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Corruption at Microsoft
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Is Microsoft just organised crime in "software" clothing? In my experience, it is something close to that. Consider the company's roots.
"By bribing the media (e.g. advertising money for publishers) they discourage reporting on the matter; so the reputation/perceptual harm is also minimal."Since we have some Microsoft whistleblowers speaking to us (and occasionally writing here) we can understand some of them going to Microsoft 'by mistake'. They don't know what they're getting into, so there's 'culture shock' for those who are accustomed to basic ethics. They either leave of get expelled for not blending in with the culture of corruption.
We previously saw Microsoft corruption undermining a GNU/Linux contract in Nigeria, OEMs' adoption of GNU/Linux in netbooks, Walmart's GNU/Linux, and so much more...
Microsoft is moreover bribing to silence critics, so the criminals who run Microsoft operate no better than the Mafia. They're even AstroTurfing to demonise their critics and censor them to the extent feasible (e.g. in GitHub). Jim Zemlin (Linux Foundation), OSI and all those Microsoft apologists are partners in crime. They participate in the crime by bagging money to keep quiet and/or help Microsoft.
"One can only hope it'll become widespread knowledge that Microsoft does this; one can at best pray that governments will actually start prosecuting Microsoft executives. If none of them is ever sentenced to prison, that's a green light for them to carry on."Generally speaking, Microsoft has always been organised crime. Nothing has ever changed. The cover-up became more extensive (even the SEC itself isn't intervening), so it's easy to forget what's really going on behind the scenes. Bill Gates himself bribes so much of the media and spikes negative stories about Microsoft and about himself.
One can only hope it'll become widespread knowledge that Microsoft does this; one can at best pray that governments will actually start prosecuting Microsoft executives. If none of them is ever sentenced to prison, that's a green light for them to carry on. ⬆