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Comment by lovingCranberry | Hacker News Reader

"Challenging the government" doesn't make sense there, because the government never ordered anyone to take down the source code.

Microsoft just did some risk management and decided that it's not worth it to keep their own users data. I find it quite interesting that someone puts Github's management in a difficult situation. Are they gonna terminate Prof Green's account too? Are they gonna hunt down every copy of the source code on Github? Are they giving high-profile users a special treatment?

Looking forward to how this plays out.

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It’s an enormous liability concern for them.

Even if some activist executive would allow it, Microsoft’s lawyers would absolutely not.

And the shareholders also wouldn’t.

Don’t forget that the purpose of a business is to create shareholder value (as defined by the shareholders themselves), and I highly doubt that the majority of Microsoft’s shareholders would see any value in this. Just liability.

Conclusion - not worth it.

> Are they gonna terminate Prof Green's account too?

Probably not.

> Are they gonna hunt down every copy of the source code on Github?

Probably.

Technically, a corporation exists to distribute risk to facilitate a venture that may produce a return, not necessarily fiscal, but nevertheless valuable to the group undertaking it.

It's a perversion of the concept to jump to must produce a positive financial return. Sometimes you just need an organization to coordinate something that eases a societal ill.

That business schools have forgotten this, and that we don't remind people of this consistently is a tragedy. It cuts off entire avenues of collective organization to get things done. Some times "getting it done at minimum outlay" is enough.

> It's a perversion of the concept to jump to must produce a positive financial return.

At no point I suggested that. I said "shareholder value, as defined by the shareholders themselves".

"value" doesn't imply fiscal.

Also wondering to what extend co-pilot has this particular code embedded.

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