« Commissie vernietigend over beleid stemmachines | Home | Recent Comments | Categories | It appears some people are not happy with W. »
Microsoft’s ‘Men in Black’ kill Florida open standards legislation
[Quote:]
Rep. Homan and his son Doug tried to add their little open standards boost to SB 1974 as quietly as possible. They wanted the modified bill to at least get through its first committee approval before anyone spotted what they had done. But Microsoft’s Florida lobbyists were on the ball and spotted it almost immediately.
“It was like the movie ‘Men in Black,’” says Rep. Homan. “Three Microsoft lobbyists, all wearing black suits.”
Another lobbyist (unaffiliated with Microsoft) who would speak only “on background” laughed at the “Men in Black” description. “I know those guys,” he said. “They even wear sunglasses like in that movie. They are the ‘Men in Black’ of Florida lobbying, for sure.”
A legislative staff employee who would lose his job if he were quoted here by name said, “By the time those lobbyists were done talking, it sounded like ODF (Open Document Format, the free and open format used by OpenOffice.org and other free software) was proprietary and the Microsoft format was the open and free one.”
Two other legislative employees (who must also remain anonymous) told Linux.com that the Microsoft lobbyists implied that elected representatives who voted against Microsoft’s interests might have a little more trouble raising campaign funds than they would if they helped the IT giant achieve its Florida goals.
Note that lobbyists for IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Novell — the only three companies with a major interest in open source who have registered lobbyists in Florida — did not weigh in on this matter. Microsoft was the only company whose lobbyists openly displayed interest in whether Florida should consider legislation that would officially make state agencies a little friendlier to open software standards than they are now.
|