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Comment by blagie | Hacker News Reader

1) 1980-2000 Microsoft was evil. I find 2022 Microsoft to be ahead of Google and Facebook on the ethics front, so YMMV. Microsoft doesn't do much antitrust anymore, is /more/ respectful of privacy than most of the tech industry, and by some measures, is the world's largest contributor to the open source collective. Tools like Visual Studio Code are pretty good too, and run on GNU/Linux.

2) Even with evil companies, contributing doesn't always mean helping evil. Companies are, as you pointed out, abstractions. I find much of what Facebook / Meta does to be particularly evil, but they have some very good, ethical projects I'd gladly work on or contribute to.

3) Even so, if an organization were evil, there are different tactics. Microsoft isn't going away. One can affect change from the outside or from the inside. In many cases, the best way to turn evil into good is to engage and contribute.

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> Tools like Visual Studio Code are pretty good too, and run on GNU/Linux.

All of Microsoft's tools are full of "telemetry", which is something they've repeatedly proven to make more comprehensive and invasive as time goes on. That project is nothing but a vehicle to get those questionable practices on your machine.

> Even with evil companies, contributing doesn't always mean helping evil.

It does, because this project has their name associated with it. The better it becomes, the more impact they can have on society. For an evil company, this is more frequent and impactful opportunities to do the wrong thing.

> One can affect change from the outside or from the inside.

Large US corporations exist only to oppress and bully. There's no way to change that, from any side. It is better to operate as if they do not exist at all, where you can.

> is /more/ respectful of privacy than most of the tech industry,

I see you haven't used the new, privacy busting Windows 11 OS, yet?

I have. It's bad.

Pavlov (one of the other comments) has it right with the Overton window comment:

- Compared to ChromeOS or Android, Windows 11 is the ultimate in privacy.

- Compared to Google Docs, Office 365 is the ultimate in privacy

... and so on.

With Google's or Meta's surveillance infrastructure, if we get a Putin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or similar (and I'm by no means trying to equate those individuals), individuals who checked their data in will be !@#$%ed.

On the other hand, I don't feel like people are putting themselves in danger using Windows 11.

Personally, I use Ubuntu + emacs + libreoffice.

Do you have concrete examples on how you would consider Android and Docs worse in terms of privacy?

I'm trying to imagine how Google Docs could be worse than Microsoft Word stored in your One Drive, or Microsoft Word Online. Both services don't access your private word document unless required by law enforcement.

As examples:

1) Android keeps a log of everywhere I've been. It randomly turns on Google Assistant and records my voice. There is a ton of telemetrics going to Google, and no way to know what it is.

2) Google Docs literally keeps a keystroke-by-keystroke log of everything I've ever typed into Google Docs. If you typed the n-word and erased it 3 seconds later, that's in your permanent record.

3) Google lies about what data it collects and stores. Your Google Export won't include things like #2. That's a violation of GDPR.

As a footnote, #3 came up when I had my GSuite account attacked by an insider. I couldn't do forensics without a security up-sell. I wanted to know what IPs had accessed my accounts, at what times, and what they did. That kind of auditability once one tier up -- if I switched away from the (at the time free) tier, permanently.

> I find 2022 Microsoft to be ahead of Google and Facebook on the ethics front

> is /more/ respectful of privacy than most of the tech industry

What a great example of "damning with faint praise". If you have to compare to Google and Facebook to look good, they're probably still evil.

> Microsoft doesn't do much antitrust anymore

much

It’s not that Microsoft became less evil, but the Overton window of what’s acceptable for tech companies has been constantly translating towards evil.

In 1977 Bill Gates wrote a public letter saying that software piracy is wrong and developers should get paid; this was highly controversial at the time and launched the hackers-vs-MSFT dichotomy. A lot of people sincerely believed it’s evil to use copyright law to prevent anyone from making copies of software.

40+ years later, evil in the software industry is pretty much “willingly assists in genocide”. All other evil behaviors have been adopted and rehabilitated into a business growth narrative, helped along by Google’s gaslighting slogan “Don’t do evil” which led a generation to believe that anything Google is doing can’t be evil.

| software piracy is wrong and developers should get paid

... while at the same time stealing everything they could find. One of the most obvious examples was Bill Crowther's ADVENTURE, which Microsoft sold for multiple platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Adventure

Yeah, it's evil to take advantage of a copyright regime that authors like Crowther didn't really consider when releasing their code.

But it's more of a contract dispute between two parties. The scope is very narrow compared to some of the hair-raising practices of Google, Meta, Uber, Elon Musk, cryptocurrency exchanges, and other contemporary tech barons who reach billions of people.

> is /more/ respectful of privacy than most of the tech industry

How do you figure? They own Bing and Windows 1x is full of mandatory telemetry.

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