Keep your eyes open and take everything you see in the 'mainstream press' with a grain of salt. Jim Finkle, we now have our eyes on you. Unnecessary drama [PDF warning] arouses suspicion about ulterior motives.
Update: Here is another confirmation (this time from RMS), in case one was needed to show that Reuters was wrong. The previous confirmation came from Peter Brown of the FSF.
Microsoft already fired about 5,000-6,000 workers this year by our estimates; that's not counting resignations compelled through pressure (i.e. pushed, did not jump) and contractors
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA