Yankees in the Court of King Arthur, with a Microsoft Agenda
,----[ Quote ]
| Hi Sam,
|
| As a fellow American, prepare yourself for humiliation and shame...
|
| [...]
|
| So here we are. The champions appointed by our National Institute
| of Standards and Technology to represent our interest in the
| International Standards process have carved out a dangerous
| and possibly enduring loophole in the ISO/IEC fast track process.
| A loophole designed to serve the interest of a single proprietary
| monopolist seeking to control mankind's digital future.
|
| Sam, where do we hide?
|
| To our friends abroad fighting desperately to preserve the
| integrity of international open standards, with our digital
| freedom and the future of open Internet on the line, we ask
| that they dig in their heels and fight this to the end.
`----
http://openstack.blogspot.com/2007/01/redmond-yankees-in-world-court-of-king.html
http://tinyurl.com/2ezdje
Related:
MA Governor-Elect Names MS Anti-ODF Lobbyist to Technology Advisory Group
,----[ Quote ]
| That person is Brian Burke, the Microsoft Regional Director for Public
| Affairs, and if that surprises you, it surprises me as well, given the
| degree of acrimonious debate and disinformation witnessed in Massachusetts
| over the last 15 months involving the Information Technology Division's
| transition to ODF.... it is my understanding that it was Burke who led
| the lobbying effort on Beacon Hill against ODF, and also urged legislators
| to introduce the amendment intended to take away much of the ITD's
| planning power generally, and as regards standards specifically, and hand
| it to a task force made up of political appointees.... Although I'm told
| that Burke announced yesterday at the first meeting of the new working
| group that he will be participating as a private citizen rather than a
| Microsoft employee, I believe that Burke should recuse himself from
| participating in any discussions or recommendations relating to
| document format standards.
`----
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20061128161343183
Politics and tech companies: follow the money
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft took first place with $651,100 given out, while
| Hewlett-Packard gave only $185,550, and Gateway gave a paltry
| $2,000. Microsoft's donations certainly illustrate well the true
| size of the company and the extent of its political concerns.
|
| [...]
|
| For instance, Microsoft's PAC spent $1.7 million in the 2006 election
| cycle, but only a third of this went to federal candidates. What
| happened to the rest? It went to local campaigns, paid out a few
| thousand dollars at a time to groups like "Boal for Iowa House" in
| Ankeny, IA. It also funded other PACs like the "Associated Republicans
| of Texas" and the "Blue Dog Political Action Committee." No race is
| apparently too small to be funded; even Indiana State Representative
| Terri Austin of Anderson, IN got $500.
| Lobbyists
|
| But the real money isn't even given to the candidates directly. It
| goes to lobbyists, which can be safer investments since they stand no
| chance of losing at the polls. The complete-year figures from 2005
| show that Microsoft spent $8.7 million on lobbyist expenses. Almost
| a million dollars of that money went to Covington & Burling, a
| lobbying firm that also represents the National Football League and
| the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America. Microsoft's
| total spending on lobbying has risen substantially from the $4
| million it spent in 1998.
|
| [...]
|
| Where does it come from?
|
| Although some of this money comes from large employee donations,
| most of it does not. Take Microsoft, for instance; the Center for
| Responsive Politics says that the company received only $302,599
| from individual donors who gave more than $200 in this election
| cycle, only a small fraction of the $1.7 million actually spent.
| As is typical, much of this money came from the company's top
| brass, while the rest was made up of small contributions.
|
| The maximum individual contribution to a PAC is $5,000 a year.
| Melinda, whose occupation is listed in Federal Election Commission
| records as "homemaker," regularly contributes this amount, as does
| Bill. Steve Ballmer coughed up, too. Microsoft can use general
| company funds to support the PAC and its operations, but cannot
| give directly to candidates.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061110-8194.html
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
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
|
|
