> it’s fucking depressing when even the fucking bare minimum form of regulation is followed to the letter and no more

For Microsoft this also rings true from the opposite direction. Any specification that Microsoft technically abides is implemented in an egregiously dark way (at least for anything consumable at an enterprise level).

They go to great lengths to exercise every bit of leeway permitted by the spec, even when it doesn't make economical sense, because what are you gonna do about it? Vote with your wallet? Against the vendor that runs all your workstations and manages your directories and databases and deployments and authentication and authorization and business intelligence and and and?

No, you're gonna accommodate their absurd counter-requirements because what other choice do you have? The decision then becomes:

1. branch your code to shit with `vendor == microsoft` clauses

2. branch your project/architecture to shit and effectively maintain a Microsoft version alongside the "normal" core version

3. use Microsoft's bespoke library that solves the problem they created

A project that selects option 3 will face the least resistance integrating with Microsoft products, but will also become beholden to arbitrary rules that complicate integration with every other vendor who benevolently implements the standard.