• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 3, 2018

Bloomberg reports that the deal could be announced as early as Monday. Apple, Amazon, Google and many other tech companies use GitHub, which has become increasingly popular among developers to host their code, documentation and projects.

Reports suggest the two companies have been talking about a partnership for the past few years, but the discussions have progressed to an acquisition. 

GitHub hosts 27 million software developers working on 80 million repositories of code, according to the company's website.

Microsoft, which was formerly opposed to using open-source software development, is one of the biggest contributors to GitHub as CEO Satya Nadella continues to move the company away from a dependence on the Windows operating system and more toward in-house development on the Linux operating system.

An acquisition like this could also influence any future development in the area of artificial intelligence such as voice-assisted devices and search engine Bing. 

The Business Insider first reported talks between the two companies on Friday.