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Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

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Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#221

Post by mulmen »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #188
mulmen wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not the same thing. Bribery undermines the rule of law. Lobbying helps form it. The difference may seem subtle but it isn’t. If you believe US lawmakers are taking bribes please provide evidence because that is a Big Deal. If you believe lobbying is harmful to our democratic processes please present that argument directly.

> If you believe lobbying is harmful to our democratic processes please present that argument directly. Not OP, but it is easy to understand how lobbying is too close to a quid pro quo scheme. If a politician receives donations in any form, in order to push for legislation that may benefit the donors, how is it any different from bribery?

The rule of law.

Subtlety matters. Calling lobbying bribery is apathy, which is uninteresting. Even worse, it’s ineffective.

> If a politician receives donations in any form, in order to push for legislation that may benefit the donors, how is it any different from bribery?

So, should I donate to a mayoral campaign that aligns with my beliefs? Is all money in politics evil, or is it just a matter of degrees? What if that mayoral candidate is a “political outsider” who relies on “grassroots support” to enable them to quit their job and focus on the campaign?

I’m an expert in my field. Should I inform my elected leaders on the nuances of that field when they write legislation that relates to it? Or should laws only be written by the ignorant? How ignorant should they be?

Trade is a quid pro quo scheme. Pretending all exchanges of value are the same is, again, uninteresting. How can such a position be engaged? And to what end?

Where’s the line between bribery and democracy?

It’s not easy to draw. Calling lobbying bribery is an apathetic oversimplification. It’s uninteresting and isn’t a position that can be engaged constructively.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#222

Post by DoingIsLearning »

rirze wrote: post #207
mupuff1234 wrote: post #193

If a government organization would want to use a Linux, how hard would it actually be? Is it a viable alternative?

Didn't Germany at one point, try to do this? I'm not sure if they still are using Linux. Also certain Chinese agencies are most definitely using custom distros.

It was the city of Munich [0], not the entirety of Germany.

I think there is also Vicenza in Italy where the municipality is using Zorin Os. [1]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

[1] https://itsfoss.com/vicenza-windows-zorin/

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#223

Post by treis »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #124

I’m disappointed but not surprised that the title is editorialized. It specifically leaves off “whistleblower alleges”. It’s literally one disgruntled former employee claiming this. But as usual for HN these days a tiny populations claim - in this case a population of one - is stated as fact.

The piece written by the whisteblower includes links to documents:

https://www.lioness.co/post/microsoft-is-using-illegal-bribe...

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#224

Post by mschuster91 »

rapsey wrote: post #16
Qem wrote: post #10

My work involves a public sector organization in Brazil. In the last years there was a big push towards microsoft products at my workplace, to a point where emails with announcements from corporate IT sometimes looks and sounds like spam pushing MS products. Now I'm left wondering if that's related to bribes here too, or if it's just bad judgement/taste from IT leadership.

MS is insanely powerful pretty much in every country in the world. They know damn well how to get into the power structures.

They just had the advantage of having the only viable GUI-based OS on mass market computers. Linux has only begun to be usable on the desktop around 2005-ish, Mac always was expensive because you had to buy Macs.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#225

Post by jrapdx3 »

zelon88 wrote: post #81
igetspam wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While in India once, I ran into a friend from Google who was out there trying to build a data center. Total coincidence that we were both there at the same time. I was there to hire and train for another company and he was there to break ground. He'd been there for week and they'd yet to start doing more than some bare minimums related to surveys and permits. I was surprised that he was there at all, given the curren…

I'm somewhat confused. Here in America when you want to accomplish something like open a new facility you basically force the potential municipalities into competing with each other to win your favor. A big company will go to all the Chambers of Commerce in a given area and basically say "we're considering opening a 100,000 Sq ft facility and hiring 300 people. What incentives can you offer me if I build it here?" Th…

Yeah it's happened like that in local communities where I live. Big company says to city government "if you don't give us a big tax break we'll move our [headquarters|factory|operations|etc] to our branch in [that other town]".

More often than not the city relents and the tax breaks are enacted. No city officials are paid off, it's all about arm-twisting.

Seems to me this is a form of extortion not bribery. Of course extortion is no more ethical than bribery, but it's not illegal to use the threat to take one's business elsewhere. Call it "negotiating", it happens all the time.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#227

Post by bastawhiz »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #206
pid-1 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think govs are different from your average company. Having a Linux based business is hard, for a few reasons: - Destkop Linux sucks - You need experienced sysadmins. There is no Linux equivalent to AD / Azure AD in terms of simplicity, as far as I know. Also true for other stuff like app management. - User resistance, as few people use Linux as their daily OSes

I wonder if we will see a push from Google with chrome os.

They have already pushed and many companies ship Chrome OS to their employees. It's extremely common for non-technical folks.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#228

Post by jmspring »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #3

Former Microsoftie here. After all the business ethics training videos I had to sit through, I am infuriated by this.

Finally an episode of SoBC where Nelson ends up blindfolded, kidnapped and taken to a black ops site? /s

Former here, too, I found it part of "big company" overhead. Had similar things many years ago at a different European based employer.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#229

Post by LorenPechtel »

Unfortunately, we are left with the problem that it can be very hard to tell the difference between a bribe and a grease payment. The latter are an unfortunate reality that companies can't realistically function without--and not just in the third world.

Re: Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes

#230

Post by mstipetic »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #204
kabdib wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not when you have a deadline and your stuff is behind, you don't :-) Happily, it was better than that. Most of these courses were online, and you could just let the videos of actors working through scenarios run in the background and then answer some simple questions. The questions never varied and the correct answer was usually pretty obvious (e.g., don't pick any answer that includes hiding a body).

Also it's not like you can fail the test, it just keeps you on the question till you select the right answer.

Ffs
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