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Microsoft announced in June that it was buying the Git repository and collaboration platform GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock. That acquisition has received all the necessary regulatory approvals and has now completed. Nat Friedman, formerly of Xamarin, will take the role as GitHub CEO on Monday.

The news of the acquisition sent ripples through the open source world, as GitHub has become the home for a significant number of open source projects. We argued at the time that the sale was likely one of necessity and that of all the possible suitors, Microsoft was the best one due to common goals and shared interests. Friedman at the time sought to reassure concerned open source developers that the intent was to make GitHub even better at being GitHub and that he would work to earn the trust of the GitHub community. Those views were reiterated today.

Since then, Microsoft has joined the Open Invention Network, a patent cross-licensing group that promises royalty free licenses for any patents that apply to the Linux kernel or other essential open source packages. This was a bold move that largely precludes Redmond from asserting its patents against Android and should mean that the company will no longer receive royalties from smartphone manufacturers.

Sources close to the matter tell us that Microsoft's decision to join OIN was driven in no small part by the GitHub acquisition. GitHub is already a member of OIN, which left Microsoft with only a few options: withdraw GitHub from OIN, a move that would inevitably upset the open source world; acquire GitHub as some kind of arm's length subsidiary such that GitHub's OIN obligations could not possibly apply to Microsoft; or join OIN too, as the most straightforward approach that also bolstered the company's open source reputation. Microsoft took the third option.