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Cake day: February 21st, 2026
  • Wudi@feddit.uktoBuy European@feddit.uk•German state Bavaria cancels Microsoft contract to go open sourceEnglish
    18·
    10 days ago

    Microsoft has an entire team whose only goal is to prevent European governments from switching to Open Source. They distribute gifts to politicians.

    Remember, this is exactly how Microsoft operates in the United States:

    Twenty months ago, Representative Billy Tauzin walked into the office of William H. Gates 3rd, chairman of Microsoft, bearing a 10 inch by 10 inch white box and a warning.

    Mr. Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana and the chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the telecommunications industry, placed the box on Mr. Gates’s desk. Inside was a lemon meringue pie, a reminder of another pie that had been thrown in Mr. Gates’s face several weeks earlier by a Microsoft critic. The message to Mr. Gates, the richest man on earth and the leader of the digital world, was blunt: You need to make friends in Washington.

    Mr. Gates apparently took Mr. Tauzin’s message to heart – with a vengeance. While Microsoft and its executives contributed a relatively modest $60,000 to Republican Party committees in 1997, those contributions shot up to $470,000 as part of the company’s overall political contribution of $1.3 million in 1998. The 1998 figure included donations to political candidates, with the bulk of the money going to Republicans. This year, the company’s contributions of nearly $600,000 have been more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission records.

    Mr. Gates and his top lieutenants have made dozens of trips to Washington, cultivating powerful figures in both parties and hiring some of the city’s priciest lobbyists. Microsoft has retained Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee; Vic Fazio, a former Democratic congressman from California; Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota; Tom Downey, a former Democratic congressman from New York and a close friend of Vice President Al Gore; Mark Fabiani, former special counsel to the Clinton White House; and Kerry Knott, former chief of staff to Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader.

    The company also poured millions of dollars into an aggressive public relations and political offensive, hiring an armada of well-connected lobbyists and underwriting the work of research groups, academics and consultants who have made arguments sympathetic to Microsoft’s defense in the antitrust case.

    Microsoft has hired as consultant-spokesmen two former heads of the Justice Department’s antitrust division and a dozen or more prominent academics and writers, who publish articles and give interviews advocating Microsoft’s position.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/us/us-versus-microsoft-the-strategy-how-microsoft-sought-friends-in-washington.html

    Remember, Trump no longer prosecutes U.S. firms involved in bribery:

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c391ml9x878o

    Microsoft earns nearly $30 billion annually from Office.

    $30 billion dollars are at stake. You think their marketing department doesn’t bribe reviewers to harshly criticize LibreOffice?

    The switch to Open Source isn’t going to happen magically.

    It’s going to be a long and bitter battle.

  • Wudi@feddit.ukOPtoEurope@feddit.org•French Parliament member Karl Olive filmed jumping on a car after PSG victoryEnglish
    7·
    14 days ago

    They are social-liberals. They believe a competitive market economy is required to have a sustainable healthcare and welfare system. They believe in climate change but they don’t want extreme measures. They prefer slow measures such as banning plastic or encouraging electric cars. They support Ukraine. They sent aid to Palestine and imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers but don’t believe the problems of the Middle East can ever be fixed by outsiders. They support nuclear technology. They support legal abortion. They oppose death penalty.

    Leftists see Renaissance as right-wing / extreme-right.

    The extreme-right sees them as leftists.