from Hacker News

Google's Shadow Campaigns

by boh on 11/15/24, 3:51 AM with 12 comments

• by fragmede on 11/15/24, 5:30 AM

  > Fundamentally, Google’s argument is that it should not have to pay Microsoft when it builds and offers cloud services using our intellectual property – namely Windows Server – if customers have otherwise purchased the same software for a very different use, i.e., on their own server.

  Wait, hang on, astroturfing aside, I think I'm on Google's side here. If I bought a Windows server license, and I want to use that license on a server in GCP/Azure/AWS, why should I have to buy another one?

• by bediger4000 on 11/15/24, 5:07 AM

  > This week an astroturf group organized by Google

  Oh, for pity's sake. It takes one to know one. Leading up to the 1999-2000 antitrust trial, Microsoft organized tons of astroturf groups.

  If any company deserved to be broken up, it is/was Microsoft.

• by rdtsc on 11/15/24, 4:58 AM

  > Google has taken a page out of its decades-long playbook for litigating against antitrust enforcers. It is funding – directly and indirectly – various industry commentators and academics to attack Microsoft and author “studies” that can be cited to discredit us.

  It's sad how they've become the slimy evil company like the ones they made fun of when they were starting up. "We are not like those tie-wearing evil corporations, look at our fun and bright colors!". Yet years later, here they are, the same type of monster they were pointing their fingers at.

  > This was also the basis of the changes we proactively made to our popular business and enterprise productivity suites last year: creating versions without Teams [...] We’ve made these changes, and others, not because we believed we were doing something improper

  Come on, Rima, we can read between the lines. We're not in court here and no need to pretend. Microsoft knew exactly where it was headed. Just because Google is up to dirty tricks, doesn't automatically turn Microsoft into a fluffy bunny.

• by ZedZark on 11/15/24, 1:23 PM

  Anyone remember that time Microsoft covertly gave SCO a bunch of money to wage lawfare against Linux vendors?

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes#Mic...

• by gostsamo on 11/15/24, 5:36 AM

  The author starts with their supposed honesty and continues with unabashed hypocrisy.

  And if owning a DVD helps me build a movie library in the service of the movie creator, it should help in building it in any other service.

• by gnabgib on 11/15/24, 3:53 AM

  Previously at the time (17 days ago)

  (19 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41973730

  (31 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41977108

• by ZedZark on 11/15/24, 1:15 PM

  This is like reading an open letter from Stalin to Hitler

• by lazyeye on 11/15/24, 4:33 AM

  "Don't be evil" has become "Hide your evil". (At least try to anyway).