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They would be ignored. Having an audience is key to getting problems solved, whether it’s a lone hacker or a large corporation. Without an audience, you have no leverage. At that point you might as well create a new Windows account and re-apply, since that would have more luck than getting around a “we’ve closed your account and there’s no appeal process” barrier.

If that sounds Kafkaesque, it is. It’s a small miracle that getting a post to the top of HN can surmount such bureaucracy at all.

The best way to get an audience is to tell a compelling story. Make it interesting. There are ways of doing that for even the least known developers.

My point is to push back against the idea that it should be fair to everyone and that what’s morally right should prevail in every case. The hardware developer program doesn’t exist to treat every developer fairly. They exist to make money for Microsoft. pg puts it more eloquently here: https://paulgraham.com/judgement.html

by elcritch23 hours ago|

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It makes me think tech communities need to lobby for more laws to ensure fair access to platforms, app stores, etc. Be that at least side loading apps, etc.

Otherwise we’ll eventually all get lost in the kafkaesque technocracies.

Less for moral reading, but to keep from being squashed by the weight of tech.

by pixl9722 hours ago|

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>tech communities need to lobby for more laws to ensure fair access to platforms

I'm surprised someone didn't reply saying this would affect the freedom of companies to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

by fsflover14 hours ago|

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This is why orgs like https://eff.org exist.

by m-s-y4 hours ago|

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But eff isn’t going to come to my aid if it’s isn’t a big story, like wireguard. We’re all just arguing circularly around the fact that companies with massive footprints can and do operate in a manner where it’s assumed that zero access is the industry standard for “normal users”

by fsflover1 hours ago|

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I would still ask them, and even if they can't help, they fight for such rights for everyone.

by NetMageSCW1 days ago|

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While this is a small problem for software (and hardware) that needs custom kernel drivers, or software that needs to run as administrator, you seem to have jumped a long way past that to rant about FOSS on Windows with no justification- general unsigned software works just fine on Windows as it always has.

by c0l012 hours ago|

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"works just fine on Windows as it always has" is just not true. These days, I cannot even run my own cross-compiled Go executables of a cross-platform tool that I am developing in private on Windows 10 or 11, because some blue popup from Windows Defender/"SmartScreen" prevents me from doing so, and tells me to contact the software publisher if I'd like to be able to do something about it. Outright disabling Defender/SmartScreen works around the problem (but the popup doesn't tell me that), and, presumably, signing these executables with a "trusted" developer certificate would make this outcome less probable - that is at least what people online have been telling me.

In my book (I started using computers during ther Windows 3.0 era), this clearly does not qualify as "working just fine on Windows as it always has", no matter how you spin it.

by noAnswer55 minutes ago|

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Do you download the cross-compiled executable via http or smb to the Windows machine? If so than it most likely got earmarked with a NTFS alternate data stream.

File Settings > This file come from another computer: Unblock

PowerShell > Unblock-File

Add your smb file share as trusted: Internet Properties > Security > Local Intranet > Sites

I hate it too that you need to sign software that you want to publish. Totally destroys the economics of little shareware type software.

by x0x01 days ago|

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I got a modestly-similar situation resolved by buying a support package and spending 4+ hours across ... not sure, but probably 4-5 support calls? It's been 5 years. If memory serves it was the $200/mo support package for Azure.

In retrospect, I should have not spent 3 weeks trying to get their incompetent software to work and just gone straight to phone calls. And at least in my case, the support agents seemed broadly unfamiliar, but seemed to have access to higher-priority internal case submission which did finally get to someone who could fix my issue.