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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.'"
If Bill Gates runs for President, I'll be very sad. "We're not a monopoly... but, uh, we will be your rulers! Where do you want to go today?"
- Code Dark
its the other way around, microsoft stifles innovation
Cb..
Microsoft is one of the largest donor in washington. obviuosly they need to do good for stock holders money. What is good for microsoft is good for stockholders and opensource is not good for microsoft so hey what else would you expect?
god! you know the very people who are writing open source code... these are the individuals that are intrisically motivated to learn and advance the field not for money, etcetera, but for the pure good of advancing a field
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.
Microsoft has lobbied particularly hard against open source, helping kill state bills that advocate for open source in Oregon and Texas
Sorry, but I fail to see how any bill (Gates or proposed legislation) that advocates in favor of either open or closed source is a good thing. Legislators ought to stick their noses somewhere else then making technology decisions.
Without their fine closed-source innovation, the interweb would never have been possible. And wasn't it nice of them to give their TCP/IP stack to aid BSD development and let everyone else use that browser idea they had?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
As we all know, UNIX was also created by a monopolist corporation, namely AT&T. For decades, AT&T had a deal with Justice Department: we (the people) tolerate your monopoly, you (the corporation) give us back all the technology you develop in your labs, so at least your monopoly serves the public good. That's why AT&T had no choice but distribute early versions of UNIX at a nominal costs to universities and research centres. It looks that 30-40 years ago anyone at least considered the question of "what is good for the public interest". What has changed in America since then?
Why no one with relevant authority even tries to consider a similar deal with Microsoft? The case of AT&T proves that dealing with monopolists does not have to be necessarily a binary option, either we consider you a monopolist and forcibly split or we give you carte blanche. You can tolerate a monopolist corporation if you strike a good deal for common good - like in this case, for example, "OK, keep on your monopoly on MS Windows, but open the bloody source code so people can write their own security patches, give copies freely to education & research, do something to ensure cross-platform compatibility of data files and while we are at it, what about a good Age Of Empires sequel?".
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> 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
"Where do you want it today."
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.
Is that these actions by Microsoft fundementally affect everyone. Open Source makes perfect sense for certain types of infrastructure applications, the Operating System being the best example. Everyone who uses the OS can contribute to its growth in capabilities and maturity. Everyone benefits except the vendors of Operating Systems.
Open Source make especially good sense for governments as well, since they all have similar needs and limited budgets. Contrary to what Microsoft believes, my tax dollars are not intented as a hand out for Bill Gates. I want them used wisely. If Bill Gates wants my money, he can get it by producing software that I purchase willingly, not software that I am forced to pay for by Micrsoft's creative marketing "agreements" with computer vendors.
Now, for all those who are going to scream about how we should all just watch quietly as Microsoft goes about it's business of squeezing us for money... MS is a convicted monopolist. I personally believe that there is no place for a monopoly in a free market economy. It will always result in the devistation of the marketplace, just as MS has. Capital for software development didn't dry up just because of the Dotcom meltdown. It has vanished because no one wants to invest in developing a software product that MS might decide to compete against.
Those of you who are unemployed software engineers, think about this very carefully. MS is part of the reason you are out of work. MS has become the impediment to innovation in our industry, not Open Source.
If you want a good example, just look at Firefox vs. IE. MS stopped development work on IE after they "won" the browser wars. Firefox is quietly taking over the market now by being better, faster, and far more secure. This could only be done by an Open Source project, because we saw what happened to Netscape when they tried to compete against the company that controlled the operating system.
MS should have been broken up. It would have been the healthiest thing for both the stock holders and the software market. The new companies created out of the old Microsoft would eventually be worth far more than the current company is and we'd all see better software being developed as competition heated up again.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
Using money to influence government in this way is, in its end result, bribery. But it is different than bribery in that it does not require corrupt politicians.
It requires only politicians who are not all-knowing. Even intelligent, well-intentioned people can be convinced of something if only one side of an argument is heard. This is especially true for a topic as complex as government policy.
Professional lobbying, because it is effectively bribery, needs to be outlawed-- it should be illegal to pay someone to speak to a government representative on your behalf. Instead of hiring lobbyists, companies can ask their employees and shareholders to contact, in their spare time, their representatives. If that is not sufficient, companies can, through advertisement, raise public awareness of their concerns. In this way, the influence of money will move one more step away from government.
Public interests groups, such as environmental and anti-software patent groups will have little problem recruiting volunteer lobbysists, as many of them already do. Such lobbyists, since they are unpaid, would be perfectly legal. Not only will public interest groups be able to lobby almost as effectively as before, but they will also no longer have to compete with highly paid professional lobbying firms.
Sorry, but, why would Mr. Gate want to take such a large cut in his polical influence and pay?
"Bashing" Microsoft is like "bashing" the present U.S. government administration. Unless they have spent many hours studying them, those who complain probably don't know one-one-hundredth of the abusiveness.
I've been trying to understand the underlying causes of organizational abusiveness. Partly it seems that rich people often begin to think of themselves as above everyone else. The begin to have a subtle kind of mental breakdown. For them, continuing to think of themselves as superior is like drugs to a crack addict.
The article Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going shows a little of the inability of Microsoft to be a good world citizen. It's old now and needs updating, but it does give a small idea of the breadth and depth of Microsoft abusiveness.
Three movies and 35 books say that the present administration of the U.S. government is extremely corrupt. See the article Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
At present vice-president Dick Cheney is visiting all the states with many undecided voters to tell them that the U.S. is constantly at war, and he and George W. Bush are the best people to lead a war. The U.S. government has engaged in 24 wars since World War 2. The system works by creating fear so rich people can profit.
As former U.S. President and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces General Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a famous speech, beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here's a quote:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
Another quote:
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."
If you love the U.S. as much as I do, you will stop worrying about bashing, and you will begin trying to understand the conflicts and begin trying to help the world out of the mess it gets itself in when people don't think deeply.
At present, those who complain about Microsoft are often attacked by people who are uninformed. This delays needed improvements inside Microsoft.
Really, really caring makes you strong.
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.
Excuse me? This from the company who is "appropriating" features from Firefox into the next version of IE?
It seems to me that open source developers are the only ones concerned with innovation, because most of the time innovation and profit are mutually exclusive (i.e., upholding the status quo means less work, less dev time, and hence fewer expenses for closed-source operations, especially in the more 'feature-oriented' areas that customers feel they can live without).
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.
Isn't that argument ("only commercial software spurs economical growth"), which seems to be the biggest gun of MS and other entities against Free/Open Source softwares, only the Broken Window Fallacy applied to something else?
I mean, surely they can't be serious. The govt have the choice bewteen paying a lot of money for commercial software, or much much less for free/open source software. The opponent of FOSS says that since they pay more, and people working for companies are earning money and got a job, it spurs the economic growth as opposed to FOSS who supports some people in their basement given nothing back to the economy.
Isn't this bullshit? I mean, if they pay MUCH less for the needed system/software, they have MORE money left afterward, money that can be INJECTED back in the economy in different ways. So, the govt fulfilled their needs PLUS they have more money for the economy, and can spend it anyway they want.
It's WIN/WIN isn't it? With commercial, they get their software at an overinflated price and they inject money ONLY in a specific part of economy and don't have the luxury to choose how to spend it.
Quite frankly any bureaucrat that settles on closed data formats and protocols should be fired for betraying the interests of the government. The government should not be beholden to a particular manufacturer for its information systems.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
The problem is that Open Source Software has been manipulated into the anti-property rights corner. If you have no rights to any of the code you write, then there is no way you can sell it and you go bankrupt.
For OSS to really excel, there simply has to be a mechanism that allows people to get paid for their contributions to innovation.
Open source has the potential of bringing more developers into the software development process...but there needs to be a way for people to protect their investment in the development of the code. Without that piece, politicos like Gates will always be able to come down on it as being anti market.
The idea that people only get paid for installation and not development and that sysadmins will live a dual life installing software during the day for pay and writing code at night is really not tenable. Nor is the idea that software developers will live for extremely sporadic donations. If OSS came with a strong system of structured property rights, then OSS developers would make more money and it would be more exceptible to business types.
This is what happens when the government gets into the business of meddling with the economy. Closed source software does generate more profit and jobs for certain sectors of the economy. Let's face it - the Microsoft business model makes Microsoft more money than the Redhat business model makes Redhat. And the low TCO of linux obviously allows for fewer IT jobs. That closed source may reduce economic efficiency and hurt the economy in the long run doesn't matter to politicians. Microsoft's position makes sense to congressmen used to meddling with economic affairs. This is why the OSS community should place less emphasis on the "free as in speech" dogma and more on how it saves non-technology companies money and help create other non-IT jobs there.
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.
Microsoft may be many things, but dumb is not one of them.. They learn from their mistakes and their competetor's victories.
They pretty much minded their own business government-wise until their enemies wined and dined the folks in the beltway and got the feds to go after microsoft for antitrust. So now Sun and Netscape have taught Microsoft that if you spread the wealth around washington you can get things via governmental force that you couldn't normally get in a an open market economy.
It's stark irony that an open source project such as mozilla could suffer thanks to a lesson about lobbying that Microsoft learned from Netscape.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Example 1:For my sins, I am the maintainer of the YAFFS file system which is used extensively in Linux-based mobile and embedded devices. People have often take YAFFS and add stuff or use it in ways that would not happen if YAFFS was closed. Having people play with and extend YAFFS in ways that I would not have done myself has improved it. YAFFS is designed for NAND flash, when somebody said they want to use it for NOR flash I said "Dumb idea", but the person went ahead anyway and achieved great results. Now a few products are shipping using YAFFS on NOR. In a closed source model that could not have happened.
Example 2: The RML preemptable kernel stuff. RML went and played with preemptable kernel stuff that many people said waas a waste of time (including, if I recall, Linus). When he was done, and could show that it worked, it got included back into the mainstream and the Linux kernel is vastly improved because of this. In a closed source model Linus would have said "Dumb idea, fsck off" and RML would have not been able to "scratch thaat itch" and would not have been able to get past having a cool idea.
Code improves by having different people try out different things. Some are dumb ideas and go nowhere and some are good. Until tried, it is difficult to tell the good from the bad ideas. In closed source, a pre-selection filter prevents people trying ideas. In open source anyone can scratch an itch and try things out, hence open source is more likely to experience breakthroughs than closed source.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. said on Sunday that it would share the underlying software code for its Office program as part of its efforts to make governments more confident in the security and compatibility of the world's largest software maker's products.[snip]
So I guess the government should limit Office use? (Not that MS is promising open source by any means.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Let's see.. what has Open Source contributed to innovation? TCP/IP, the Internet, DNS, email, newsgroups, networked operating systems, user and system security... and many many more (including revision control and process).
Microsoft wouldn't know innovation if it bit them in the nose. Bill Gates famous line "this whole internet thing is a fad" is one example.. The quote "Microsoft argues that open source freezes innovation" - is a joke.
Put simply, one of the greatest problems facing the USA this decade has been the fact that we are rewarding the "duplicator" (Microsoft) more than the true "innovators".
Name ONE innovation Microsoft has introduced...
The OS.. NO (UNIX.. even DOS was stolen)
The windowing system.. NO (Amiga/Xerox/Apple)
Microsoft "Bob".. YES!
Multi-platform/Network based programming language.. NO (Sun Java)
The Webbrowser.. NO (Mozilla/Lynx/Netscape)
Streaming media?.. NO (Real Networks)
The office suite.. NO (Lotus/Word Perfect/etc)
The virus..YES!
The worm.. YES!
Networking.. NO
TCP/IP.. NO
NetBUI.. YES! (yikes!)
Stability and Security.. NO
The BSOD.. YES!
Obscurity.. YES!
hrmm.. not much innovation there... I hope most people realize the emperor has no clothes when it comes to Microsoft speaking about innovation.
As far as money from Open Source.. well, the internet is the single greatest new market this decade.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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.
Someone has already mentioned apache, but the Internet itself was developed mainly in an open mindset.
What you don't see is the thousands of small utilities used inside companies that come from open-source. These utilities are not distributed to the public, so they are not affected by the GPL, but this cannot be done with closed source.
Also I can't think of anything that Microsoft made that was innovative, that they didn't steal and use their monopoly power to kill the original, that was usually better.
I'm running gnome and have lots of utilities that I don't have on MS. Some of these are available from third parties, but the quality is not as good. One main example is the multiple desktop. I use six different desktops to bounce around different projects that I work on in one day. This has helped me tremendously. Grant you, that this is old, but I first saw this with fvwm and that was opensource. Maybe it was copied from something else but that was not were I've seen it. I've found many utilities more easy to use in the opensource arena than the closed source.
Also where do you think IE came from? the same place as Mozilla, which is derived from Netscape which was derived from Mosaic which is another innovative opensource product. If all you look at is Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Photoshop, I can see you having this view, but there is a lot more out there that comes from opensource, but since it doesn't have a logo on it, you just don't see it.
Open your eyes.
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind