6 ms·

I found this part interesting: > González Waite said that all of the large proprietary software companies ""are big bullies"". He has been called into the US e

I found this part interesting: > González Waite said that all of the large proprietary software companies ""are big bullies"". He has been called into the US embassy and been threatened because Mexico was using technology that was not from the US; those threats were dialed back when he explained that the government also used software and services from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Various companies use the US government to bully other countries, but they also use license audits as a reaction to projects that move to open-source software. Every time a successful switch happened, ""six months later there was an audit""; having the right legal team helps defend against those tactics, he said. It matches also what I heard from someone working for the Dutch government. He said that whenever they needed a new software system, that Microsoft would send multiple consultants for "free" which all could "help" the transition to a new service from Microsoft.

pjmlp 2y ago
Meanwhile, all major OEMs, and OS vendors routinely use BSDs and Linux distributions in some form, yet it is the same business as usual as 30 years ago, reverse engineering hardware support. The only "Linux Desktop" ready desktops and laptops to find at local shopping mall for normies are Android and ChromeOS devices, likewise in out-of-the-box experience for hardware support for peripherals.
- Smithalicious 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    I guess, makes you happy?
- zabzonk 2y ago
  Do you think that calling people "normies" is at all useful?
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    It is to me.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rikafurude21 2y ago
    normie is just online slang for normal people
  - cheschire 2y ago
    You’re right let’s call them muggles, which has the added double-elitism of “I understood that reference” as well as the in-story elitism of the wizards. /s
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    Being called normal is hardly a slur.
- cbmask 2y ago
  The government could order Linux ready hardware in bulk. Also, 30 years ago, normies were able to handle DOS, which is perfectly sufficient for bureaucratic applications. They'd be able to do so after two weeks of training even nowadays.
  - motorest 2y ago
    > Also, 30 years ago, normies were able to handle DOS (...) "Normies" from the 80s do not represent the dissemination of personal computing we experienced in the last 10-15 years. So far we have one or two generations whose experience with personal computing is limited to downloading apps from app stores and ,at best, check webpages. That is very far from what people used DOS for.
    - redeeman 2y ago
      unless you're saying they are significantly stupider, they can learn
      - sudahtigabulan 2y ago
        they can, if someone takes their smartphones away for a while.
      - motorest 2y ago
        > unless you're saying they are significantly stupider, they can learn I'm saying that there's a far larger portion of the population using computers, and they all benefit extensively from R&D going into UX design that allow people to use computers without having to "learn". What kind of dissociation from reality leads anyone to believe your regular joe will even have the motivation to waste their time sitting in front a computer, open a terminal, and type commands? Some software engineers don't even want to touch a computer when they clock out, and you expect others to push themselves to "learn" something the have no interest in?
  - WorldPeas 2y ago
    While my DMV and TSA use some kind of green on black terminal system, I think this is still kind of optimistic for work more complex than sequential entry. Maybe something like q4os could be employed for a stable GUI. From what I’ve seen in government work, groupware and chat systems are a definite force multiplier over a locked dumb terminal
vollbrecht 2y ago
There was an interesting story with the LiMux[1] ( Linux & Munich) project. The local government in Munich used it for quite some time. But than Microsoft came and installed there German Headquarters in Munich. With that new headquarter and enough lobbying, LiMux was forced out by the then new government just the moment it got "successful". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
- mschuster91 2y ago
  LiMux always gets mentioned in such topics... it's an interesting story and as I've actually worked there early in my career I've written a few times about what the actual issues were and why it failed - you might read through [1]. tl;dr: LiMux didn't just fail due to politics (although politics did play a large role and I will forever dislike Dieter Reiter for a multitude of reasons, LiMux being among them), it was set up for failure from the beginning, mostly budget related. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=mschuster91%20limux&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - deknos 2y ago
    Not really. I worked there. We had no budget issues. The dismissal was political. The issue was propaganda. There are even rumors that Dieter Reiter told someone that he regretted moving away from LiMux after he had to pay so much money for IT.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      > We had no budget issues. Depends on how one judges the state of equipment - I remember my private laptop having 4x the RAM than the city's computer... or my school's MuSiN computers running on win2k (!) until at the very least 2012. If that isn't a budget problem, I really really don't know what else could be one. > There are even rumors that Dieter Reiter told someone that he regretted moving away from LiMux Reiter regretting something, now that might be a first for him Anyway nice to see (or rather: read) you again!
calewis 2y ago
I worked for a very old school manufacturing company based in Switzerland. We wanted to roll our own IoT platform for sensors in the factory. We spoke to MS, what they had was a load of garbage, so we decided to carry on as we were. I later found out that the MS CEO called the CEO of this company and from then on we were fighting every day as to why we weren’t using MS. This was a private company, not even a big spend, yet they got the CEO involved on sales calls? That’s when I realised how corrupt it was an org.
- noisy_boy 2y ago
  > We spoke to MS, They are out to lock you in to ensure sustained cashflow, not solve your problem in the most impartial and cost efficient way for you.
- speed_spread 2y ago
  Small companies matter because the transition to non proprietary tech is potentially simpler and thus more likely to succeed. Add a few success stories from small players in the same market, making them more competitive might raise the attention of bigger players.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    This is absolutely the reason. This is why startups exist, new things are easier in small orgs for a variety of reasons.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Classic example of this was when Dell use WebObjects for their shop-front --- Microsoft was so put out that they threatened their licensing deals.
- dguest 2y ago
  CERN (also in CH) made a half-effort to switch away from MS a few years ago. MS had started charging them a crazy amount of money. They got a few people working on it and even switched a few of the back end services. And actually the open source stuff worked amazingly well! Then like a year later they doubled down on MS products (right after a new IT head came in). The IT people I spoke to had no idea why this happened but no one seemed to think going back to MS was a good idea. Discussed more here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41717607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41717607
Spooky23 2y ago
Most of these companies are absolutely total bullies. They’ll go to your board, CEO, governor, senator, mayor, audit firm, wherever. Punish your friends and elevate your enemies. A big part of being a CIO or CTO is having and maintaining relationships with key suppliers. This is especially true with SaaS/IaaS, where your business is valued based on whatever bullshit churn metrics the company cooked up. Your $2M deal may have way bigger impact on a Sales VP bonus than you think. You have to be a different kind of asshole to maintain control of these guys than in the old software world.
cookiengineer 2y ago
I can recommend watching the free documentary "The Microsoft Dilemma - Europe as a software colony" which highlights and explains how they target corrupt branches of the government, with under the table deals for specific threats and doxxes against politicians, up until "shilling" as government officials when they are not even working there, creating fake email addresses on their tenant's email domains to make it look like they have an administrative say in decisions in other teams of the projects. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg Yt-dlp while it's hot. Microsoft sure sends DMCA takedowns after this one.

pjmlp 2y ago

Meanwhile, all major OEMs, and OS vendors routinely use BSDs and Linux distributions in some form, yet it is the same business as usual as 30 years ago, reverse engineering hardware support. The only "Linux Desktop" ready desktops and laptops to find at local shopping mall for normies are Android and ChromeOS devices, likewise in out-of-the-box experience for hardware support for peripherals.

Smithalicious 2y ago
[flagged]
- pjmlp 2y ago
  I guess, makes you happy?
zabzonk 2y ago
Do you think that calling people "normies" is at all useful?
- pjmlp 2y ago
  It is to me.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rikafurude21 2y ago
  normie is just online slang for normal people
- cheschire 2y ago
  You’re right let’s call them muggles, which has the added double-elitism of “I understood that reference” as well as the in-story elitism of the wizards. /s
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Being called normal is hardly a slur.
cbmask 2y ago
The government could order Linux ready hardware in bulk. Also, 30 years ago, normies were able to handle DOS, which is perfectly sufficient for bureaucratic applications. They'd be able to do so after two weeks of training even nowadays.
- motorest 2y ago
  > Also, 30 years ago, normies were able to handle DOS (...) "Normies" from the 80s do not represent the dissemination of personal computing we experienced in the last 10-15 years. So far we have one or two generations whose experience with personal computing is limited to downloading apps from app stores and ,at best, check webpages. That is very far from what people used DOS for.
  - redeeman 2y ago
    unless you're saying they are significantly stupider, they can learn
    - sudahtigabulan 2y ago
      they can, if someone takes their smartphones away for a while.
    - motorest 2y ago
      > unless you're saying they are significantly stupider, they can learn I'm saying that there's a far larger portion of the population using computers, and they all benefit extensively from R&D going into UX design that allow people to use computers without having to "learn". What kind of dissociation from reality leads anyone to believe your regular joe will even have the motivation to waste their time sitting in front a computer, open a terminal, and type commands? Some software engineers don't even want to touch a computer when they clock out, and you expect others to push themselves to "learn" something the have no interest in?
- WorldPeas 2y ago
  While my DMV and TSA use some kind of green on black terminal system, I think this is still kind of optimistic for work more complex than sequential entry. Maybe something like q4os could be employed for a stable GUI. From what I’ve seen in government work, groupware and chat systems are a definite force multiplier over a locked dumb terminal

vollbrecht 2y ago

There was an interesting story with the LiMux[1] ( Linux & Munich) project. The local government in Munich used it for quite some time. But than Microsoft came and installed there German Headquarters in Munich. With that new headquarter and enough lobbying, LiMux was forced out by the then new government just the moment it got "successful". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

mschuster91 2y ago
LiMux always gets mentioned in such topics... it's an interesting story and as I've actually worked there early in my career I've written a few times about what the actual issues were and why it failed - you might read through [1]. tl;dr: LiMux didn't just fail due to politics (although politics did play a large role and I will forever dislike Dieter Reiter for a multitude of reasons, LiMux being among them), it was set up for failure from the beginning, mostly budget related. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=mschuster91%20limux&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- deknos 2y ago
  Not really. I worked there. We had no budget issues. The dismissal was political. The issue was propaganda. There are even rumors that Dieter Reiter told someone that he regretted moving away from LiMux after he had to pay so much money for IT.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > We had no budget issues. Depends on how one judges the state of equipment - I remember my private laptop having 4x the RAM than the city's computer... or my school's MuSiN computers running on win2k (!) until at the very least 2012. If that isn't a budget problem, I really really don't know what else could be one. > There are even rumors that Dieter Reiter told someone that he regretted moving away from LiMux Reiter regretting something, now that might be a first for him Anyway nice to see (or rather: read) you again!

calewis 2y ago

I worked for a very old school manufacturing company based in Switzerland. We wanted to roll our own IoT platform for sensors in the factory. We spoke to MS, what they had was a load of garbage, so we decided to carry on as we were. I later found out that the MS CEO called the CEO of this company and from then on we were fighting every day as to why we weren’t using MS. This was a private company, not even a big spend, yet they got the CEO involved on sales calls? That’s when I realised how corrupt it was an org.

noisy_boy 2y ago
> We spoke to MS, They are out to lock you in to ensure sustained cashflow, not solve your problem in the most impartial and cost efficient way for you.
speed_spread 2y ago
Small companies matter because the transition to non proprietary tech is potentially simpler and thus more likely to succeed. Add a few success stories from small players in the same market, making them more competitive might raise the attention of bigger players.
- sitkack 2y ago
  This is absolutely the reason. This is why startups exist, new things are easier in small orgs for a variety of reasons.
WillAdams 2y ago
Classic example of this was when Dell use WebObjects for their shop-front --- Microsoft was so put out that they threatened their licensing deals.
dguest 2y ago
CERN (also in CH) made a half-effort to switch away from MS a few years ago. MS had started charging them a crazy amount of money. They got a few people working on it and even switched a few of the back end services. And actually the open source stuff worked amazingly well! Then like a year later they doubled down on MS products (right after a new IT head came in). The IT people I spoke to had no idea why this happened but no one seemed to think going back to MS was a good idea. Discussed more here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41717607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41717607

Spooky23 2y ago

Most of these companies are absolutely total bullies. They’ll go to your board, CEO, governor, senator, mayor, audit firm, wherever. Punish your friends and elevate your enemies. A big part of being a CIO or CTO is having and maintaining relationships with key suppliers. This is especially true with SaaS/IaaS, where your business is valued based on whatever bullshit churn metrics the company cooked up. Your $2M deal may have way bigger impact on a Sales VP bonus than you think. You have to be a different kind of asshole to maintain control of these guys than in the old software world.

cookiengineer 2y ago

I can recommend watching the free documentary "The Microsoft Dilemma - Europe as a software colony" which highlights and explains how they target corrupt branches of the government, with under the table deals for specific threats and doxxes against politicians, up until "shilling" as government officials when they are not even working there, creating fake email addresses on their tenant's email domains to make it look like they have an administrative say in decisions in other teams of the projects. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg Yt-dlp while it's hot. Microsoft sure sends DMCA takedowns after this one.