How To Hijack an EU Open Source Strategy Paper 112
Glyn Moody writes "Thanks to the indispensable Wikileaks, we have the opportunity to see how an organization close to Microsoft is attempting to re-write — and hijack — an important European Union open source strategy paper, currently being drawn up. Analyzing before and after versions visible in the document demonstrates how the Association for Competitive Technology, a lobbying group partially funded by Microsoft, is trying to widen the scope of open source to include 'mixed solutions blending open and proprietary code.'" And reader Elektroschock adds some detail on EU processes: "The European Commission lets ACT and CompTIA participate in all working groups of the European Open Source Strategy, which defines Europe's future open source approach. A blue editor questions the objectives: 'Regarding the "Europe Digital Independence" our [working] group thinks it is, in general, not an issue.' 'European digital independence' is a phrase coined by EU Commissioner V. Reding, that is what her European Software Strategy was supposed to be about. She didn't reveal that lobbyists or vendors with vested interests would write the strategy for the Commission."
Groklaw is down, due to coverage of MS vs TomTom? (Score:1, Interesting)
Groklaw (www.groklaw.net) is down, due to coverage of Microsoft vs TomTom? Or, is it just a coincidence?
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
I think you're mistaken about proprietary software being on the way out. We haven't had a "Year-of-the-Linux-desktop" yet, and some proprietary software is just plain better than FOSS alternatives, if a FOSS alternative even exists.
I don't think most companies are ever going to innovate on a FOSS platform, because there isn't any real money there. Innovation is driven by money, and people want it. FOSS, thus far, has typtically shown itself to be promising when commoditizing solutions.
Not to say tha
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're mistaken about proprietary software being on the way out. We haven't had a "Year-of-the-Linux-desktop" yet, and some proprietary software is just plain better than FOSS alternatives, if a FOSS alternative even exists.
"Year of the Linux desktop" is a red herring. Linux doesn't have to be on a desktop to gain marketshare. That route worked for Windows (although arguably it had just as much to do with riding the commodity hardware wave - something FOSS does as well). But it's not the only route to invade the Industry.
Of course, for me the "year of the Linux desktop" was years ago. And because of this, I'd like to see it more widespread. Mainly because you are right - there are some proprietary software that has no equ
Re: (Score:1)
Of course, for me the "year of the Linux desktop" was years ago. And because of this, I'd like to see it more widespread. Mainly because you are right - there are some proprietary software that has no equivalent. I'd really like the option of buying said software and running it on my platform of choice. But that's not really anything more than a personal wish.
How much time did you spend getting your desktop running? I've run them as well (and still do), and it took a lot more time to get it running than it did the first time I ever used Windows or OS X. I haven't ever heard anyone say that they had a first-time full multimedia setup going in a FOSS OS faster than their first-time full multimedia setup in Windows or OS X. Newbs just don't know about Xine, VLC, all the codecs they'll need, where to get them, or how to handle their package management systems unt
Re: (Score:2)
How much time did you spend getting your desktop running? I've run them as well (and still do), and it took a lot more time to get it running than it did the first time I ever used Windows or OS X.
It's hard to say. Back in the early days, it took a bit more to get things going just as I wanted it. Some of that was my own doing - I could have gone with defaults and been happy. But I must admit, there were times when some hardware gave me trouble.
These days aren't so bad. Ubuntu on my work laptop was plug-and-go. Right up to the point I wanted to tweak stuff around. Which I occasionally do. I put that kind of time in to the Windows desktops I've used too. Admittedly, though I've used OSX, I've
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It should be obvious by now that proprietary, off-the-shelf, software is on its way out. Off-the-shelf software only amounts for around 10% of the total software production
Um, what? proprietary software is nowhere near being on its last elbows my friend. Ok the old model of sale of software as a product is getting, well, old, and software as a service is taking off.
Open source is suited for that, but companies providing such services are managing quite well with proprietary code too. I know of several that mix open source and closed source in their product quite happily. Its not a problem, provided no licence terms are broken, and to be frank its not hard to manage that.
As fo
Re: (Score:1)
And Software as a Service is also as proprietary as it gets.
Now you don't even own the hardware anymore and can't even try to fix something on your own.
Re: (Score:2)
I also believe that this particular subset of proprietary software is in danger because off-the-shelf software tend to be generic and it's more likely that open-source software will perform the same task.
The more generic the open-source software, the more contributors it's likely to have. Over time it will have similar or better quality and more features
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When's the last time you went shopping for enterprise / business software at Best Buy?
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
short-term pragmatism is an ideology
This is closely akin to the "empiricism is an ideology" canard that gets thrown around a lot in debates on science, and it's just as specious. Yes, you can build elaborate ideological arguments in favor of pragmatism and empiricism, but you really don't have to -- they are distinct from all other ideologies in that they're the only ones we're born with. Have you ever seen any evidence that babies are anything other than empirical pragmatists?
Note: I am not saying that
Re: (Score:1)
I see plenty of empirical evidence that proponents of all ideologies believe their ideology is "special", and most seem to believe there are empirical evidence that their ideology is what we are "born with".
Personally I'm a rational empiricist and a long term pragmatist, and I see plenty of evidence that children are neither empiricists, not pragmatists (in any time-frame). They have to learn the hard way that the universe does not bend to their whims (wishing doesn't make true) as part of growing up. In
Re: (Score:2)
There are, certainly, circumstances where one can chose the short or long view equally pragmatically, depending on the relative costs; but the custom of treating the short view as self-evident common sense and the long view
CompTIA, ACT and the BSA, .. (Score:4, Informative)
'One might ask, "Who are these lobbyists? [linuxjournal.com]", so let's take a closer look'
My bad luck... I *WAS* on a plane reading Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)
I was on a plane reading Slashdot on my iPhone... the first headline came up "How To Hijack ..." and the air marshal in the seat next to me karate-chopped my neck and now I'm in Gitmo.
Thanks a lot Slashdot.
oh, by the way...can someone call me a lawyer?
Re:My bad luck... I *WAS* on a plane reading Slash (Score:5, Funny)
oh, by the way...can someone call me a lawyer?
OK, you're a lawyer.
"blending" (Score:2)
You mean, like with LGPL? I'm all for it.
EU should get out of this (Score:1, Troll)
This is like the EU deciding what oil individuals should use in all their cars.
The decision to use open source is not a governmental decision. If a government says to me "build a bridge from point A to point B," then I decide what piece of software is best for calculating the mass of the bridge. I can use an open source product, or a closed source product. But it would be absurd for my decision to be affected by what some guy in another country, who has no idea what software is, to make that decision for
Re: (Score:1)
As distinct from CompTIA, ACT and the BSA
Re:EU should get out of this (Score:5, Insightful)
This may come as a shock to you, but real governments (i.e., governments unlike the US government of the last eight years) don't just make sweetheart deals with private contractors. They actually do a lot of work themselves, and very often, software is involved in the process. When it comes to wise use of citizens' tax dollars (or euros, as the case may be) finding OSS solutions which can replace expensive proprietary software is pretty high on the list.
Re: (Score:2)
Closed source software does not pollute the environment. That analogy is totally irrelevant on anyplace other than slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
GAH! My other post was meant to be in reply to someone else. Doh!
finding OSS solutions which can replace expensive proprietary software is pretty high on the list.
I 100% agree! You seem to think I am arguing against open source. I'm not: I'm arguing against forcing technical decisions through legislation.
Part of the problem is because if you open up that can of worms, odds are that open source guy loses. Politicians will legislate solutions based on who can fly them to Aruba for "technology training" and who can line their pockets.
If you want open source, then use it. And convince your boss. Not
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is like the EU deciding what oil individuals should use in all their cars.
Your opinion of this would certainly change if you had the choice between buying Shell oil (they get to set all their own prices) and growing/making all the oil you need in your own backyard. You would be screaming about anti-competitiveness, Monopolies, etc..
Re: (Score:2)
good point. when the government is paying to have something done, the outcome is all that matters. Included in the outcome are: the results, the cost of achieving the results, the time taken to achieve the results (possibly considered a cost). Among costs are: dollars spent, capital expended, laws broken, environment damaged, etc., etc.
Specifying: "An open document format must be used for all reports" makes sense. Specifying what software is used to create that document is improper other than stipulating th
Re: (Score:1)
Thank you. Mandating open standards makes perfect sense. Along with mandating that government research be made open.
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably that's not the Alaskan government.
Re: (Score:2)
"This is like the EU deciding what oil individuals should use in all their cars."
Except of course for the fact that nothing in the current strategy is concerned with citizens or companies, and nothing in any proposed future ones will have an effect on them either. The existing EU open source strategy is solely concerned with software the European Commission uses internally, with the document that all the current furore is about being a proposal for future legislation concerning procurement policies in other
Name change (Score:1)
"Open Source" could go the way of "Organic" (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"Open Source" could go the way of "Organic" (Score:5, Insightful)
So maybe soon we'll have "100% Open Source" (as supported by Mr Stallman) vs the new "Open Source" with proprietary lock-ware in it.
As you point out, this was exactly Stallman's main beef with "open source": once you start talking about "openness" instead of "freedom", you open yourself up to all kinds of redefinitions and goalpost-moving. If I hold the standard at one that preserves "freedom", then all the Microsoft-style "open code" nonsense is quickly revealed as the trap that it is.
Re: (Score:2)
all the Microsoft-style "open code" nonsense is quickly revealed as the trap that it is.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Microsoft has always been careful to refer to its products which have source code opened under a non-FLOSS license as "shared source" (which, IMO, conveys the difference pretty well). MS also has several proper FLOSS licenses, certified as such by OSI and FSF. I haven't heard of anything like "open code".
Re: (Score:2)
In my mind, the difficulty is ensuring that code marked "free" (to modify, redistribute, sell, and so on) isn't polluted by code involving patents. Just because the main players have signed agreements to prevent that, it doesn't mean that there isn't some submarine patent filed by a 3rd party.
patents are not a big problem (Score:2)
In my mind, the difficulty is ensuring that code marked "free" (to modify, redistribute, sell, and so on) isn't polluted by code involving patents
Free software, like proprietary software, inadvertently violates patents; that's just a fact and it's unavoidable. But so what? The worst that seems to happen in practice is that a judge orders the patented invention to be removed and people add a workaround.
If by "pollution" you mean "deliberate introduction", that's even less of a problem: source code is usual
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, Eric S Raymond championed the new buzz-phrase "Open Source" over RMS's "Free Software."
See the mini-essay titled "Goodbye, 'free software'; hello, 'open source'" at http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html [catb.org]
P.S. These days, look for "Oregon Tilth Organic" if you're looking for the old meaning of organic.
WikiLeaks Needs Donations (Score:2)
WikiLeaks could run out of money before they get their next funding in September. They're asking for money [wikileaks.com] to keep running their essential service in the meantime:
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you protect your markets you destroy your exports. Exports are what drive our economy. Just like the Smoot-Holey Act in the 30's did your support of protectionism, if successful, will do far more damage to the economy than the banks have.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:4, Insightful)
More yet, if you protect your market, you make your people poorer (except for the owners of protected companies). But that is valid only for protectionism... If you protect your markets from Microsoft (or any other kind of fraud) you'll make our people richer and will increase the competitiveness of your exports (except for items that bundle with Windows).
Re: (Score:2)
More yet, if you protect your market, you make your people poorer
Can you give me a historically accurate example of that? Let's see, Asia's markets are protected, and they are building skyscrapers like crazy. USA's are not, and we have what?
Re: (Score:2)
No, I can't give you an accurate historical example of anything. To be fair, nobody will be able to give accurate examples against that prediction either. (Yours isn't that accurate, since you made no effort for discovering how rich those countries would be without the barriers.)
Despite that, the hypothesis that trade barriers make people poorer has as good empirical support as an economic theory goes (what is not that much, but there aren't better alternatives). Countries that raise trade barriers tend to
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting. How does open source and interoperability spending qualify as protectionism. It is more anti-dependency, deprotectionism.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:4, Interesting)
I am getting so sick of the Smoot-Harley comments whenever the topic of tariffs comes up. There are issues with protectionist tariffs, but the reason Smoot-Harley was such a disaster is that the tariffs were fixed in dollar per item rather than a percentage of price. During the deflationary spiral of the 1930's, this resulted in the tariff's being as high as 60% of the cost of a tariffed item. Personally, I think we need to have some tariffs so that imported goods carry the same load in our society as domestically produced goods to level the playing field. It does not make sense that domestically produced goods carry a significantly higher tax burden than those produced abroad.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the reasons. Not the only reason.
I wasn't aware that they did. Care to expain why and how they do?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Domestically good producers have to pay their half of the worker's FICA taxes. Imported goods do not.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not normally one to quibble about misspellings, but seeing two different ones in a row gets my goat.
Its Smoot-Hawley folks. Smoot-Hawley.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The U.S. economy was built on protectionist policies. It's funny how they would get there if protectionist actually was all that harmful. Or take England, as another example: previously protectionist. Is it possible that selective protectionism may be good for a developing economy and bad for a developed economy, as empirical evidence would suggest? And that free markets would be good for -- wait for it! -- the proponents of free markets, i.e. rich nations?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you protect your markets you destroy your exports.
Japan seems to be doing just fine with it. Compare who made your TV and their TVs. Your phone and their phones (yeah yeah, excluding iPhones).
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The EU does what the US should have done: encourage competition and punnisch illegal actions taken by dominant companies. Period. Good riddance. I'd rather have a choice between a Windows and a Linux and a whatever PC than only to have the choice to buy "Made for Vista" crap.
Fsck DRM. Fsck DirectInput. Fsck Direct3D. Fsck closed formats and protocols. Fsck lock-in. Fsck backdoors. Fsck x86 dominance (where's my 200 dollar/euro 64 threads CPU with a 1000% performance increase, huh?). Etc...
Just factually not true. (Score:2)
If you protect your markets you destroy your exports
We don't have any exports relative to our imports.
Just like the Smoot-Holey Act in the 30's did your support of protectionism, if successful, will do far more damage to the economy than the banks have.
Even Milton Friedman argued that Smoot-Holey had nothing to do with the Great Depression. The GD was a monetary problem turned into an economic one. Indeed, if your argument were true, it would not explain how the United States went from an agrarian society
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
No because then there wouldn't be a monopoly and it never would have reached the EU's attention in the first place.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:5, Informative)
The fact you have choices for which OS to install on your computer proves Microsoft is, in fact, *not* a monopoly. PsyStar vs. Apple is actually a great example for WHY Microsoft is not a monopoly. If you buy a PC from PsyStar you can choose OS X or Windows. The lawsuit shines light on the scenario greedy scumbags have thrust upon the consumers against their will, a scenario that obfuscates real issues with half-truths or complete fallacies about software licenses, end user agreements, and monopolistic practices. Because you have the freedom to choose Dell, HP, Apple, PsyStar or any other PC vendor, means you have the freedom to buy a PC with an OS other than from Microsoft.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
For starters, you must be a techie. For you to think that a monopoly is an absolute measurement shows that you think this way.
A monopoly is not a company that is exclusive in an industry. It's a company that has such an effective control over its industry that most people pretty much equate the company with the industry. And, as most people here point out, that's not illegal. When you use the control in one industry (OS) to project into another industry (Office), THAT is illegal. That you have competitors in the first industry is only significant if those competitors have significant mindshare and people treat the competitor as similar enough to weigh their options.
Apple's mindshare is rising enough to start to threaten the monopoly status of Microsoft. That doesn't mean that PsyStar has any bearing on it. Their mindshare is close enough to zero to make Linux on the Desktop look like a reality.
Remember: a healthy industry has two major competitors slugging each other out at about 40% marketshare each, a third competitor between 15 and 20% marketshare, largely ignored by the first two, and then a myriad of minor competitors making up the rest of the market, filling niche needs in that market. A dominated, but not monopolistic, industry has its number one company at about 60% marketshare, a number two at 30-40%, a number three company trying to get double digit percentages, and possibly a few others eeking out their living in niche markets. The desktop operating system market is not anywhere near these. Microsoft is sitting over 80%, Mac is somewhere around 5-10%, and others are filling niche roles. The server operating system market is not, from what I can tell, hugely different, though Mac and Linux might have their numbers reversed.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember: a healthy industry has two major competitors slugging each other out at about 40% marketshare each, a third competitor between 15 and 20% marketshare, largely ignored by the first two, and then a myriad of minor competitors making up the rest of the market, filling niche needs in that market. A dominated, but not monopolistic, industry has its number one company at about 60% marketshare, a number two at 30-40%, a number three company trying to get double digit percentages, and possibly a few others eeking out their living in niche markets. The desktop operating system market is not anywhere near these. Microsoft is sitting over 80%, Mac is somewhere around 5-10%, and others are filling niche roles.
From where do those percentages come?
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with the general idea that the GP is talking nonsense (if there was any proof of Microsoft not being a monopoly in his post, it must have been really really well hidden). Some minor corrections though.
A monopoly is not a company that is exclusive in an industry. It's a company that has such an effective control over its industry that most people pretty much equate the company with the industry.
Actually, a monopoly is, technically, a company that can price its product(s) in such a way that it maximizes the operating profit (normally through underproduction) because there are no market forces that would compel it to lower prices. Meaning that the company, not the market, sets the volume and pr
Re: (Score:2)
Because you have the freedom to choose Dell, HP, Apple, PsyStar or any other PC vendor, means you have the freedom to buy a PC with an OS other than from Microsoft.
Unless MS abuse their market influence by bullying vendors who show signs of offering other OSs in a significant number of cases by increasing their OEM price of Windows... or withdrawing the "discounts" that their competition gets.
You
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
The American legal definition of monopoly is based on the presence of either of the following:
Either of both makes a monopoly. The test is a functional one, not one base on having X% of the market.
Microsoft has been determined to have a monopoly by a US Court, and to have abused it.
Re: (Score:1)
Not quite true. When Microsoft created IE to counter Netscape they produced versions for other operating systems. Notably for the MacOS and for Unix. The Unix version of the time could be m
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:5, Insightful)
The name "European Digital Independence" would seem to indicate that, yes. Which makes it especially dumb for them to accept input from Microsoft.
Because it's always good for the US to cut its own throat just because the Europeans are cutting theirs.
Re: (Score:2)
ACT is not Microsoft but a Microsoft proxy. I don't think Microsoft is a member of the committee.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really.
Outside of Ireland the the UK, Microsoft is simply not as big in Europe as it is in the states. Time and again I have heard the same story. Linux shops and linux systems are simply more common in mainland Europe than Microsoft systems. Which is not to say that Microsoft systems are not there. They're just not there as much.
A lot of this is down to language and cultural barriers. A lot. It is very difficult for American companies to adapt to business on the continent. Going from an environment of 50 states with the same currency, culture and language, to 25 states with different languages, cultures, currencies (less now), and even legal systems is difficult. In North America, it's common for a franchise to expand across the entire continent at a rapid pace. I doubt there even is a franchise across the entire continent of Europe.
But, it's also true that European governments do balk at the idea of an American operating system controlling all of their computers. The English and Irish do not really see this as a problem, but I'm sure that the French view the situation as an anathema. The same goes for products like Oracle. But this is not a new development. These problems have existed for years.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:4, Informative)
Ireland offers massive tax cuts, so MIOL licenses the EMEA software sales from Ireland. Other companies do the same. The Irish economic wonder is nothing but tax dumping for multinationals from the United States, at the expense of the US tax income of course and for the benefit of Ireland.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:4, Insightful)
What Europe are you speaking of?? I live in Western Europe (in Belgium); people, businesses and organizations use *much* more Microsoft systems than Linux systems. If you go to the store and buy a PC, it comes with Windows preinstalled. At work, our file/database/mail server runs Linux, but all the desktops run Windows. I know that many small businesses are like that, and that there are also a lot that are 100% Microsoft. Many people still don't realize that the computing world is larger than Microsoft alone (that is starting to change now, but more because of Apple than because of Linux).
Re: (Score:2)
Belgium's pretty typical of most of Western Europe in my experience. Windows dominates the desktop at home and in the workplace (around 90%) just about everywhere, with Linux mostly being found in server rooms and universities. Macs are growing their market share quickly, partly because of the iPod / iPhone "halo effect", but the fact that both iPod and iPhone penetration levels are much lower than in the US means that the halo effect is less pronounced, so Macs typically have around half their US share of
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:5, Interesting)
Money has no homeland.
Microsoft is a multinational, it has employees and shareholders all around the world. The shareholders don't give a fuck about the USA or any other country.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft is one of 59 members of the Association for Competitive Technology
[1] [actonline.org]. The only victim here is the readership of Slashdot. There is a concerted campaign here to slate Microsoft regardless of any basis in reality.
Wikileaks claims the president of the ACT has strong ties to Microsoft, but only provides the ironically named, unsourced open-access Wiki, SourceWatch[2] [sourcewatch.org], as evidence for this latest smear campaign.
This is not the work of Microsoft. This lobbying was perpetrated by the software industry i
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:5, Insightful)
People round here fail to see, for reasons unbeknown to me, that Microsoft is not exceptionally evil as corporations go.
Well, there's Union Carbide, who killed thousands of Indians and whose CEO is still on India's most wanted fugitive list.
There's Haliburton.
There's Sony and their XCP rootkit.
There's Purina, who was too cheap to put doors on an elevator and my grandfather went four stories down without an elevator car, carrying two 100 lb sacks of grain. I absolutely HATE them, as you might possibly understand (and it was 50 years ago this year).
There's that chicken company that burned up all those minimum wage workers because they chained the fire doors shut.
There's the peanut place that killed a few people and sickened thousands.
Then there's the oil industry.
There's the banks, giving million dollar bonuses to the people who are running them into the ground. All of these are more evil than Microsoft.
And the fact that few corporations pay any US Federal Income tax at all is pretty evil, too. Does MS pay Federal Income Tax?
But just because everyone else if evil doen't give you an escuse to be, too. Waht did your mother say about all your friends jumping off a bridge?
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Huh? Where do you get your 'facts' from?
There's the banks, giving million dollar bonuses to the people who are running them into the ground.
And there's the US govt. that gives billions to those same banks.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course the widespread prevalence of wrongdoing doesn't excuse Microsoft's transgressions - whatever they may be, but I'm willing to bet that most of those who cut their nose off to spite their face by foregoing the use of Microsoft tools on moral grounds, are happy using banks, cars, chemicals of all kinds and are perfectly content in consuming the products of multinational corporations. The criticism Microsoft receive in certain circles is grossly disproportionate.
Re: (Score:1)
Well it also gets down to what directly affects you and what you care personally about. If one is a FOSS developer or user than MS suing a manufacturer who uses LInux with a really crappy patent is going to provoke outrage. We toil in this particular vineyard so MS' transgressions are going to be particularly noticed.
Re: (Score:2)
But just because everyone else if evil doen't give you an escuse to be, too. Waht did your mother say about all your friends jumping off a bridge?
Believe me, plenty of kids (and grown men) *are* that stupid and sheeplike. [google.co.uk]
That's funny... (Score:2)
But, you could take Union Carbide, Halliburton, Microsoft, and every other supposedly corporation you could think of that is "evil", and that would not compare even remotely to one day's worth of government evil and incompetence at the Somme.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft is a protectionist company that combats freedom of governments to promote open source, interoperability and a free market, it does so simply because its business strategy is protectionism and lockin.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:5, Informative)
The only victim here is the readership of Slashdot. There is a concerted campaign here to slate Microsoft regardless of any basis in reality.
[1] [actonline.org] [actonline.org]
That's disingenuous at best.
Microsoft may be one of 59, but most of the rest are Microsoft partners.
To pick only the headlined companies:
These smaller, entrepreneurial technology firms like Sax Software, ComponentSource and EnsuredMail have long been the driving force behind innovation and job growth in the industry.
See any pattern there?
Re: (Score:1)
Judge them by both words and deeds. Here are some of their words.
"Knife the Baby."
"Cut of their air supply."
"Whack Dell."
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh come on, you're blowing this way out of proportion.
Right now, the EU is highly dependent on proprietary software from the US. Is it really so strange that they don't like this? No country likes to be dependent on another country for essential goods. It's not much different from the US disliking their dependence on foreign oil.
And rather than demanding non-US software, the EU just wants guarantees in the form of less restrictive licensing (open source). Does this make it easier for other countries to compete? Yes, it does. Does it mean that the US is disadvantaged? No, it doesn't. As long as the US produces quality software for a reasonable price, the EU will keep buying.
Oh, and for the record: I'm an EU citizen who is employed by a major US software house.
Re: (Score:2)
Heck - I don't even want to be dependent on a single vendor, much less a country.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh come on, you're blowing this way out of proportion.
sorry, I'm watching two more American companies on the verge of going belly up, all in the name of this so-called free trade. I've heard all of these promises of free trade for 30 years, believed in it, and now its failing. I'm sick of it. Trade ideas, not goods.
Re:Could rewrite, EU tries to kick Americans out. (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, what the hell are you talking about?
Re: (Score:2)
Free software is about freedom, lock-in is about market protectionism.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Senseless: it doesnt work this way because america COULD if she WANTED be the biggest FOSS engine in the world and still kick into the european market.
You confuse microsoft with your country: What a shame.
Re: (Score:2)
You confuse microsoft with your country: What a shame.
Well put. What an idiot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that a huge number of the big players in open source (Novell, Sun, Red Hat, Xandros, IBM, the Free Software Foundation, Google, Mozilla, et al) are American or America-based should be the first big sign that protectionism would be a daft name for it.
You could see it as a stimulus for Europe, seeing as many of the best proprietary companies are American or Japanese. But ultimately FOSS is completely anti-protectionist; if the intellectual property is impossible to control (thanks to the licensing),
Re: (Score:2)
So, somebody decides to use a free alternative that fulfills all of their needs instead of paying you for your product, and you call that "kicking Americans out?"
Sounds to me like they decided to start using their noggins to think. Maybe we here in America should do that too, and stop paying for nothing.
I don't see how this makes "free trade" a failure, though. OSS is a free alternative to overpriced proprietary code. "Free trade" is what enables them to decide to choose the better product; "free trade" doe
A World Wide Republican Revolution. (Score:2)
Please don't support protectionist candidates. You'll make the outsourcing problem worse than it already is by voting for total boobs who want to jack up minimum wage and drive business out of the country with pseudo-communist anti-competitive policies.
I'm supporting protectionist candidates and I might well become one. I am going to take the Republican Party and turn it into an anti-globalization, protectionist regime and let the world understand that the people who condemn conservatives as the luddites a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
conservatives ... are the very bankers and governments that want to sweep away all local traditions and customs in favor of some U.S. Congress-like body of arrogant bureacrats whose only concern for the so-called working man is a disdainful accounting of how much he can be used as a political chip.
There, I fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm assuming that you are referring to Microsoft. If so your numbers are wrong. They just recently announced a layoff of 15,000, before that they had 90,000 leaving them currently at ~75,000.
Tell me how many people were victimized by Enron and how many people were in on the "scam"? Gangs frequently terrorize neighbourhoods containing far more people than the gang themselves. Seems to
Re: (Score:2)