Jackie15h ago
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

RE: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/116380044468638699

Microsoft Office is one of the largest #welfare programs in the world. it diverts REAL billions of dollars from the public coffers of governments, into the pockets of Bill Gates and his #EpsteinClass cronies.

Brasil pays for basic universal health care and UBI for kids because it said NO to Microsoft in 2005 & moved to #linux & #LibreOffice.

thanks to Trump, #Microsoft finally lost the 2nd largest economy in the European Union and the 7th largest in the world.

merci a la France.

Apr 10 at 1:21pmWeb
Show threadDon Ray23h ago

@blogdiva

I kind of expect Microsoft will do some kind of vengeful act, like locking people out of their accounts while the transition is still ongoing. The Epstein oligarchs are not nice people.

Show threadDirk Ritter23h ago

@blogdiva

Icing on the cake? Despite all of it also being free as in 'freedom' and not just 'beer', unlike Mircroslop it also just fucking works while still looking gorgeous. 🥰

https://www.gnome.org

GNOME

An easy and elegant way to use your computer

Show threadTales Tomaz22h ago
@blogdiva This highly exaggerates what Brazil achieved with the 2005 decision. It was not only short-lived, but Brazil even went further into digital dependency, with lots of public admin contracts with Google, Microsoft, AWS, nearly everything is their hands. Hopefully things go in the right direction, but the Brazilian democratic movement seems to face other priorities now.
Show threadHubert Figuière21h ago
@blogdiva Canada sends hundred of millions of dollars annually to a tax shelter in Reno, Nevada (Microsoft Licensing). They even skew the procurement to require Microsoft despite the law forbidding it. When they got sued, they changed the law.
Show threadNeil E. Hodges21h ago
@blogdiva We should refer to ditching Windows as "defenestration". :P
Show threadGustavo20h ago
@blogdiva Hey, what do you call UBI for kids? Bolsa Família or Pé de Meia? I wouldn't call those UBI, but welfare programs. UBI looks similar, but IMHO those are fundamentally different.
Show threadyour auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦19h ago

@qgustavor i thought they extended the UBI they set up for orphans of femicidio to kids under a certain age.

edit: i forgot the Pé de Media. for real though, y’all giving more money to people directly, especially the youth, than here in USA. never in a million years i thought i’d see the day, yet here we are.

FWIW: i have an MPhil in Latin American Studies and Brasil was one of my areas of interest because of Celso Furtado & Henrique-Cardozo (they were popular in the 80s & 90s)

Show threadGustavo18h ago

@blogdiva I mean, those are really good programs, I just don't think they are UBI because... well, UBI should be Universal, it's in the name, and those programs are no close to universal.

AFAIK UBI does not have one of the issues many people criticize about Bolsa Família: many people claim many people on this program actually defrauded it and don't actually need it, so UBI, having lower requirements, would be easier to manage and to control fraud.

I love those programs! Many right-wingers (and people influenced by them) go against those. I lost count of how many times I heard people saying that those programs make people lazy. No way! I still love them! I went to public college, I got my home with the help of Minha Casa Minha Vida.

Show threadÉcole des Bro-Arts19h ago

@blogdiva Prior to the shift away from Microsoft Office, Brazil says says it spent ~121 million R$/year on all software licenses combined. Brazil's Unified Health System had an annual budget of approximately 100-140 billion R$/year from 2005-2010. I... I'm a huge free software enthusiast but like... that change provided Brazil with at most 0.12% of SUS funding requirements, right?

https://www.gov.br/iti/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/iti-na-midia/brazil-extends-microsoft-challenge-with-global-group-update3

https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/909701468020377135/pdf/Twenty-years-of-health-system-reform-in-Brazil-an-assessment-of-the-sistema-unico-de-saude.pdf (see p39).

Brazil Extends Microsoft Challenge With Global Group (Update3)

Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia da Informação
Show threadNick Silkey 📻 N5ILK 🪓🪵 🪣💧17h ago

@aphyr @blogdiva one can imagine the internal capitalist psyche and resulting dialogue as we all lived this timeline globally. 🤔

"Bro, we are literally printing historically ungodly sums of money ... by selling 'the right' to a 'digital thing'. There is no trad means of production at play on our unit economics ... just a license." ✨

*hits blunt*

"Forget continuously compounding interest - this is straight up currency alchemy, bro." 🫠

Show threadSeth Galitzer18h ago
@blogdiva I like this take. Vive Linux!
Show threadTimothy Roes18h ago
@blogdiva that’s a bit of an exaggeration because a MS account isn’t exactly expensive (one of the main reasons why it’s hard to get my company to move away from it) and when you adopt open source you’re supposed to support the developers financially as well. I just think it’s stupid for governments to go along with creating such a quasi-monopoly.
Show threadyour auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦16h ago

DUDE they are not cheap per computer; and it’s the way they’ve entrapped whole governments in their servers with Outlook.

MS could have never made milliards without government contracts. public funding is their bread and butter.

they’re like the parasite that ends up eating it’s host tongue. sure, the fish can go on living, but it now has a necrotic stub instead of its own tongue.

why would you pay to have a parasite to maim you?

@TimothyRoes

Show threadFazal Majid16h ago

@blogdiva fun fact: Steve Ballmer now owns 3x more MSFT shares than Bill Gates, and his net worth is also higher

And he deserves it:

https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/25/on-win8-launch-day-a-look-back-at-steve-ballmer-circa-2001/

On Win8 launch day a look back at Steve Ballmer, circa 2001 | I, Cringely

Steve Ballmer today is still willing to bet big and expects to win. The big question for 2013 is whether Ballmer can pull off something similar again?

I, Cringely - on technology
Show threadNegative12DollarBill16h ago
@blogdiva They won't save ALL the money they were paying to Microsoft. Someone will still need to program and maintain the systems and servers etc. But those people will mostly be French people. The money won't be going to America.