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What's really funny is that according to Netcraft, the Citizens Against Government Waste are using Open Source, Open Standard software:

Site report for www.cagw.org
Site http://www.cagw.org/ Last reboot 158 days ago Uptime graph
Domain cagw.org Netblock owner convio.com
IP address 66.45.103.69 Site rank 120043
Country US Nameserver named.cagw.org
Date first seen August 1997 DNS admin netadmin@convio.com
Domain Registry publicinterestregistry.net Reverse DNS unknown
Organisation Citizens Against Government Wa, 1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW Su, Washington, 20036, United States Nameserver Organisation Citizens Against Government Wa, 1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW Su, Washington, 20036, United States

Hosting HistoryNetblock Owner IP address OS Web Server LastChanged
convio.com 8025 I.H. 35 North AUSTIN TX US 78753 66.45.103.69 FreeBSD Apache 1-Jun-2005


And wait, could it be that "Americans for Technology Leadership" also run Open Source, Open Standards software? You betcha!

Site report for www.techleadership.org
Site http://www.techleadership.org/ Last reboot 58 days ago Uptime graph
Domain techleadership.org Netblock owner Global Net Access, LLC
IP address 65.254.39.124 Site rank 889858
Country US Nameserver ns.ez-web-hosting.com
Date first seen November 1999 DNS admin billingsys@ez-web-hosting.com
Domain Registry publicinterestregistry.net Reverse DNS ez13.ez-web-hosting.com
Organisation Association for Competitive Te, 1413 K Street, N.W., Washington, 20005, United States Nameserver Organisation Ez-Web-Hosting, 4633 Welborn Dr., Sherrills Ford, 28673, United States

Netblock Owner IP address OS Web Server Last changed
Global Net Access, LLC 55 Marietta St, NW Suite 1720 Atlanta GA US 30303 65.254.39.124 Linux Apache/1.3.33 Unix mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7a PHP-CGI/0.1b 29-Sep-2005


If MS's pro-predatory "standards" are so much better than Open Standards, then why are these organizations using software founded and created upon and with Open Source, Open Standards software?

There is a name for this type organization: Hypocrite

ttyl
          Farrell

If you haven't seen these organizations before, read the Reg or SourceWatch

My irony detector is going crazy at the first article on their website:

http://www.techleadership.org/index.html

09.16.05 ATL's opposition to the proposed Mandate of Open Office and Portable Document Format (PDF) formats as contained in Enterprise Technical Reference Model v.3.5.
Adobe PDF document, opens in a new window

There's nothing wrong with opinion articles *as such*, but normally it's considered good practice to point out any reasons the author might be biased (such as the fact that Microsoft was one of the founders of Americans for Technology Leadership, the company/group which he is the executive director of.) Or at least it was; I wouldn't trust the media to do that for me these days.

He's got a two page letter to legislators here.

http://www.techleadership.org/news/atl_ma.pdf

  It really doesn't matter that the ideas stated in this letter are the opposite of the truth. What matters is, that those who advocate Pendergast's position have boatloads of money to keep saying this more prominently than open source advocates can state their position. If you just keep repeating it loudly and often enough, the public will believe. The public includes elected officials.
  But we still have a chance, thanks to the high ethical standards at Fox News. Fox is "fair and balanced", "the no-spin zone". I'm sure they will give the other side of this story equal time.

Also got to love this little snippet form a press release on the ATL propaganda site:

"American companies doing business across the globe should not have to face a higher standard of regulation in the European Union than they do here"

Seems they're against 'higher-standards' too.

http://www.techleadership.org/press/092605.shtml

      I found this article in which Pendergast paints a positive picture of Firefox as well as Google. Why would be bash open source in one article, yet write good things about it in another?

http://techleadership.org/~techlead/news/062305.sh tml

http://www.techleadership.org/ was running Apache on Linux when last queried at 29-Sep-2005 14:57:28 GMT.

OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner
Linux Apache/1.3.33 (Unix) mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7a PHP-CGI/0.1b 29-Sep-2005 65.254.39.124 Global Net Access, LLC

Figures. Perfectly in line with the usual treacherous behaviour of the 'fair and balanced' political right.

Yeah, and they would never use OSS: $ HEAD http://www.techleadership.org/ 200 OK Connection: close Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 14:43:05 GMT Accept-Ranges: bytes ETag: "6c01ea-4e8d-433933f4" Server: Apache/1.3.33 (Unix) mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7a PHP-CGI/0.1b Content-Length: 20109 Content-Type: text/html Last-Modified: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 11:58:44 GMT Client-Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 14:43:04 GMT Client-Peer: 65.254.39.124:80 Client-Response-Num: 1

http://www.techleadership.org/ which Jim is said to be executive director partners with Microsoft and looks like a company meant to lobby MS software in government in the States and abroad.

Before everybody goes crazy about the Fox News article, consider the source. American for Tech Leadership is a what it amounts to a PAC for different tech companies. Guess who is one of their major contibutors??

You guessed it, Microsoft.

http://www.techleadership.org/about/

So don't act all surprised when you see what amounts to a Microsoft spokesperson saying that Open Source formats are going to "cost too much" or "take too much effort". Fox News should be ashamed to run this "ad" as a news story; but when I come to think of it, everybody else does it too.

Keep in mind the submitter is simply reporting what Fox News posted...the submitter is not claiming the news story is right, just that it's out there. Fox News in general, and James Prendergast/Americans for Technology Leadership specifically is publishing the propaganda. And to go further, it's obviously a FUD piece directly from Microsoft (Microsoft is a founding member of the organization Americans for Technology Leadership).

If you don't want to read any more of his tripe at least look at the Founding Members of his organization... ah Microsoft. He's just a shill protecting MS' monopoly.

If you don't want to read any more of his tripe at least look at the Founding Members of his organization... ah Microsoft. He's just a shill protecting MS' monopoly.

But even more damning is the lack of need for the ATL. Couldn't most, if not all, of the ATL's main goals fit withen the charter of the Business Software Alliance or the Software & Information Industry Association? So, why aren't we seeing a survey from the BSA? Or at least a responce from the BSA? If more of us email the BSA about this then maybe we can get an unbias survey conducted.

Then I took a deep breath, downloaded the PDF file, and decided to read for myself the questions that were asked and the corresponding responses. Questions like...

If you knew that the DoJ was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose it?

Not surprisingly, 72% either strongly or moderately oppose having to pay more money for their software. The survey later asks about the DoJ "slowing the pace of technological innovation". If that isn't MS spin doctoring, then I don't know what is.

Often you should trust your gut reaction (i.e. Microsoft biased the report). It's usually correct. But don't take my word for it. Read it yourself.