[oclug] Open Source Oppositions Get Serious

[Rod Giffin]

On Monday 07 October 2002 09:07 am, Joe Burpee wrote:
> Which gets me back to the more important original message from Randal.
> What is worrisome is the danger that the reaction of the open/free
> community may be construed (however ironically) as being responsible for
> the passage of anticompetitive legislation.  This would hardly be
> mitigated by the fact that such legislation is also in reaction to
> current unlegislated and unregulated business practices that are
> arguably even more anticompetitive.

Actually Joe, you're right.  One of the things that bothers me to no end is 
that Canada and the US both appear to have surrendered their sovereignty over 
laws that impact IS,  IT and IM industries to corporations on both sides of 
the border, led apparantly by Microsoft.

In the name of "freedom to choose" or "freedom to innovate", I'm expected to 
choose Microsoft.  That's not freedom.  The only problem is most consumers, 
if they even cared, don't know there are alternatives.  You can be sure 
Microsoft will leverage this for all it's worth both in and out of 
legislatures.

Rod.