Microsoft moves aggressively against big boobies

Back in June, an act hired to entertain a Microsoft ensemble, decided to engage in some four-letter jokes, which caused the software giant some embarrassment. Now it's emerged that an ‘in joke' from its HyperV Virtualisation team has caused an issue. KitGuru examines this boob for size and impact.

Someone we know very well here are KitGuru Central, once worked for a recruitment company. When faced with really nice or really horrible people in reception, human resourcing or in one of the many departments they would contact on a regular basis – then the database entry for that call would be 100% accurate (but written in the most basic language possible).

For example, someone that prevent access to a department head might get an entry like ‘Complete b*tch, total line backer – avoid like plague' etc.

You get the gist.

Our acquaintance was not an evil person, they just wanted to have a clear memory of that person next time they checked the call log – and found these descriptions ‘brought it all back' in an instant.

We all use humour for a variety of reasons, but when you're a major (former number one?) software giant, then you need to try and be whiter than white.

A chap called Paolo Bonzini was first attracted to the boobie boob, but the development community seems to have been much more stimulated by Dr Matthew Garrett's blog.

Globally a huge debate has been sparked between two arguments:-
1) In a world where women struggle for equality, should a company allow any leeway for humour which might be offensive and denigrate females?
2) If a joke is obviously puerile and personal to a developer working on code that almost no one will ever see, should anyone care if that person makes an occasional joke in their hex decimal naming structure?

Microsoft has taken the sensible precaution of apologising and moving immediately to engage a team of developers to try and eradicate the errant code as soon as possible.

KitGuru says: People should not be made to feel offended, but we would have more sympathy for his particular story if a woman had discovered it, felt offended and wrote up why from her point of view. Women are intelligent enough to decide, for themselves, what they do and don't find offensive. Men should step back from that decision.

Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.

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