Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop FOSS in Europe - and errata too!

[PhilT]

Well! Here we have a sorry tale. A Wikileaks document exposing Microsoft allies conspiring to undermine FOSS in Europe. Why am I not surprised? The greedy proprietary moguls really depress me.

This file is an edited version of the EU OSS Strategy draft with the input of Jonathan Zuck, President of the Association for Competitive Technology, an organisation that has strong ties with Microsoft. The file is a draft for an expert panel formed by the European Commission. The original is over a year old, so one wonders what else is going on behind the scene.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/European_C...raft,_Mar_2009

[dibl]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

Isn't it funny how politics and "spin-speak" creeps into such undertakings? Did you notice that open-source organizations are "actors", but proprietary software comes from "vendors"?

[GreyGeek]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

Zuck has more than "strong ties". His "Association for Competitive Technology" was one of ten members of a front group created during the DOJ trial which was always lobbying in behalf of Microsoft. After the DOJ trial ended his group went dormant until, a few years later, Microsoft's unethical activities got it in trouble in the European Union. Zuck then opened an office in Brussels and began using the same unethical tactics there, as witnessed by the subversion of the European Commission on Open Source Software Strategy Draft Document.


One group Citzens Against Government Waste spammed Congress during the DOJ trial by emailing letters of protest about the "persecution of Microsoft for just being a successful competitor". The ruse was discovered when many of the return addresses were invalid and the signatures on many of the letters were discovered to be names taken from cemetery records for people who had been buried years before. The LA Times exposed the scam and reported on it.

Other members of the front group, "Americans for Technology Leadership" are:
# Cityscape Filmworks (non-existant)
# Clarity Consulting (non-existant)
# CompTIA
# CompUSA (avoided near bankruptcy in 2007, now a shell of its former self)
# Microsoft Corporation
# 60Plus Association (non-existant)
# Small Business Survival Committee (non-existant)
# Staples, Inc.

So, essentially, the ONLY non smoke-and-mirrors entities in that group are Microsoft, Staples and CompTIA. The group still doing most of Microsoft's stealth work is the ACT and Zuck. The CAGW has always been a "for hire" 501c3. These "non profit" 501c3 groups represent a common source of income for ex CEOs and would-be stars who start them and then use the donations as their primary source of income. Such gifts are tax deductible so YOU are paying for them, indirectly. ACT advertizes itself as "Protecting small business innovation". ACT is sponsored by eBay, Intel, Microsoft. Oracle and Verisign, <sarcasm>some of the smallest businesses I've ever seen.</sarcasm>. To be sure, ACT has signed up, it claims, about 3,000 "small business", but a brief look at the list reveals that they are dependent on Microsoft's OS and software, or sell proprietary software. FOSS would be a threat to them.

[MoonRise]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

Sad, but not surprised. The entire world is corrupt.

[Snowhog]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

Sad, but not surprised. The entire world is corrupt.

I'm not, and for a 'nominal fee' I'll let everyone know that I told you so.

[toad]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

Don't buy him, I'm cheaper.

[MoonRise]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

- Sorry, didn't mean to add everybody in one group. I meant those in power, but what else is new there. History is full of it.

[kyonides]

Re: Limewire shut down.

Sadly, wikileaks seems to be the latest victim of US goverment cyberattacks. >

[dibl]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

I'm not crying for Assange. He's very particular about which nations' secrets he steals and publicizes. If he were the public-spirited world citizen he purports to be, we'd be seeing secret foreign service messages from China, India, Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela. Ain't gonna happen, is it?

[kyonides]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

Com'on, there are more readers interested in getting all of the American and European "best kept" secrets than those of any other country. Besides he'd get killed in China or Venezuela so I don't blame him, well, I never trusted him (OK, I don't know who he is).

[toad]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

I'm not crying for Assange. He's very particular about which nations' secrets he steals and publicizes. If he were the public-spirited world citizen he purports to be, we'd be seeing secret foreign service messages from China, India, Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela. Ain't gonna happen, is it?

I dare say that if such documents were available they'd be published.

Whatever, the latest US stuff makes great reading I was just going to look up Berlusconi and the server went down

[Detonate]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

I just posted this in our other thread on the subject.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-200...s-DigitalMedia

[woodsmoke]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

I'm not crying for Assange. He's very particular about which nations' secrets he steals and publicizes. If he were the public-spirited world citizen he purports to be, we'd be seeing secret foreign service messages from China, India, Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela. Ain't gonna happen, is it?

I agree, if he would somehow be able to pull down the governments he is supposedly so against to where only Iraq and SA communistas were left they would hunt him down and kill him like a dog.

The only way that people like him can exist is to exist in the situation that they supposedly so much hate.

dlbl wrote:

Did you notice that open-source organizations are "actors", but proprietary software comes from "vendors"?

Yep, hate goes both ways, bad terms for "them" and good terms for "us"...it just depends on who is "them" and who is "us".

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

He's very particular about which nations' secrets he steals and publicizes. If he were the public-spirited world citizen he purports to be, we'd be seeing secret foreign service messages from China, India, Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela. Ain't gonna happen, is it?

I agree, if he would somehow be able to pull down the governments he is supposedly so against to where only Iran, North Korea, China and SA communistas were left they would hunt him down and kill him like a dog.

The only way that people like him can exist is to exist in the situation that they supposedly so much hate.

SEE! I got to be a "we" and the other people are "them"!!

dlbl wrote:

Did you notice that open-source organizations are "actors", but proprietary software comes from "vendors"?

So, one side is goodies and one side is baddies....

now me.....I like Goodie's Ice Cream!

woodsmoke

[JontheEchidna]

Re: Wikileaks - Documents aiming to stop Free and Open Source software in Europe

I'm not crying for Assange. He's very particular about which nations' secrets he steals and publicizes. If he were the public-spirited world citizen he purports to be, we'd be seeing secret foreign service messages from China, India, Cuba, Russia, and Venezuela. Ain't gonna happen, is it?

I should note that he himself is not actually stealing the leaked information; he relies on anonymous leakers to do that. Leaked information on a country is dependent on people to leak this information.