Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

binnenlandsbestuur.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 229 posts

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#101

Post by myth_drannon »

bhouston wrote: post #14
pjmlp wrote: post #10

After Microsoft left politics mess up with their customer base something like that was to be expected.

Microsoft has to follow US sanctions, even if they are misplaced. This isn't a choice on Microsoft's part here. The ICC was applauded in the US in the when it went after Russia but when it goes after Israel it is sanctioned. It unfortunately hard to be impartial, like the ICC is, when it comes to international war crimes. The big players want you to play towards their favourites and only hold their enemies accountabl…

[flagged]

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#102

Post by whatever1 »

vincvinc wrote: post #52

Related: "IMPOSING SANCTIONS ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT" (white house, feb 2025) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo... Microsoft admits in French court it can't keep EU data safe from US authorities (jul 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822902

I don’t understand why this is the case though.

Could MS create a new EU based company in which it just owns shares ?

Or is the US cloud act so wide that they can demand data from all the companies a us based company has equity in?

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#103

Post by jraph »

slwvx wrote: post #33

The lack of anything at all on the roadmap page [1] and lack of a link to their code repository on a blog post touting their open-source cred [2] does not build confidence. I found their code repo link in the comments here, after not finding it easily on their site. EDIT: to be clear, I'm all for open source software, and for more options to tools from big tech firms. [1] https://www.opendesk.eu/en/roadmap [2] https:…

I work for one of the several European companies building open source software that has been chosen as components of openDesk.

openDesk is solid, legit and serious.

Open source is a requirement. As such, money doesn't go to a startup building proprietary software that get bought a few years later by a big tech company and then all the investment is lost. They audit and check that licenses are open source and that the dependencies have compatible licenses.

It's publicly funded, by Germany* (for their needs, but it will grow larger than them). Their strategy is to give money to established European open source software companies so they improve their software in areas that matter to them, including integration features (user management, for instance, or file / event sharing with other software, many things) as well as accessibility. They take all these pieces of software and build a coherent (with a common theme / look & feel), turn-key, feature-rich suite. This strategic decision that has its drawbacks allows to get something fast with what exists today.

I'm not sure communication and the business strategy is all figured out / polished yet, but with the high profile institutions adopting it, it will come. Each involved companies wants this to succeed too.

I think this is huge. I'm quite enthusiastic. Software might not be perfect but with the potential momentum this thing has, it could improve fast, and each piece of open source software that is part of this as well along the way.

* see also caubin's comment

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#104

Post by NoboruWataya »

whatever1 wrote: post #102
vincvinc wrote: post #52

Related: "IMPOSING SANCTIONS ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT" (white house, feb 2025) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo... Microsoft admits in French court it can't keep EU data safe from US authorities (jul 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822902

I don’t understand why this is the case though. Could MS create a new EU based company in which it just owns shares ? Or is the US cloud act so wide that they can demand data from all the companies a us based company has equity in?

MSFT already operates in Europe via subsidiaries for a whole host of reasons. But hiving certain assets off in a subsidiary is very rarely effective to avoid laws and regulations that apply to the parent. The parent controls the subsidiary so a court or regulator having jurisdiction over the parent could order it to get what it needs from the subsidiary. This is particularly so in the US, which is kind of known for enacting overreaching extraterritorial laws.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#105

Post by shiandow »

whatever1 wrote: post #102
vincvinc wrote: post #52

Related: "IMPOSING SANCTIONS ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT" (white house, feb 2025) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo... Microsoft admits in French court it can't keep EU data safe from US authorities (jul 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822902

I don’t understand why this is the case though. Could MS create a new EU based company in which it just owns shares ? Or is the US cloud act so wide that they can demand data from all the companies a us based company has equity in?

I'd be surprised if this isn't already the case. The extent to which you can do business in the EU without legal presence is limited.

It is not a huge amount of protection though. I mean we've already established that selling to 'terrorists' can be sanctioned even when selling through an intermediary. So what's stopping the US from ordering Microsoft to stop selling licenses to the ICC?

And then we've not touched on who is in control of the closed source of the many proprietary applications.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#106

Post by whatever1 »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #104
whatever1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why this is the case though. Could MS create a new EU based company in which it just owns shares ? Or is the US cloud act so wide that they can demand data from all the companies a us based company has equity in?

MSFT already operates in Europe via subsidiaries for a whole host of reasons. But hiving certain assets off in a subsidiary is very rarely effective to avoid laws and regulations that apply to the parent. The parent controls the subsidiary so a court or regulator having jurisdiction over the parent could order it to get what it needs from the subsidiary. This is particularly so in the US, which is kind of known for e…

So let’s say I am eu citizen I own a data center company in Brussels.

I sell 1 stock to MS USA. Can they at any point demand all my data ?

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#107

Post by mattmaroon »

whatever1 wrote: post #102
vincvinc wrote: post #52

Related: "IMPOSING SANCTIONS ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT" (white house, feb 2025) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo... Microsoft admits in French court it can't keep EU data safe from US authorities (jul 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822902

I don’t understand why this is the case though. Could MS create a new EU based company in which it just owns shares ? Or is the US cloud act so wide that they can demand data from all the companies a us based company has equity in?

If you’re Microsoft do you really want to anger the federal government? Companies aren’t as cavalier about taking them on as they used to be. They’re likely Microsoft’s largest customer by far, and they have the power to end you (which they nearly did once).

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#108

Post by epistasis »

lysace wrote: post #19
bawolff wrote: post #16

I think the bigger question is why they were using microsoft products in the first place. USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation. Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.

USA has been very hostile to the ICC since way before Trump. The ICC was created in 1998 when Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome treaty. And then GW, Obama, Trump and Biden didn't either. Very few americans batted an eye as far as I could tell. Your are after all by definition exceptional. (/s)

> Bill Clinton was president of the USA. He never ratified the Rome treaty. And then GW, Obama, Trump and Biden didn't either.

Small point of order, but it is the Senate that ratifies treaties and not presidents. The Senate is heavily biased to overrepresent rural areas, which tend to be very conservative, and only 40% of senators can stop any ratification. The ICC has been the subject of massive amounts of conspiracy theories and misinformation in conservative media, so there's approximately zero chance that it could ever be ratified, unless the Senate's structure was made more representative of the people of the US rather than a conspiracy-minded subset.

If the Senate was a democratic representation of the will of the US it would not be hard to ratify the treaty.

Re: ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

#109

Post by KaiserPro »

yupyupyups wrote: post #71
vincvinc wrote: post #52

Related: "IMPOSING SANCTIONS ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT" (white house, feb 2025) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo... Microsoft admits in French court it can't keep EU data safe from US authorities (jul 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822902

>Microsoft admits in French court it can't keep EU data safe from US authorities Snowden leaked that fact before Microsoft made the admission. But it's good that it's coming from them officially nonetheless.

Theres a difference between as an intelligence organisation having access to data, and "someone in power is angry because they watched a TV advert, I want to see what they know"

but, your over all picture is still, sadly correct.

Post reply on HN