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MS Anti-ODF Lobbyist Named As MA Tech Advisor
Andy Updegrove writes "For the last year and a half, Massachusetts has been a battleground between Microsoft, on the one hand, and IBM, Sun and open standards advocates on the other over the state's plans to implement ODF. That effort has sparked similar initiatives around the world that threaten to erode Microsoft's multi-billion dollar profits on Office software. Now, we have a new governor set to take office, and observers are waiting to see if he will continue to support ODF like his predecessor, or back off in favor of Microsoft Office. Last week, Governor-Elect Deval Patrick named a new transition advisory group to make recommendations on the state's IT structure, and one of the eight members he appointed was none other than the Microsoft lobbyist that has been leading the charge to not only defeat ODF in the Bay State, but to gut the power of the State's CIO and Information Technology Division as well. Not a good sign of independence from special interests for an administration that has yet to even take office."
Both sides of the Microsoft vs ODF battle are special interests.
Just because you agree with one side more than the other doesn't make it any less "special".
Ballmer will be nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. If those foreigners thought Bolten was scary, they haven't seen the chair hit the fan yet.
Given the rest of the board is reasonable, it's a little early to be shouting "The Sky is Falling".
A reasonable strategy would be to throw the two sides into a kettle and see who wins out. This may be an attempt to shorten the communication lines and ultimately be a good thing.
Knee-jerk, get thee behind me!
Anything is possible given time and money.
I don't know if having the world settle on one single file format will help much. I mean, for the web, we have HTML+CSS, but it seems like Microsoft has some "bugs" in their implementation, and since IE is the most popular browser, we're all forced to make webpages that adhere to the MS way of doing things. I imagine the same thing might happen, if ODF was mandated as the standard. MS would make a bug-ridden ODF reader/writer for MSWord, which would still be what most people would use, because that's what they're familiar with, and we'd be stuck in the same boat as we are with HTML. If you didn't use MS Word, then you would end up having a document that didn't look quite the way it's supposed to.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
If he can provide a reasobale argument as to why ODF should not be implemented, He should be an advisor. If I were in charge I would want both sides fully represented along with third party experts (which were also appointed). But alas, given the state of US governance, he's likely just there to funnel money to the right people in order to get his way.
This seems kinda like (warning: analogy) a filmmaker in the 90s wanting to get distribution and saying "I have to adhere to Blockbuster's way of doing things..." It's true for a time, but because that way of doing things is inefficient, it will get competed out of existence by a model that works better.
I think e.g. when China and/or India standardize on a Redmond-free set of office applications, they're going to be feeding amazing innovations into the FOSS pool.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Indeed, but you have to understand the difference between a lobbyist advocating a solution (he was paid to do so regardless of the merits) and a civil servant advocating a solution (he was paid to dispassionately figure out what the best solution is). Appointing a lobbyist for a policy-making committee is silly not because we may disagree with his former employer, but because lobbying and making policy decisions require completely orthogonal skills. For example, I would expect a former lobbyist called upon to make decisions to give undue credence to other lobbists, and to care about political agenda more than technical issues.
It's interesting that this appointment was made by a Democrat. After 6 years of the Bush/Republicans catastrophe, it's tempting to thing that the Democrats are going to side with the little guy, unlike the business-whoring Republicans. This appointment should remind us that BOTH parties are, effectively, pro-(insert rich lobbyist name here).
I think you're confused: biased doesn't mean "I like [foo] technology better;" biased means "[foo]corp paid me to like [foo] technology better." There's a key difference there. Can you spot it?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Government is not a well-oiled machine. It's a vast expanse of bureaucracy, backroom deals, corruption, coercion and many other things. So stop treating it like one and doing that feel good song and dance about "we the people are the government" as an excuse for letting it dictate standards, regulate all over the place, etc. This is the way that government works in practice. The more you invite it into your life, the more of this sort of villainy you will invite in general.
Digging deeper, it seems the shill is still an MS employee. Can you really trust someone who says he "will be participating as a private citizen rather than a Microsoft employee" in a committee that affects a significant Microsoft business interest?
Get impartial engineers and technicians to analyze -- *scientifically (gasp!) -- the pros and cons of the various formats.
... that's pretty much what was done, and nearly everyone who didn't have a buck to make off of MS Office supported open standards.
Oh wait
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
If you want opinions and or marketing speak, you don't have to appoint a known partisan member to your committee. All the members are supposed to be independent, right? There aren't any abiword, openoffice, wordperfect, notepad, vi or emacs shilling members on that board now are there? What is that guy doing there?
The way this reads to me is that this is only an "Advisory" council. So they may not have the actual power to implement anything, and the MS lobbyist is only one voice. Hopefully reasonable decisions can still be reached.
Contacting Mr. Patrick (no email address available; but you can fax his campaign at (617) 628-3519 ) WILL make a difference.
Speak up. Now! Or STFU and take it daily from Microsoft.
This could, indeed, be the situation in some cases. But the distinction between companies and people that are 'monetarily rewarded' as per definition biased in favour of the monetary view, and those 'not monetarily rewarded' (in this case e.g. university researchers) who as you say "dispassionately figure out what the best solution is" is monumentally misguided.
Why is that? Because there are plenty of NON-MONETARY motivations someone can have to bias a statement, research, experimental piece or whatever. Payment in the pocket is simply one type of motivation (and in some/many cases a strong one) - but it goes against the dispassionate science of human behaviour to discount every other of the vast range of similar motivations out there.
Of _non-monetary motivations_ there can be, off hand;
- The size of your department: From an egoistical point of view, the manpower and effort you have authority to direct - the more controversial and 'important' your research appears, both internally and in the world at large, the bigger this would be;
- Your external authority: How many people look up to you and laud you as someone who is intelligent and has important things to say, and invite you to formal dinners with gourmet food, the requirement for which is usually that you have said something that is too complicated for them to think of on their own but which fits their world view (and don't underestimate the number of dinners and lunches a leading C* scientist can get invited to);
- The people in your department from a caring perspective: do you want to keep them? Do you want to give them tasks they like to do? Egoism isn't everything.
- Beliefs that aren't proven: there are every now and then cases of medical professionals who fake data to support a conclusion. Is that always for egoistical reason? How about they believe it to be true but feel their data has failed to prove it and the importance of public attention trumps principles of research?
- Educational sychophanty/hierarchy: Preserving power structures and repeating what you are told by others;
- Your political bias: Every statement that counters or disproves another statement diminishes the perceived authority of the person who made the original one. By association, you can feel that certain political parties are associated by particular views, and have a political desire to make them look bad;
- Your ideological bias: What sort of human is the 'dispassionate' machine-being you speak of? I've never met any of them. As the point above, if you feel someone is "evil", "a bad person", "egoistical" (and if you like the idea of "sharing" but dislike the idea of "unequal income distribution") why would you not have a desire that their authority and influence and image should be dented? I absolutely have. Don't you have a personal wish to make Bill Gates look bad?
- Your pay: I think climate scientists can get moderately more in either the private or the public sector today than a while ago. The same goes for grants - what sort of equipment can you get? What sort of travel and living standards can you get? How useful can you appear to your employer?
- Your friends: You want your friends to enjoy positive experiences in life. Being criticised is not one of them.
All of the above are motivations not to be dispassionate and objective. And a further one is money. While I agree that a paid fulltime lobbyist is far less dispassionate in absolute terms than an average researcher - a large number of researches all feeling a small to moderate bias of each of the types above can (and would) add up.
No, according to The Friendly Article,
Furthermore
Additionally,
And also,
So I think it's pretty well established that:
- He isn't merely a lobbyist, he's a chief lobbyist
- In all likelihood, he's represented Microsoft's interests (i.e. pushed anti-ODF) for the duration of this discussion
and, therefore, he's more than "supposed" to have spoken on Microsoft's behalf--he is/was a chief in pushing Microsoft's viewpoint in Massachusetts.Can you provide evidence that the advisory post is a full-time job and/or that Burke has left Microsoft, let alone being seen as "disloyal"? Maybe my google-fu isn't up to your ability, but I just can't find evidence to support your allegations.
In what way was my statement limited to Microsoft?! It is my opinion that the rulemakers and regulartors shouldn't be directly involved with the groups they're regulating, be they from Microsoft, IBM, or Linus.
Since you brought it up, the relevant ones (i.e. the "Technology" Committee) are all listed prominently in The Friendly Article, along with their affiliations. Given, I've not done extensive background on them, but neither do they seem to be primary movers in pushing ODF. Can you provide evidence to the contrary? If so, I'll be against them too!
And the Microsoft fanboys immediately post counter FUD to any aspersions cast upon the Great Microsoft! Sheesh. Give me a break and go get informed.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
He doesn't belong on the board. Not only is he an MS lobbyist he is also an MS employee. He is unable to make any rational choices or decisions and will automatically vote for anything MS and anything anti-oss. Why even bother putting somebody on the board when you already know how they are going to vote on every issue.
evil is as evil does
Just out of interest, in the last month or two Microsoft has actually put a note about OpenDocument support into their Office support pages. Notice how they insist on identifying it solely with a specific product (OpenOffice.org, whose name they get wrong). Their comments about why ODF is crap and MSXML is sweetness and light are also pretty ... partial, which isn't really surprising I suppose. More intriguing to me is how they basically say the whole debate is grandstanding by Sun (and not, say, something to do with public interest).