[PLUG] Minnis bows to lobbyists of Microsoft

Matt Chorman qubex at punkass.com
Fri May 2 14:05:12 UTC 2003


The way Mr. Barber puts this reminds me of an analysis I once read about 
organized crime at the turn of the century (last one, not this one). A few 
"clean" politicians would listen to reason and try to create legislation to 
clean up their act while the rest secretly pocketed large amounts of money 
and, for a long while, nothing changed.

The scene is different but the actions are the same. 

I guess we could take a look at history and see how, in the face of large 
dollars lobbying politicians towards "the dark side", a grass-roots movement 
can change the law. In the past this took the face of a heavy media campaign, 
letting people know what was happening. This involved some heavy-duty 
journalism, getting to the source, finding who was taking money (and why) and 
letting people know the reasons behind why their politicians did not vote to 
outlaw organized crime. The problem being that taking money is very 
commonplace today (and people are so "over-media"ed that they will not listen 
unless something is particularly seedy or interesting.) Our politicians and 
leaders can take "contributions" and be "forced" to "listen" to corporations 
(like Microsoft). People don't care because they are not that interested in 
what their computers run. People see Microsoft as a great corporation that 
contributes money to schools and non-profits.

Perhaps this bill is "too much, too soon". It is also reminiscent of the 
marijuana legalization bills that, inevitably, will be on the ballot every 
other year. Peoples opinions are too closed. They don't know what this bill 
means. They don't know what open source software is. They know Windoze, 
because they use it at work (and at home on their crappy PC they bought at 
best buy or the home shopping network) and they feel threatened by something 
they don't know, and don't understand. 

I guess what I'm getting at is that part of the reason this billed failed is 
not just Mircosoft's intervention (we all know that is the REAL reason). Our 
government is currently organized to give a bigger voice to the corporate 
influence. Whether this is right or not, it is LEGAL and the strategy of open 
source must act accordingly..

That said, does anyone have any ideas on how to combat having a neighbor like 
M$ next door? No matter what the legislation, they are close enough that they 
will interfere with almost anything that goes on in our capitol. We will 
always have to deal with weak politicians and deep pockets of M$ lobbying. 
How can we get around this? How do you convince people that a big company 
that they may not like (though secretly admire and envy) is bad news when it 
comes to the bottom line?


On Friday 02 May 2003 07:50 am, David Pool wrote:
> Ken Barber's "In my opinion" column is running in today's Metro section of
> the Oregonian. It can be found online at:
>
> http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/10
>51876782142831.xml
>
> d
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG mailing list
> PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug





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