Microsoft's Lobbying Priorities: Limiting Open Source

MonkeyDev writes "In the story on cio.com, 'Mr. Gates Goes to Washington', the author says...'Microsoft cared little for politics until the Department of Justice called it a monopoly. Now the company approaches lobbying the way it approaches everything- aggressively-and consequently it dominates the technology policy agenda.' The article outlines Microsoft's power, provides several examples of legislative decisions heavily influenced by the company, and talks about where they are aiming their newly found political clout. 'Microsoft's policy agenda includes issues that many CIOs agree with, notably more government funding for research and development, stronger copyright protection, and free trade in offshore products and services. However, two of Microsoft's policy priorities, limiting the adoption of open-source software and inoculating technology companies from spam liability, stand out as areas wherein what's good for Microsoft may not be good for all CIOs.' Further, 'Microsoft has lobbied particularly hard against open source, helping kill state bills that advocate for open source in Oregon and Texas. Microsoft argues that open source freezes innovation, and Krumholtz says that commercial software alone spurs economic growth and creates jobs.'"

Comments

Re:There's something I don't get...

[smootc-m]

The quid pro quo with AT&T was universal service and regulated rates. AT&T was not allowed to compete in the computer field until after the breakup of the company. In hindsight their computer marketing was so poor, there really was no worry about it monopolizing the computer field at it did telecommunications.

AT&T did exercise strong monopoly powers. I remember when it was illegal to hook up anything to the phone system. You had to lease your phone from AT&T. The phone device and all the wiring belonged to AT&T. To tamper with the phone or the wiring was illegal. This of course sounds awfully similar to some of the DRM legislation being pushed in Congress to forbid tampering with DVDs and other multimedia.

AT&T had the telecommunications strangelhold as a government regulated monopoly with at least a publically stated quid pro quo. It seems that Microsoft wants the benefits of monopoly power without any of that pesky government interference.

I hope legislators see through a lot of Microsoft's FUD and understand that a truly competitive playing field which includes FOSS software is the best environment for software innovation.

I would oppose any deal with Microsoft that limits competition. I do not think such a deal would serve the public interest.

Re:OSS and the Free Market

[Exatron]

You have some serious misconceptions about Open Source Software. The major open source licenses don't deny people rights to code they wrote. You can distribute your code under any number of licenses simultaneously because you wrote it.

You also misunderstand the "anti-property rights corner"'s position. Their point is that creative works aren't property, but have been given certain property-like qualities for a limited time.