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1. Embed this notice
   ashwin (ashwin@union.place)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 10:54:14 JST ashwin

   Microsoft Philanthropy

   Microsoft donates Windows licenses to schools.

   Windows has already been made, so donating licenses costs almost nothing.

   Microsoft gets:

   1. tax breaks for the full market price of the licenses.

   2. good publicity for its generous donation.

   3. mindshare, by locking in a whole generation of students into Windows.

   4. to fend off FOSS by positioning itself as the de facto standard.
   #freesoftware #linux #microsoft #business #businessstrategy #tech #education #philanthropy

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and clacke like this.
   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Friday, 09-Feb-2024 10:55:02 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to
     @ashwin It feels like a corporation doing a "donation" to a public service, specially a school, ought to be illegal, and probably is in some jurisdictions (anti-corruption for example).
     
     But I'm not a lawyer.
   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 01:49:56 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Janneke
     @janneke @ashwin In my experience it's the ministries, not the schools themselves, which then could still individually opt-out from Windows but it becomes a mess whenever some mandatory proprietary software is part of the curriculum.
     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Janneke (janneke@todon.nl)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 01:49:58 JST Janneke

     in reply to

     • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     @lanodan @ashwin Well, if you're a school and you're too stupid to see this, your students are f*cked anyway.

     What could you possibly hope to teach them?