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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.'"
Cb..
In October 2003, when Reynolds first announced plans for the bill, Andrew Wise, a Texas-based Microsoft lobbyist, flew up to Oklahoma to try to convince him that his bill was misguided. Reynolds was surprised that Microsoft, which doesn't make custom software, was interested. He says Wise told him that Microsoft might one day enter the custom software market.
Wow... Does Microsoft plan on entering EVERY market some day? Can't you just see them lobby for or against some legislation for cloning because they may "one day enter the cloning market?"
I think redhat might argue that open source software can be commercial too.
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
its the other way around, microsoft stifles innovation
It's not even that. Neither M$ nor "open source" are particularly innovative. In fact, the most innovative thing about "open source" is the model itself, not any results from it. Too much is taking what everyone else has done and trying to do it better, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not.
Some politicians have budgets to meet and act accordingly. For instance, state legislatures who have to pay for drug plans are pushing to be able to import drugs from Canada. The FDA, which doesn't have to pay for anybody's drugs, is against it.
The trick is to have the politicians with the power to set the rules having to bear the cost of the rules that they create.
If we can make our politicians feel more responsible for the cost of commercial licenses that the government has to buy, then we will see much greater uptake of open source by governments. In Europe the politicians are juggling software patents vs. the cost of paying Microsoft. If it weren't for Ireland (a Microsoft client state), software patents would be dead in Europe.
The bottom line: Make the politicians responsible for the damage they create.
> Microsoft argues that open source freezes innovation.
If this is the case then why such a big PR/FUD Campaign against opensource? If microsoft products are so "innovative" then then will out sell the free alternatives that don't "innovate" won't they???
It getting rather funny microsoft running the "innovative" comment all the time when in my experience (10years ish) the open-source community has been far more innovative. (Hey I hear that I will be able to turn on/off computers using Shorthorn when it is eventually released. I wish linux had a feature like that.. oh..)
Anyway the one good thing about Microsofts FUD campaign against opensource/linux is that it has enabled me to show a number of clients how good Linux is! After all why else would microsoft spend so much trying to convince everyone that microsoft is better. TCO Studies funded by microsoft. Get the facts website with blatently biased results.
So microsoft keep up the fud as it is making me loads of $$$ !
---- There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't
Commercial software that which many things of are patented are stopping innovation. History tells us in the time James Watt invented the Steam Engine he patented almost every (little) effort he made on it. The development/innovation of the steam engine for the next 10 years was totally stopped. In one particular region in England where they actually denied patents(-laws) and shared all information about new inventions and innovation the most effort on the steam engine was done. So this is almost the same situation we now have with open source and commercial software, only in another era.
The random quote at the bottom of the page for this article was:
"Even if you can deceive people about a product through misleading statements, sooner or later the product will speak for itself." - Hajime Karatsu
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
Sorry, but, why would Mr. Gate want to take such a large cut in his polical influence and pay?
Fact is, these "jobs" are ones that do not need doing.
If "open source" provides needed software at lower cost, everyone (and I am looking at you, large wasteful government) should be using it.
The "jobs" and "economic growth" should be used to create software which is not available thru "open source"
Society is not better off when people do un-needed work, or pay more then necessary for goods and service.
"But it's *my* job at risk" I hear you whine.
Too farking bad. Do you remember when ball point pens first came out, and they cost $25? Do you think the craftsmen who made those are still getting paid the same amount to make pens today that wholsale for 20 cents? Where were you when buggy whip makers went bust because people drove cars?
You are buying only made in USA computer parts, right? I mean, you would never buy parts made in other countries, because that would mean that US workers would lose their jobs just so you can buy a PC for less than $6000.
And that would just be UNFAIR!
Hmm, since the current outbreak of Linux on the desktop MS has:
1. launched a massive security sweep of all existing code.
2. released XP service pack2 that defaulted most security settings to reasonably high levels, including turning on the built in firewall.
3. Has resumed actively developing Internet Explorer, even released a popup blocker (about 2 years too late on that one Bill)
Those are the only three things I can think of now but it sounds to me like open source is stimulating innovation here. If Open source is providing MS with tough competition, hence pushing both sides to attempt to innovate more and create high quality products, how is this bad? Are the people in our government that fucking stupid? I mean, they can't be that dumb if they got elected....well, actually (bush...cough bush)
I've read a lot of posts from people who believe innovation in software is dead, I say, don't listen to them, they are not programmers. Simply because the product is the same, doesn't mean there isn't innovation all over the place. Someone might have found a way to make the application 10% faster using some new technique never used before, you never know. Open source is full of these kinds of breakthoughs and our development model ensures that they don't die with the company who created them, they live on through the GPL, being used and reused in many applications until something even better comes along.
Open source is not only innovative in and of itself, it also creates innovative code and makes sure that everyone can get ahold of it.
Wile I generally don't like the idea of corporate lobbying, what I would be interested in knowing is where IBM is when this is going on? IBM seems pretty damned committed to Open Source, it would seem like they'd be lobbying on the other side of the fence. God knows they have the cash to do it effectively.
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
I worked QA for a team developing what could have been the next big thing in Unified Messaging, conversion of any kind of messaging protocol to another for routing to email, fax, cell phones, alphapagers, text-to-speech, etc. There were something like ten developers total during the company's largest point. Due to the company's going out of business during the dotcom burst (despite it not being a dotcom, we had a stupid investor) the software was never quite finished and fell away. It's basically gone now. The perceived value of the intellectual property was just in the wrong place for people to consider it worth the money. Consequently that hard work is gone.
If it had been Open Source there still would have been developers working on it, but it would still exist. When the company went under those developers could have taken this and went elsewhere to show what they had. It could have at least been released to the public so that other companies could take it and adapt it to their needs, hiring programmers in the process.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Krumholtz says that commercial software alone spurs economic growth and creates jobs.
Yeah, in the same way that shooting yourself in the foot creates jobs for doctors.
PS, why do some many people insist on framing the debate in terms of commercial softwre versus free software?
It really is proprietary versus Free. Redhat is commercial, SuSE is commercial, the list of Free and commercial software is quite extensive.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Red Hat (RHAT) spent $26M on development compared to say Sun (SUNW) which spent $1,926M on development, Microsoft (MSFT) which spent $1659M, Adobe (ADBE) which spent $276M.
The list can go on as long as you like.
Personally, I care a great deal more for the small firm with a great idea that does have a support on hand to pay their development costs.
The first is when taxes pay for research and programming the code should be public domain. Microsoft, apple, GNU, everyone should be able to take the code and put it in their work, claim copyrights and license it as they like. From there let the various models compete. I dont want to get into trying to legislate licenses.
The second is states should not be able to say you can or can not buy commercial software or open source. I'm not even for favoring one or the other. Let them compete. However, they should be able to say they will only be able to buy software that adhears to standards needed for interoperability between vendor products. So unless the
One thing is for sure. If you start playing politics with Microsoft, you better be ready for the big fight. Its one thing to push for standards which is going to cause enough conflict, but dictating vendors or rejecting vendors based on their biz model is getting into dangerous ground.
Wasn't he knighted? I don't think he can run for president.
I worked with my friendly state delegate, here in Charlottesville, VA, to introduce an OSS bill in the General Assembly in Richmond last February. It did nothing but remind -- not enforce, not require, remind -- the state IT department that there's nothing preventing them from using OSS, should they see fit.
It...uh...ended badly. Microsoft sent out six lobbyists (only one officially from Microsoft, with the rest from Microsoft shell agencies with Bushian names like "Organization for Software Freedom") and shut it down.
We'll try again this year.
-Waldo Jaquith
No. They have a point. The problem is that, right now, it's not quite clear where innovation is actually able to come from:
* Open source projects have trouble innovating, because they don't pay. That means the people who work on them have to make money somewhere else, which means they can't devote 100% of their energy to innovating the open source.
* Commercial projects have just as much trouble innovating, because they HAVE to pay, which means they have to sell. Since the vast majority of users are "alright jack" with the existing functionality of their computer, innovative apps are a hard sell.
It's a kicker. Want to write an innovative art package? You either Open Source it and have it sit idle on SourceForge because it has no prestige and no-one wants to put in the time, or you make it commercial and watch as it fails to sell because everyone already has their copy of Photoshop.
>>And this is called "Good Engineering," kinda like what's happened with wheels.
While you may learn a thing or two about new wheel design by looking at what your competitors are doing, their changes are not "open". If a company comes up with a novel new manufacturing or durability improvement, that company's competitors will have to reverse engineer the new product, scrambling to catch up.
This is commonplace in the automotive world. The big three will purchase "competitive benchmark vehicles", instrument the hell out of them, and try to figure out why BMW is the "Ultimate Driving Machine".
The beauty of OSS, in my opinion, is that you can see how everything works... Want to see how Mozilla classifies junkmail? Go ahead and look at the code. Use this code in your own project if you wish. Find a bug and suggest a fix. Suggest new features using community tools like Bugzilla and track development progress. It's amazing.
The downfall, at least as I see it, is the "competition" among projects. KDE v. Gnome, vi v. emacs, Gentoo v. Slackware, etc. etc.
Developers end up working on solving the SAME problems in different projects. Another complaint is the lack of a consistent "look and feel" of GUI applications -- everyone does things their own way, not necessarily gaining anything from the past experience of other projects.
Example: Why does the KDE team invest in their own browser and office suite, instead of concentrating those efforts on Mozilla and OpenOffice.org? It seems that most any OSS "peg" could be modified to fit into any hole, round or square, while capatializing on the continued free development of the peg.
On a level playing field free software will inevitably wipe the floor with proprietary software. At some point linux or openoffice or whatever becomes good enough and Microsoft's proprietary stuff starts to look too expensive both in terms of money and lock-in. Once alternative file formats and protocols become commonplace Microsoft will have lost much of its power in the marketplace.
To combat this eventuality Microsoft and the entertainment industry push to build DRM into the hardware - CPUs, motherboards, sound systems, all of it. This is really what Longhorn is all about. There will be a thicket of patents walling off the technology, and of course the licenses will not be compatible with free software. Naturally it will be difficult to impossible to get this hardware to be fully operational without access to the specs.
Obviously, most people in the industry will understand what Microsoft is up to and many will not want to go along. So there'll be attempts to sponsor legislation mandating the use of these technologies. I'm sure you can imagine all the FUD from the {RI,MP}AA and their many front groups.
Will Microsoft get away with closing the PC hardware platform? I don't know. But this will be the final showdown between free and proprietary software.
For the record, I think this would be very bad for America.
This is nothing new. As tech companies become large and powerful, they will start influencing government. Companies like Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and others, are some of the largest corporations in USA and hence they will influence govt. The tech industry, and hence the corporations, were small in the past so their power was limited. Other than IBM, very few tech companies would have been considered powerful from the 60's to the 80's.
Influencing govt is nothing new. One just needs to look at how some of the historically large corporations in USA (eg. oil companies), such as ExonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton (aka KBR), and others, have influenced US govt to the point of controlling their military.
As the computer industry, and consequently the corporations, increase in size, theiry lobbying power will increase...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Actually you really don't understand why apple picked khtml. It had nothing at all to do with technical superiority, their choice was based on how easy it would be for them to take the codebase and use it for their own. They looked at gecko and found it much too complicated for their needs. Now why would khtml be much easier for Apple to adapt? Using logic I would suggest that perhaps khtml isn't as advanced as the gecko engine and perhaps that is why their code is much simpler to adapt to various projects. But don't for a second think Apple chose it because of its ability to render more web pages correctly, that would be false. You should go do a search on google and look for interviews on why Apple chose khtml, you'll find that I'm right.
We conduct our reprsentative government in a democratic manner. Defense contractors lobbying for more tax payer money to Israel in order to beef up their sales, Monsanto lobbying to stop labeling products organic and Microsoft killing any open-source bill are not in the spirit of democracy where we each have equal say through our representatives.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Anybody remember the 1950's sci-fi novel "The Space Merchants" by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth? While they didn't understand and predict computers at all, they had an interesting vision of the corporate world with regard to advertising and politics:
Advertising agencies have moved from just advertising and creating markets for groups of companies to actually owning and re-organising entire industries. (In the book, the leading example is the re-arranging of all of India into a huge consuming system.)
And US Congressmen and Senators no longer are voted in the office by dumb consumers, but are elected by and directly represent major corporations. The President is a mainly ceremonial figurehead.
Hell, the guys had vision. Good read. "Commies" are replaced by "consies" (conservatives who try to throw the spanner into the works of holy Sales)...
In mathematical terms, on the innovation = f(t) scale, the curves are about to cross.
I think the curves crossed long ago: X11, BSD, Mach, X toolkits, Tcl/Tk, etc. came out long before equivalent Windows technologies. However, because Microsoft set the de-facto standards for appearance and behavior, open source has had to spend a lot of time backfitting its own innovation into a framework that the mainstream user, who is used to Microsoft software, understands.
No, it couldn't. Java and C# are safe languages.
.NET for.
.NET are inherently safe designs. Both implement dangerous operations, and create a sandbox at a high level in the libraries themselves. That sandbox is useful for a very limited set of operations, but as son as you need to write an application that retains significant local state or uses significant local resources the sandbox has to go.
Fair enough, you couldn't use ANDF for web applets. so, TenDRA could have done everything other than web applets that Java is used for, and everything that I would actually trust
Neither the JVM nor
And the startup overhead that sandbox imposes is unacceptably high. Java applets run quickly once they have been checked and started, but the number of applications where that 30-second-to-a-minute startup overhead is worth it is a tiny fraction of the ones where it's used. The mathematical demonstrations on Greg Egan's home page are about the only Java-based applets I can recall using... generally I sit there looking at a coffee cup for a few seconds, realise that this is yet another unnecessary use of Java, and hit "back".
All of them represented old technology even when they came out
For the academic community, yes. It takes a while for any new technology to filter through to the real world. But, well, if tcc was old technology, what's gcc?
Linux gives people a choice.
I think you misspelled "Open Systems give people a choice". My open systems of choice are FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Tru64. And look, I end up using gcc on all of them, because gcc is the dominant technology in that category. Just as Citrix is the dominant technology in the "remote access to Windows displays" category (VNC? Give me a break). In each case a dominant technology has led to a narrowing of choice, just as the dominance of Windows itself does.
The problem with Microsoft is that they are actively working to prevent alternatives from developing or thriving, so the rise of a dominant technology in each category is inevitable, rather than being an occasional exception. When Microsoft talks about "innovation", they don't mean anything like the stew of competing technologies that the word brings to mind for most of us, and when they talk about OSS inhibiting innovation they mean "it makes it harder for us to force an Innovative(TM) new dominant technology on the industry".
But that doesn't mean that it's impossible for a sufficiently successful technology to do the same thing without Microsoft's deadly fingers guiding it.
Hah, I wrote to my MP about that one... he responded essentially that it was a total joke, a waste of a perfectly good gong and an example of the pointlessness of the current honours system. Funny, given that the guy has a CBE himself, but it has been said that the ability to laugh at yourself is a sign of balanced mental health :-)
Actually it was an interesting event all round, as it provided me with an excellent illustration of precisely why Jeremy Paxman gets so uptight about the honours system. Until then I had it down as a meaningless eccentricity of the Her Majesty in-crowd... it made it abundantly obvious just how many opportunities it gives idiot/corrupt politicians to embarrass the country.
I'm genuinely interested to learn more about the community or communities in which software was freely shared in the form of source code (with some kind of, perhaps unspoken, understanding that the recipient would be free to create and distribute derivative works) which existed in the 70's and early '80s, before Stallman created the "free software" philosophy or ideology.
I must admit that when I read your claim that "Stallman co-opted the open-source community" I was at first inclined to dismiss your words as those of a troll (because I've been associating the term "open source" with the objections of the OSI folks against the FSF's strong emphasis on philosophy/ideology, and if "open source community" is understood in the context of the events since the launch of OSI in 1998, the claim makes no sense) but then I recognized your email address as that of Peter da Silva (of PAML fame together with Stephanie) -- hence I do know to take your perspective and concerns seriously (even if I think it unlikely that I'll ever agree with your harsh criticism of Stallman).
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
I also agree with Stallman on a lot of things, actually, I believe we'd agree about the dangers of treating intellectual property rights like physical property rights, and about software patents and copyrighted interfaces. Obviously we both favor open systems and interoperating software, and open source.
But... I believe that competition is essential to the continued development of software systems, and that the open source model doesn't automatically lead to better software in all areas. Also, he seems to have an ambiguous position on interface copyrights: he believes that the GPL should apply to APIs as well as code, and I believe that this pretty much violates everything the LPF is about.
I hardly think that he was tactically wrong: his tactics were obviously tremendously successful, and that is after all the point of a tactical decision. The results, though, are that people consider RMS and the GPL to be synonymous with free software. I've talked to lots of software developers who used the GPL who never considered that there might be an alternative.
And find it hard to see this as an accident. It's implicit in the GNU Manifesto, and explicit in the preamble to the GPL where he argues the GPL is the only way to license software you want to remain free. What else does this mean but that all "free software" everywhere should adopt the GPL, either voluntarily or by incorporation into GPL-covered code. It's not just a matter of producing his free operating system, his goal was for his free operating system to replace all alternatives.
And he has, over and over again, argued vigorously with other free software developers when he didn't believe their license was compatible with the GPL, or because they didn't give enough credit to the FSF. Remember the fight over the BSD advertising clause, or the "GNU/Linux" broadside?