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When Think Tanks Attack
x1048576 writes "The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is only one of a dozen different think tanks that have attacked Open Source. Why are all these think tanks so down on Open Source? Well, the Small Business Survival Committee is concerned that using open source will expose small business to the risk of lawsuits. Citizens Against Government Waste is concerned that the government might waste money on Open Source. Defenders of Property Rights is concerned that Open Source might be a threat to intellectual property rights. However, I was able to detect a common theme to all their criticism. They all seem to be funded by Microsoft."
"In their opinion, open source development should be best left to companies that develop software"
And that would be different... how?
Most of the OSS work _is_ done by companies. If you look at who contributes to the kernel, GCC, various other stuff, there's one helluva lot of people with email addresses from IBM, Intel, Red Hat, SuSE, Sun, etc. Or who acknowledge being funded by a company. (E.g., ReiserFS is sponsored by SuSE.)
The whole thing is one big FUD and astroturfing game between corporations.
In that corner you have MS, with its funded think-tanks trying to sell one illusion.
In the other corner, you have a bunch of corporations pissed off at Microsoft, pitching their funds into hopefully hurting Microsoft. And actively promoting their own FUD and lies. Including the myth that Linux somehow happened by itself. That somehow thousands of hackers weren't paid to code an anti-MS weapon, but just spontaneously did it all by themselves in their free time.
Still disguising paid work as some grassroots movement against MS's oppression. Shouldn't that count as astroturfing too?
And as astroturfing goes, I'd say MS isn't even the biggest liar in that game.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
HELLO, everyone knows the top 10% of America owns EVERYTHING. Just look at the book burnings of the 1980s, Waco Tx anyone? Anyone with with half a brain can see that the REAL enemy here is oss!