Microsoft leadership, from Nadella on down, has blood on their hands, callously lying to Federal authorities and weaponizing the courts to put an innocent man in jail, destroying a year of a man's life, disrupting the livelihoods of 100 honest working people, and creating tons of dangerous polluting electronic waste, just so they could steal $700K from their customers.

Remember this next time you buy a Microsoft computer.

Exactly. This same business model would have worked out had he used Linux instead. My local old computer re-purposing shop exclusively uses Linux, and they offer classes for owners.

That Microsoft decided to pursue this, especially in an instance where the person being sentenced is doing good work, is just ethically bankrupt all around. Even the judge mentioned having a hard time sentencing him because of the work he has done.

I know that my personal protest would do nothing, but this kind of operating corporate policy really just adds to my already strong disdain of Microsoft and companies that act like this. Zero nuance was applied in this case, and restore discs without licenses have zero value- Microsoft arguing otherwise is ridiculous.

I only use Windows for one specific usage case, gaming, and if it wasn't for that (or if Linux ever gets far more gaming support), I will drop Windows permanently for Linux.

I wish there was something we could do about this and the many injustices we say day-to-day, but I sure feel helpless.

> "the person being sentenced is doing good work"

No good deed goes unpunished.

Unbelievable travesty of justice.

Absolutely atrocious. We’ve seen this time and again, technology companies placing exorbitant value in the courts on data that is essentially worth zero.

Whatever happened to the new friendly Microsoft?

It was an illusion in the minds of some people. It always was.

What can I do?

Never work for Microsoft.

Most of the HN community I bet works in the tech industry. Microsoft employees should make their stance known to management. This is reprehensible.

Mo Battah is my real name and I will never work for Microsoft. I work for ethical companies.