WIPO Pressured to Kill Meeting on Open Source

panthan writes "The Washington Post has has an article about a proposed meeting of the WIPO concerning open source having been removed from consideration, apparently due to pressure from the US State Department and the USPTO. 'In short order, lobbyists from Microsoft-funded trade groups were pushing officials at the State Department and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to squelch the meeting. One lobbyist, Emery Simon with the Business Software Alliance, said his group objected to the suggestion in the proposal that overly broad or restrictive intellectual-property rights might in some cases stunt technological innovation and economic growth.'" Lawrence Lessig has some comments.

Comments

email her

[Un pobre guey]

Lois Boland lois.boland@uspto.gov

from an old link.

Senator letter writing 101

[stwrtpj]

I'm going to nitpick here, and I apologize for having to use your post to do it, but people, before you write your senator, know how to do it right. Do it right, and you'll sound intelligent and erudite. Do it wrong, and you'll sound like a crackpot.

So I'm going to take this post as an example and show you what I believe makes a good letter. First off, this part is right out:

The BSA, in case you didn't know, is essentially just a division of Microsoft.

Baseless allegation. Makes it sound like you have an axe to grind specifically against Microsoft. Stick to the facts.

The full Washington Post article is here: ...

Very good. Back up your facts with documentation. Most likely than not this task of tracking down info will be handed to an intern, so make sure your references are very clear. Use direct sources (like this one did) and avoid google caches.

Just so you don't think open source is some kind of "hippy thing", I work for the largest private equity firm in the world that is focused exclusively on information technology ...

Another good one. Cite personal experience. Better if you could name the company (you can always include a disclaimer that these views are your own and not your company). You may get lucky and work for a company that contributed to his campaign. However, lose the "hippy thing" phrase. Makes it look like you're assuming what the senator thinks already. May want to leave out "the largest" and substitute "a prominent". Being the "the largest" may be a matter of opinion.

Companies like IBM and Apple have wholeheartedly embraced open source. The only companies opposed to open source are those that currently enjoy relative monopolies in their areas. I.e., Microsoft.

Might be a good place to include some references to press releases or interviews that back this up. Makes it look like you seriously did your research.

By the way, if you don't know much about the BSA and open source, here is an article that describes the BSA's strong arm tactics used in bullying small businesses:

Excellent. You back up an otherwise harsh allegation with documented fact.

Now, I did not take the time to follow all the links, but you want to make sure they come from reliable sources. Major news and media outlets like the Washington Post or the NY Times are better than "niche" groups like Linux Journal. CNET is kind of in between. And, yes, I know perfectly well that these sources may vary for differing definitions of "reliable". We know the media puts their own spin on it. But remember that politicians rely on the media for much of their information, so you have to use that to your advantage.

Sorry to sound pedantic in all this, but many of us know we are intelligent, but we need to convince the politicians of that as well. If anyone else has any other suggestions on good letter-writing, feel free to add.

Re:Interesting

[Col. Klink (retired)]

I work in the Federal Government. We use lots of Free and Open Source Software. Sometimes because it's better, sometimes because it's free (sometimes for both reasons).

If I need to do something, it is far easier to grab a free implementation than to go through channels to get budgeted and all the hassle that goes along with that.

We use lots of proprietary software too, often because it's the only thing that does the trick. Sometimes because we started using it before a free alternative was viable. I am migrating my Splus applications to R (mostly for technical reasons). We use MS Office because everyone else does.

I have Linux on my desktop.