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A comment on StackOverflow. Parent comment

Re:StackOverflow by SideburnsOfDoom on Friday March 02, 2012 @02:03PM (#3657846)
If you really want to debate if this was evil or not (and if it becomes less evil if you outsource it, pass the buck or bend over to big content) then there was a HackerNews discussion (Maybe two or three...) on this topic. People trotted out their apologies there for this unacceptable action, so I'm sure there are good rebuttals there.

The basic question that I asked was: Why is MS held to a different standard to the big guys of the internet (chiefly Apple, Facebook, Google, Oracle, paypal/ebay)? What recent actions do we have to compare them on?

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Re:StackOverflow by icebraining on Friday March 02, 2012 @10:32PM (#3659277)
The basic question that I asked was: Why is MS held to a different standard to the big guys of the internet (chiefly Apple, Facebook, Google, Oracle, paypal/ebay)? What recent actions do we have to compare them on?

Why does it have to be recent? Should we just whitewash the past? It was ten years ago, not in the 19th century. They even have the same CEO.

But in any case, they're still extorting companies using their grotesque FAT patents.

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Re:StackOverflow by nkassis on Saturday March 03, 2012 @01:33AM (#3659570)
What about the secure boot story http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/microsoft-manda...

That's recent and it is evil. Microsoft never was completely evil they just put the mighty dollar above everything else including software quality.

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Re:StackOverflow by SideburnsOfDoom on Saturday March 03, 2012 @05:32AM (#3659867)
Good answer, thanks.

I agree that MS is profit-driven. I just don't see how that puts them on a different plane from Facebook, Google, Apple, Oracle, Paypal et al.

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Re:StackOverflow by knewter on Saturday March 03, 2012 @07:39AM (#3660035)
If Google sells ads to me, or my personal information that I gave them down the road, then that affects me.

If Microsoft uses their power to force future hardware to be unable to boot linux / other FOSS OSes, then that affects me WAY MORE.

So much more that I consider such actions to be on a different plane.

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Re:StackOverflow by SideburnsOfDoom on Saturday March 03, 2012 @07:41AM (#3660039)
Google and Apple are both involved in OS and hardware. Their locking decisions could be comparable, i.e. on the same plane.
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