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Microsoft pulls MS365 Business Premium from nonprofits

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  • $54Bn To the "Gates and Melinda" fund.

    Guess who are in control of it, even you might figure it out.

    Otherwise, is the boot juice good today?

    They didn’t donate all of that to that fund. They’ve donated hundreds of millions/billions to many other charities and causes that they don’t run. The money that they do donate to that fund does get used to help humanity. If you’re going to claim that it just goes back to line their own pockets, can you provide evidence of this?

    Oh and what a creative way to use one of the most uncreative low-iq commie insults!

  • They didn’t donate all of that to that fund. They’ve donated hundreds of millions/billions to many other charities and causes that they don’t run. The money that they do donate to that fund does get used to help humanity. If you’re going to claim that it just goes back to line their own pockets, can you provide evidence of this?

    Oh and what a creative way to use one of the most uncreative low-iq commie insults!

    They "donated" 54 billion dollars to the gates & melissa fund.

    The other "donations" are coming with so many strings attached people do not want them. Hey let me "donate" to your researh! I just gotta need the IP of anything that comes from it...

    Zuckenberg also does this.

    For the low quality meme, well you are out here "protecting" an evil person. For free too.

  • This post did not contain any content.

    Actually I think this isn't exactly news. The university I go to, which is technically a foundation, had MS365 pulled last year IIRC and sent us all scrambling to find alternatives.

    It didn't bother me too much because I had already fully transitioned to LibreOffice, but my classmates were furious because they didn't want to lose the "seamless online editing experience". I told them to either use LibreOffice or move to Google Docs, but they didn't like the idea and most (if not all) of them purchased MS365 subs. I unfortunately had to budge and get one too, because we needed to get some work done ASAP. I can't wait until I graduate (should be soon-ish?) to stop paying for that crap.

    But yeah. IIRC they started by reducing the amount of storage the university got, meaning they had to quickly delete data from past classes (fortunately I managed to back up quite a bit), and then one day they suddenly sent everyone an email saying "you don't have access to MS365 anymore lol get fucked"

  • How are you handling compliance/legal obligations like DLP policies on your email and cloud storage, legal holds and investigations, data tagging, and retention policies? I'm under the impression that only Microsoft offers those in a single product.

    Legal Hold is easy in the Google Workspace using Google Vault and DLP is a native feature-set for Enterprise plans. Audit and investigation features are very thorough and we've used them extensively.

    We do use an additional third-party endpoint DLP software with TLS inspection as well.

  • Legal Hold is easy in the Google Workspace using Google Vault and DLP is a native feature-set for Enterprise plans. Audit and investigation features are very thorough and we've used them extensively.

    We do use an additional third-party endpoint DLP software with TLS inspection as well.

    Interesting, I didn't realize that Google Suite enterprise options had become so robust.

  • Google offers workspace for free to nonprofits, Including device management. No one, I know in nonprofits even fucks with Microsoft because they’re so ridiculous. Now it’ll be even less people.

    Google now has the market cornered because they aren’t as greedy.

    Google now has the market cornered because they aren’t as greedy.

    honestly cant tell if this is satire. my university is currently purging google storage as fast as we can because they altered the licening once we were fully invested. and that was before they started screwing around with licensing language around their Ai. the google mdm is an absolute joke. not even my orgs own google team reccomends it and their jobs depend on google being used. i'd use the vmware nightmare formerly known as airwatch over google mdm.

    google is exactly this greedy.

  • Actually I think this isn't exactly news. The university I go to, which is technically a foundation, had MS365 pulled last year IIRC and sent us all scrambling to find alternatives.

    It didn't bother me too much because I had already fully transitioned to LibreOffice, but my classmates were furious because they didn't want to lose the "seamless online editing experience". I told them to either use LibreOffice or move to Google Docs, but they didn't like the idea and most (if not all) of them purchased MS365 subs. I unfortunately had to budge and get one too, because we needed to get some work done ASAP. I can't wait until I graduate (should be soon-ish?) to stop paying for that crap.

    But yeah. IIRC they started by reducing the amount of storage the university got, meaning they had to quickly delete data from past classes (fortunately I managed to back up quite a bit), and then one day they suddenly sent everyone an email saying "you don't have access to MS365 anymore lol get fucked"

    we used google docs alot during my final years in college, why aare they so resistant, its free. libreoffice i havnt touched yet.

  • So that's why Gates said he would donate money once he dies

    hes just trying to "clean up his image" of being a ruthless businessman in the 80s and 90s, he still is, even his foundation is questionable, remember the vaccines, he lobbied it so the poorer countries are forced to buy the usa/western versions, and cant make similar ones. warren isnt a saint either, but i dint hear much negative things about yet.

  • He said that he was giving away 99%+ 30 years ago, it's just publicity stunts, or as Kyrgizon explains below they "give" things to nonprofits that they control. Why? They no longer pay taxes. So nice!

    Bill gates is another billionaire mentally ill evil crap person, no different than elon or zuckenberg etc.

    hes a billionaire, with a veneer of "philantrophy", which means hes not genuine. there were plenty of ytbers that are like this had a veneer of progressivism, while turning hard right in the end.

  • I don't trust any of these "giving pledges" upon death. In name, their fortunes will pass on to nonprofits. Nonprofits controlled by their family members, which comes down to letting them keep their inheritances tax-free. This even happens in Europe.

    thats how he does it.

  • Now now, it's not like they get the whole inheritance. It's more like they get cushy overpaid non-work jobs to manage or consult for the non-profit.

    its "charity" was only a front for him doing this, pure laundering methods. he was on an AMA on reddit last decade i did try to quesiton him on that same thing, but AMA doesnt like to allow discussion of them quesitoning the AMA hosts in anyway.

  • Yup it's mostly bullshit. Someone, somewhere might benefit, but certainly not any of the people within two thousands miles of where the rich guy lived. Which is still better than nothing, but Bill Gates could end homelessness in America immediately if he chose to do so. (I'm not saying it would be easy or fast, just that he has the money to make it happen.) He could make ALL COLLEGE FREE for students. Musk could have too, likely for less than he spent on Twitter.

    what he was doing overseas was virtue signalling, to disguies his charities, so nobody would go looking into it, that is actually laundering money.

    him lobbying the covid vaccine to be instantly pantent by the US was sketchy asf. its to ensure countries like african and asian ones, south america cant make deratives of the vaccine.

  • Sadly. An example: I work at a small school that does not have an IT department. Staff and teachers are nearly IT-illiterate, and the students can hardly be coaxed to do stuff on a laptop instead of their phones. So installing Linux would add an additional hurdle for both. Probably much smaller than they think, but still: it heightens the threshold to even consider switching to Linux.

    There's a few people who know that Linux is just as valid as Windows, but who would they trust to make the switch safely. Me? I'm not a professional. So they'd have to pay someone, properly. And then it all comes down to money again which usually comes down to "let's not change anything".

    So for now I'd just be happy if they used LibreOffice instead of MS365.

    The same goes for Google Workspace. Making the effort to roll your own (totally possible with FOSS) would require to pay at least 1 person, and some sort of transitional period. It's cheaper and easier to pay none and just blame it on Google when things don't work as desired. These people just don't see it as a priority. Don't understand the dangers.

    teachers dint go to school for tech, i would give them a pass.

  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic gives you all this:

    Plan highlights:
    • Identity and access management for up to 300 users

    • Web and mobile versions3 of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook

    • Custom business email (you@yourbusiness.com)

    • Chat, call, and video conference with Microsoft Teams

    • 1 TB of cloud storage per employee

    • 10+ additional apps for your business needs (including Microsoft Bookings, Planner, and Forms)

    • AI chat experience with web grounding, writing assistance, data analysis, and access to agents4

    • Automatic spam and malware filtering

    • Anytime phone and web support

    LibreOffice gives you ………. 1 of those bullet points lol. Not really a like for like replacement is it?

    Libre Office, like some office software, can't meet the needs of businesses at the pace they're moving. Furthermore, developers aren't going to spend their time and resources creating a project that can compete with proprietary software. It would take an organization with more resources to try to keep up, but that would take a few years.

  • hes a billionaire, with a veneer of "philantrophy", which means hes not genuine. there were plenty of ytbers that are like this had a veneer of progressivism, while turning hard right in the end.

    Exactly.

    They all have PR firms, we know that because elon bought in on his own PR and booted his in 2018 (IIRC).

  • They "donated" 54 billion dollars to the gates & melissa fund.

    The other "donations" are coming with so many strings attached people do not want them. Hey let me "donate" to your researh! I just gotta need the IP of anything that comes from it...

    Zuckenberg also does this.

    For the low quality meme, well you are out here "protecting" an evil person. For free too.

    Lol facts > downvotes.

    Interesting that there are billionaire bootlickers on Lemmy 🤷🏼♀️.

  • we used google docs alot during my final years in college, why aare they so resistant, its free. libreoffice i havnt touched yet.

    Depending on what you're using it for, the gsuite office alternatives are incredibly feature-sparse. Last I checked, a lot of essential features such as accessibility checking and scripting either have nightmarish implementation, or require third-party addons. It also requires an internet connection and can't save in-progress documents to your local storage.

    Honestly the only leg up over the others that I think the GSuite really has is the seamless collaboration features.

  • That's the thing, I wish we could just switch all enterprises to Linux, but Microsoft developed a huge ecosystem that really does have good features. Unless something comparable comes up in the Linux world, I don't see Europe becoming independent of Microsoft any time soon

  • Meta Quest 3/3s XR headsets finally rooted after 2 years

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    Thank you for finding that. I got lucky, I bought a quest around July/August and needed to do the mandatory/initial OS install. I ended up with v78 (August 3, 2025) release. I didn't realize there was a WiP announced in July 2025.
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    They could have identified me, that's the point. We couldn't identify the criminals because that example was before facial recognition. You read the article but you still don't get it.
  • Danish Ministry switching from Microsoft Office/365 to LibreOffice

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    This already exists, look up "Collabora". It integrates very nicely with Nextcloud.
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    I actually wouldn't enjoy talking to most people at work, because that would involve going there instead of doing it from the computer where I already am
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    Not just that. The tax preparation industry has gotten tax more complex and harder to file in the US You get the government you can afford. The tax preparation industry has been able to buy several governments
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    I think you're missing some key points. Any file hosting service, no matter what, will have to deal with CSAM as long as people are able to upload to it. No matter what. This is an inescapable fact of hosting and the internet in general. Because CSAM is so ubiquitous and constant, one can only do so much to moderate any services, whether they're a large corporation are someone with a server in their closet. All of the larger platforms like 'meta', google, etc., mostly outsource that moderation to workers in developing countries so they don't have to also provide mental health counselling, but that's another story. The reason they own their own hardware is because the hosting services can and will disable your account and take down your servers if there's even a whiff of CSAM. Since it's a constant threat, it's better to own your own hardware and host everything from your closet so you don't have to eat the downtime and wait for some poor bastard in Nigeria to look through your logs and reinstate your account (not sure how that works exactly though).
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    Make them publishers or whatever is required to have it be a legal requirement, have them ban people who share false information. The law doesn't magically make open discussions not open. By design, social media is open. If discussion from the public is closed, then it's no longer social media. ban people who share false information Banning people doesn't stop falsehoods. It's a broken solution promoting a false assurance. Authorities are still fallible & risk banning over unpopular/debatable expressions that may turn out true. There was unpopular dissent over covid lockdown policies in the US despite some dramatic differences with EU policies. Pro-palestinian protests get cracked down. Authorities are vulnerable to biases & swayed. Moreover, when people can just share their falsehoods offline, attempting to ban them online is hard to justify. If print media, through its decline, is being held legally responsible Print media is a controlled medium that controls it writers & approves everything before printing. It has a prepared, coordinated message. They can & do print books full of falsehoods if they want. Social media is open communication where anyone in the entire public can freely post anything before it is revoked. They aren't claiming to spread the truth, merely to enable communication.
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