Lobbyists denigrate open source in leaked letter to EC

MICROSOFT IS using lobbyists to warn the European Commission of what it perceives to be the dangers of open-source software.

In a letter to the deputy director general of the European Commission's Enterprise and industry section, which made its way into the hands of the INQUIRER, Hugo Lueders, of the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) seeks to rubbish a report into the economic impact of open source software (dubbed FLOSS in the EU, so as not to upset the French - Free/Libre Open Source Software).

The study, reckons Lueders, "does not holistically reflect the full dynamics now occurring in the vibrant software marketplace." With this in mind he says he can help the Commission out by giving it a few facts.

The report "fails to consider the achievements of various other forms of software licensing and business models," he says, like charging a small fortune for incomplete code so that Bill Gates can set himself up as the biggest philanthropist of all time. Well, we added that bit.

The old argument that firms like Microsoft can develop better products by making lots of profit so they can spend some of it on R&D is trotted out, as is the one thats says there is a need for strong protection of commercial patents and the like.

The document is peppered with terms like "software ecosystem" which is a phrase no-one with any grey matter between their ears might say.

The fact that, in 2005, "more than half of all FLOSS developers earn income from their FLOSS activities (…) demonstrates that the market rewards the development of FLOSS that has a significant value a societal use."

The fact that many of these will have earned about three bob from their activities isn't mentioned.

What's more, writes Lueders, the report doesn't actually define what FLOSS is.

And any fule kno that FLOSS is what sticks most irritatingly between Steve Ballmer's teeth.

The ISC, notes Lueders, represents some 300 ITC firms and should therefore be listened to. Microsoft is just a tiny mite in the whole soup, obviously. µ