alt Hacker News> This is not a minor procedural oversight. It is a structural bias built into the process which sends out a clear message: full participation in EU policymaking requires a Microsoft licence.
Im gonna be honest it sounds more like a procedural oversight.
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Combined with their rapid acquiescence to the request, it sounds to me like a procedural oversight due to a structural bias.
It sounds like a procedural oversight which demonstrates the structural bias built into the process.
Nope: they have signed a contract with Microsoft, it is not oversight, there was a clear decission by the specific committee to buy Microsoft Products and Support, and it is costing us (EU taxpayers) lots of money just to interact with the EU.
I would argue they are the same thing. What is a procedural oversight if not bias in the system? The existing process missed an obvious issue because of bias.
they are activists, everything make them nervous. however I'm sure there are tons of past reasons to make them nervous...
> it sounds more like a procedural oversight.
But the "oversight" is likely due to the fact that those policy-makers only see MS Excel used around them, and only expect people to use MS-Excel - which is why they did not think there might be any problem with requiring its use in a procedure. So, the people doing policymaking, and other related technical work, at the EU do actually need their MS license to work.
Also sounds like an LLM wrote it (the original message)
Im also gonna be honest
Ever since LLM generated content proliferated we now have “This isn’t X. It’s Y” shibboleths EVRYWHERE!
A person doesn’t normally start a sentence with “This isn’t a silly minor thing that you wouldn’t think it was but I had to say it out of the blue as a set up for the next sentence.” only to be followed by “This is a major deal worthy of you resharing and liking!”
They might do the clauses in the other order, though. “This is a huge deal! Not just business as usual.”
That text reads like AI output, where I commonly see two short sentences that describe a dichotomy in the “This is not… This is…” pattern.
Therefore, that these sentences don’t describe the situation great could be due to poorly vetted copy-paste of AI text.
When the policy is that X happens, procedural oversight can't be claimed when X doesn't happen. If X doesn't happen, then the policy is being rejected or ignored. No matter which, it allows the executing agent bias to be on full display and set the tone. There's a reason why a compliance office becomes the norm.