Well, it’s official. The only thing standing between us and a Microsoft-owned GitHub future is regulatory review.

The implications of this acquisition are broad-sweeping, but the way it’ll actually play out is still unclear. Here’s what Satya Nadella says:

We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges.

Addressing one of the big questions on developers’ minds, Microsoft states:

GitHub will retain its developer-first ethos and will operate independently to provide an open platform for all developers in all industries. Developers will continue to be able to use the programming languages, tools and operating systems of their choice for their projects — and will still be able to deploy their code to any operating system, any cloud and any device.

I’m not quite sure what operate independently means in practice. GitHub has been searching for a CEO for months now. How independent do they want to remain?