When companies rewrite the laws outside their own country/ies...
Years of deadlock on EU patent bring some new thinking
,----[ Quote ]
| When Bill Gates visits Brussels on Thursday to speak with
| government officials, software developers and customers, he
| plans to wade into one of Europe's longest-running, most
| fruitless debates: the pursuit of a unified patent system.
| Gates, chairman of Microsoft, wants a simple system that will
| allow the world's largest software maker and other companies
| to protect their intellectual property in the European Union -
| and profit from licensing their patents.
`----
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/08/business/patents.php
What follows are more example of lobbying. Why? Because the world deserves to
know better.
,----[ Quote ]
| "A source that deals with the company said unofficially that Gates
| proposed Microsoft's Digital Rights Management technology as a national
| standard to fight piracy at the governmental level."
`----
http://www.kommersant.com/p719683/r_528/
Leaked letter warns of open source 'threat to eco-system'
,----[ Quote ]
| leaked letter to the European Commission has revealed the extent of
| lobbying by proprietary software groups to prevent the widespread
| adoption of open-source software.
|
| Sent in response to a recent report on the role of open-source
| software in the European economy, Microsoft-funded pressure
| group, the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) warned of
| potentially dire effects if too much encouragement was given
| to open source software development.
`----
http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=7109
Study: open source needs official support; Lobbyist
disagrees with "flawed" conclusions
,----[ Quote ]
| The study, commissioned by the European Commission, Directorate
| General Enterprise and Industry, is but a small part of the larger
| FLOSSPOLS project that aims to keep the EU a leader in global
| development of open source software.
|
| [...]
|
| Now, the ISC is widely regarded as a shill for Microsoft, although
| the member list also includes companies like Intel, Autodesk, and
| RSA Security (now an EMC subsidiary). The 300-strong member list is
| mostly padded with lesser lights such as Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi(
| Turkey), ThreeSixtyDegreez (Pakistan), and Datoprogrammu Apgads
| (Latvia). The institute pushes hard for the right to patent
| software, alongside regular bashings of open source businesses.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061017-8011.html
Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff
,----[ Quote ]
| E-mails released by the committee show that Abramoff, often
| with the knowledge of the groups' leaders, exploited the tax-exempt
| status and leveraged the stature of the organizations to build
| support among conservatives for legislation or government action
| sought by clients including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company
| DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman,
| maker of Jack Daniel's whiskey.
`----
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200889.html
http://tinyurl.com/y2rbpu
Open Source Foes In Bed With Abramoff
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/12/2036223&from=rss
Microsoft offers schools in Mass. free software (to stop ODF adoption)
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft's software includes normal applications, such as word
| processing and spreadsheets, as well as more advanced programs.
`----
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6090196.html?part=rss&tag=6090196&subj=news
Microsoft plays Massachusetts Senate card
OpenDocument not a done deal yet
,----[ Quote ]
| http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32515
`----
EU official joins consultancy serving Microsoft
http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-10-03T134311Z_01_L03693228_RTRIDST_0_TECH-MICROSOFT-OFFICIAL.XML&rpc=66&type=qcna
http://tinyurl.com/h47g3
US ambassador to the EU was former Microsoft lobbyist
,----[ Quote ]
| Before C. Boyden Gray was named as George Bush's number one person in
| Europe, he was a lawyer lobbying on behalf of Microsoft.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34706
US politicians go to bat for Microsoft
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/26/microsoft_eu_political_lobbying/
Changing the Report, After the Vote
,----[ Quote ]
| That agreement was nearly imperiled last weekend, though. Gerri
| Elliott, corporate vice president at Microsoft's Worldwide Public
| Sector division, sent an e-mail message to fellow commissioners
| Friday evening saying that she "vigorously" objected to a paragraph
| in which the panel embraced and encouraged the development of open
| source software and open content projects in higher education.
`----
http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/01/commission
Feds seek formal extension of Microsoft antitrust deal
,----[ Quote ]
| The U.S. Department of Justice and Microsoft on Wednesday filed a
| formal application for a two-year extension of portions of their
| landmark antitrust settlement, with the possibility of stretching it
| until 2012.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6111240.html
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