that, Bill Gates had to give Apple a big financial support for it to become a real competetor again and to prevent a forced divestiture.