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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.
Sorry, but, why would Mr. Gate want to take such a large cut in his polical influence and pay?
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.
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.
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.
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.