ZDNet UK News: Industry group urges government to think twice on open source

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> A UK IT industry body backed by Microsoft, IBM, Intel, BAE Systems and
> other high-tech heavyweights has urged the UK government to show
> restraint in its use of open-source software, particularly software
> covered by the General Public License.
>
> Intellect, which was formed from the merger of the Computer Services and
> Software Association and the Federation of the Electronics Industry last
> year, and represents about 1,000 UK IT companies, said that the
> requirement of open-source licences for software funded by the government
> could have a negative impact on competition for contracts, the quality of
> the resulting software and even the confidentiality of government
> departments.

Intellect is one of the backers of the

        Joint Industry Statement
        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/ipat0304/

Now not only are backers of Graham Taylor's "OpenForumEurope" (such as
SuSE and Redhat) indirectly spending money on lobbying for software
patents, but also IBM is indirectly spending money on a Microsoft FUD
strategy against free/opensource software.

Another good example of the representativity of industry associations.

Representing the members seems to be the exception rather than the rule in
these associations.  You join an association in order to be able to push
special interests through some specialist committee.  In return, you
tolerate other committees doing the same.  Coherence is as unimportant as
representativity.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
145,000 votes 400 firms against software patents     http://noepatents.org/