09 February 2007

Red in Tooth and Claw

More signs of desperation:

The European Commission has resisted efforts by Microsoft to make it abandon its report into open-source software, it was revealed this week. But the Commission was swayed into allowing a 10-day period for feedback before completing the report.

Harnessing the opportunity to provide feedback, Microsoft produced 25 pages of arguments as to why the report — which quantified the benefits of open source to European organisations — should be shelved. The software giant also commissioned a respected university academic to back its case and enlisted the help of a trade association, CompTIA. The academic produced 45 pages of evidence supporting Microsoft's case, while CompTIA wrote a 40-page submission.

Worth reading are both Rishab Ghosh's comments on the whole shenigans, and the letter to the European Commission from the Initiative for Software Choice. And yes, those tell-tale weasel-words "software choice" do indeed mean that this is an organisation partly funded by Microsoft to do down free software at every opportunity under the guise of "balance", "choice" and - supreme irony - "freedom".

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is American realpolitik all the way.
Phrases like "detriment to our members' interests", "lacks necessary gravitas", "publicly disabuse press reports", etc. are all too familiar to us Yanks. It's a way for the powerful to justify oppressing the weaker.

I believe your word-of-the-day from a few days ago, Ganking, applies here.

Glyn Moody said...

Nice connection.

Anonymous said...

Someone should send the EU a nicely bound copy of The Ectasy of Influence to highlight the importance of sharing, collaboration and open-source to our culture...

Glyn Moody said...

Good idea - thanks for the link, I had been meaning to add it myself, you've saved me the trouble.