Microsoft Attempts to Quash OSS Recommendations

An anonymous reader writes "Inside Higher Ed has a story detailing Microsoft's attempt to alter a report created by the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Gerri Elliott, corporate vice president at Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector division, complained about recommendations in the report to look into 'open source' and 'open content' at higher education institutions across the country. Elliott, who is on the voting committee, waited until the last minute and tried to have the report changed after a public vote. Although she does have a point that 'open source' is a development model, it still has collaboration at its heart. Can Microsoft argue against 'open' and win?"

Comments

MS up to its dirty tricks again.

[IntelliAdmin]

Before: The commission encourages the creation of incentives to promote the development of open-source and open-content projects at universities and colleges across the United States, enabling the open sharing of educational materials from a variety of institutions, disciplines, and educational perspectives. Such a portal could stimulate innovation, and serve as the leading resource for teaching and learning. New initiatives such as OpenCourseWare, the Open Learning Initiative, the Sakai Project, and the Google Book project hold out the potential of providing universal access both to general knowledge and to higher education. After: The commission encourages the creation of incentives to promote the development of information-technology-based collaborative tools and capabilities at universities and colleges across the United States, enabling access, interaction, and sharing of educational materials from a variety of institutions, disciplines, and educational perspectives. Both commercial development and new collaborative paradigms such as open source, open content, and open learning will be important in building the next generation learning environments for the knowledge economy. Looks like one member was still not happy with the after and wanted "Open source" removed because of the possibility that it would enter them into a copyright debate.

Windows Admin Tools

Re:MS up to its dirty tricks again.

[ronkronk]

I'm South African, I haven't lived in SA for over 15 years, but I was an IBM mainframe operator there in the 80's and I still visit regularly and have family and friends there. The plus side of the racist white minority rule in SA is that the country got the best infrastructure in Africa, which it still has except that the current government caters to more than a small white minority and thus has other pressing problems as well to deal with.

South Africa is the original home of Mark Shuttleworth and his foundation Ubuntu has an ongoing task in South Africa to teach and install Ubuntu in schools (Hint to Microsoft: It's one fuck of a lot cheaper than a Windows solution). I chat regularly with my mom down there who has a Windows PC. South Africa's biggest problem is a monopoly telecommunication company that refuses to allow competition or lower prices on internet access, thus ensuring some of the highest access prices in the world.

However, if you go accross the border to the north, in Zimbabwe, which is in total financial ruin with an autocratic president who hates whites and the blames everyone but himself for the crap that is going on there, you'll find an infrastructure that was similarly built up by the original white minority government, but one that has almost no new investment since Mugabe came to power ensuring that growth in the IT sector there is non existent.

And that is the case all over Africa, you have some countries which have fairly decent political systems, such as South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, etc and you have others which are either run by despotic tyrants, plagued by tribal warfare or thoroughly corrupt or a mixture of these.

In those countries where there is a semi decent system, the education is usually quite good. In those which are chaotic the people are lucky if they can read or write and those who do know the internet, know it usually from an internet cafe.

Linux has advantages due to its flexibility and low price. Claiming that teaching people Microsoft is better because there are more Microsoft trained people is only true if there really are trained Microsoft people around. Usually, the level of trained Microsoft people doesn't reach the level of even an MCSE, since we all know what an MCSE POS costs, so that advantage is null. Training people from scratch with Linux is in my opinion better since a basic grasp of Linux will enable someone to manage in extremely difficult circumstances where hardware and other constraints would make it extremely difficult to keep a system running with Windows.

Re:MS up to its dirty tricks again.

[Wellspring]

It was the MS rep on the committee both times. She finally gave in, but not without a fight.

However, I'd say that the only reason this blew up was because she didn't notice the line in the first vote. Had she expressed her opinions then, we wouldn't even be hearing about the debate. But due to her corporate commitments, she didn't read the report until after she voted to support it.

I bet that that PR types in MS are letting loose with both barrels on her over this. It's more a matter of inattention than strategy.

There is an interesting question here

[InsaneGeek]

Someone should define what they mean when they say OSS software, if they are meaning in the BSD way, MS has less of a legitimate beef. But if they are thinking GPL way, then I think MS probably has a very legitimate beef. If public money is used to push certain products, outcomes are presented for public use but you are not allowed use it, even though they paid for a portion of it; I think lots of companies probably would have a beef with it.

If it's adopting licenses that basically directly prevent them from doing something, I would very much expect them to have a problem with it and quash the recomendation. If it's truely a free license with no restrictions than I would expect them to have no problems with it.

Re:There is an interesting question here

[ElleyKitten]

So wait, you think the GPL is too restrictive because it requires you to give out the source if you modify and redistribute it, but someone complains about Microsoft's licensing and you think they're being unreasonable? WTF?

Re:There is an interesting question here

[NeutronCowboy]

Newsflash - companies have NO inherent legal rights. Only people have. As such, only people can have a legitimate beef, not companies. Your post unfortunately shows that corporations have already won one battle: the idea that corporations can have legitimate grievances that go beyond business contracts.

Quite honestly, I think that corporations shouldn't even be allowed in the same room when public policy is being discussed. They can send an employee who can provide some professional insight, but that's it. No "MS disagrees with this", not even a "we at MS think this is a bad idea". The entire concept that something can be bad for people but still good for corporations and should therefore be discussed is completely ludicrous. Without people, corporations are nothing.

Eh, what do I know. I'm not a highly bri.... I mean, supported Senator, Congresscritter or other political weasel. Should I just bend over now, or can I wait until there is a Department of Corporate Wellfare?

Check out MICROSOFT's wrongdoing

[applix7]

It's here: http://malfy.org/

Uninformed Submitter

[Bob9113]

Although she does have a point that 'open source' is a development model,

No she doesn't. Not it is not. It is a collection of software licenses.

Will the report have any impact either way?

[Infonaut]

We're talking about government and academia, two worlds that produce mountains of papers and reports each year. Does anyone know if these reports from the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education are ever given any attention by the leaders of colleges and universities?

Re:Ummmmm

[hey!]

Hasn't Microsoft already won?

Yes. Which is why they have to be watched so they don't use their clout to entrench themselves, because it would quash innovation.

Why does everyone liken these things to a contest or struggle?

Because business is experienced by people who engage in it as a struggle. What you are noting is not only undoubtedly true, it's nothing new. I think it was E.B. White of Elements of Style and Charlotte's Web fame who noted that business jargon tends to picture the businessman like a knight mounted on his charger riding to battle.

Billy Boy

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is why Bill Gates is represented as a Borg on Slashdot. When mid-level employees such as these are willing to go so out of their way to fight open source it's obvious the guys on top are pressuring them to do so. A lot of people think I'm strange for refusing to purchase any Microsoft product - even mice, Xboxes, cheap PCs running Windows, ect. I just don't want to contribute to a company whose goal is to control all software standards. They want every software technology - media, game development, networking, encoding, advertising, search, internet browsing, office software, ect. ect. to all be under their control. Then they can halt development and move on to their next project. I buy my stuff from companies which are financially committed to their products. When a company relies on a product for their bottom line they tend to care more about it. Employees at Microsoft know they have an infinite amount of money and no matter how half assed their products, people will buy them because the marketing people will sqaush any competition by making them look insecure next to the big bad Microsoft. Look what's happening to Sony right now. They've created what should be every nerd's dream - a new, complex processor, Linux, a killer GPU, free online service, and many many ports, HD so internet text can be read on T.V., and all the tradtional Playstation games - but everyone seems to think that Sony's out of touch with gamer. It's because Microsoft has people like Gerri Elliot who will do anything and everything to stifle competition. Why do you think Joe Shmoe thinks that there's no Mac software? In America, people respect money. Bill Gates is known as the richest, most powerful man in the world. Everyone assumes their competition is doomed to failure and doesn't buy because they're afraid M$ will just dominate the market anyway. Open source intitiatives like the one in the featured article are a way around this. We need to take note when Microsoft tries to cut off open source at a political level.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Judging by Microsofts >90% market share..."

By that logic, McDonalds has the best hamburgers in the world! And they are healthy for you too! The masses will consume junk. Digitally too.

Way to go, Dude!

[TopShelf]

But let's give it up for a fine effort by James Duderstadt, a past President of the University of Michigan, and a leader in the realm of applying developing technology to higher education.

Here are the final two paragraphs of the article:

Monday morning, Miller said the commission would go with Duderstadt's compromise language, which he called "an improvement in the draft" that "does not require and will not be put to a vote."

Later that morning, Elliott gave in, writing: "I support Jim's paragraph as well."

Re:Ummmmm

[devjj]

It depends on how you look at it. Microsoft has certainly won countless battles to this point, but one oft-overlooked point these days is that Microsoft is hemorrhaging marketshare basically everywhere. Regardless of how fast it happens (although it is accelerating right now), people are moving away from Windows to Mac OS X and Linux. The interest in OpenOffice exists because people are starting to grow tired of Microsoft Office. Firefox won more than 10% of the internet browser marketshare, and almost all of that came right out of IE's stranglehold. AOL and Yahoo have completely and totally beaten down Windows Messenger. Apple's iTunes - while likely to take a mild hit from URGE - isn't going to lose its majority share any time soon. And let's not forget Google.. does anyone really believe that MSN Search stands any kind of a chance?

This isn't to say that Microsoft is going to lose its majority status where it is in the majority (most places) any time soon, but it's worth noting regardless.

So, has Microsoft conquered? I don't think so. A people are only conquered when there is no hope for their victory, and we are still in the very early stages of what will eventually result in Microsoft being given a more fitting role in the computing community. A role where there are viable options, and true competition. I can't wait.

Re:It's like a Seinfeld episode

[mabhatter654]

in this case it's is from a Federal agency... when somebody like MA wants to implement OSS in schools or offices they can point to this statement as "approval" for moving to OSS projects. M$ doesn't want ANY public recognition of OSS at the federal level. Imagine the effect if 1 State's budget for Office went to OpenOffice.org instead!!! That would cover their funding for several YEARS, but be a drop to Microsoft. The money would speed an OSS project up by 5 years or better... then still be FREE... MS can't let that happen at all costs.

Re:Ummmmm

[mattox]

""Microsoft is hemorrhaging marketshare basically everywhere"" How do you know this? I think your living in a fantasy world when you really think lots of people are actually moving from MS to Mac/Linux.

copyrigths and patents in freemarkets

[falconwolf]

A free market without copyright monopoly* for software, closed and open competing fairly...

Actually Adam Smith, the father of freemarket capitalism, was against copyrights and patents, believing the monopolies thus granted were a threat to freemarkets. He believed if someone could improve or produce and sale cheaper a product he should be able to.

Falcon