Newt Gingrich's Progress and Freedom Foundation funded by companies
like:
RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company
Philip Morris
Music Industry
Microsoft
> Australian blogger Tim Lambert mentioned in June 2004 PFF as one of
> several think tanks writing reports critical to open source
> software while they seem to be funded by Microsoft. [22] (http://
> www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/blog/computers/tanks.html) Unlike the
> other think tanks on that list, PFF is quite open about Microsoft
> being a 'supporter (http://www.pff.org/about/supporters.html)'.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?
title=Progress_and_Freedom_Foundation
Like junkscience and the CATO Institute they are funded by big
tobacco. I'm surprised that Oil isn't listed but they don't
necessarily reveal all their sources of funding.
On 2006 Sep 25, at 4:36 PM, anthony hornby wrote:
> Hmmmmm,
> Ipcentral is backed by the ironically titled "Progress and Freedom
> Foundation".
>
> Whose mission is stated as:
> "Its mission is to educate policymakers, opinion leaders and the
> public
> about issues associated with technological change, based on a
> philosophy
> of limited government, free markets and individual sovereignty ...."
>
> So whats the problem?
>
> 1. Technological change - the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
> movement is technological change of the most profound type.
>
> 2. Limited government, free market - FOSS generally succeeds
> entirely on
> the merit of the code, it sinks or swims on whether it remains
> useful to
> the community. Can't get much more free market than that.
>
> 3. Individual sovereignty - most FOSS licences such as the GPL
> strongly
> protect the copyright of the creator and their intentions for how
> their
> creations get used. Can't see a problem here.
>
> So you have to wonder why the PFF seem to spend an awful lot of time
> muddying the waters about FOSS when it seems so closely aligned with
> their mission <rolls eyes>.
>
> Seems a free hand in the marketplace is not intended for everyone
> based
> on how able they are to compete - just for those already
> established in
> the PFF "club".
>
> Anthony.
>
> On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 16:03 +1000, Brendan Scott wrote:
>> The CATO Institute spokesmidget spruked:
>>> http://weblog.ipcentral.info/archives/2006/09/what_to_study_a_1.html
>>>
>>> "The NSF gives a UC Davis team funding to study how various FOSS
>>> projects
>>> emerged.
>>>
>>> I skeptically accept FOSS as a contributor to the technological
>>> community. On the one hand, FOSS enables many talented developers to
>>> contribute and refine their skills. Plus, a few FOSS technologies
>>> have
>>> gained industry wide acceptance and adoption. On the other hand,
>>> when
>>> someone is going to study how successful FOSS projects work, I
>>> hope they
>>> can answer these questions begged by the revolutionary hype-
>>> hoopla of
>>> some FOSS supporters.
>>>
>>> 1) what explains the inability of FOSS to respond to consumer
>>> and market
>>> driven demand, as in the case where FOSS failed to develop
>>> accessibility
>>> features for its desktop applications in Massachusetts.
>>> 2) given the years FOSS has been around, the "man hours"
>>> dedicated to
>>> its projects, and the myriads of eyeballs peering into its code,
>>> why has
>>> FOSS generated only a few commercial successes?
>>> 3) most admit the limitations of FOSS in segments of systems and
>>> architectures. Given this, shouldn't FOSS adopt licenses to
>>> ensure its
>>> "mixture" with mass-market proprietary technologies, as that
>>> seems the
>>> only route for long term adoption and viability?
>>> 4) do companies such as IBM and Red Hat rely on innovation in FOSS
>>> technologies for their service businesses? What does this say
>>> about the
>>> "innovativeness" vs business aspects of FOSS when firms can
>>> still make
>>> money even if FOSS technologies improve incrementally or not at
>>> all? .
>>> 5) how do FOSS companies compete for developers. After years and
>>> hundreds if not thousands of FOSS projects, are there "all-star"
>>> developers courted by project leaders or companies?
>>> 6) how much say do FOSS volunteers have in proposing ideas or
>>> directional changes in development efforts? Is this anyway to treat
>>> folks who lend their work to giants like IBM and Red Hat, who
>>> then turn
>>> around and make money off that.
>>> 7) finally, is there any plan to oust Moglen-Stallman and
>>> replace them
>>> with reasonable representatives such as Oreilly-Torvalds?"
>>
>> <laugh>
>>
>> I think the term for this is "framing".
>>
>> The answer to all of these questions is: "It's the free market.
>> Stop thinking that monopolies are desirable and everything will
>> become clear."
--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +61 2 61258620 M: +61 417820641 F: +61 2 6230 6121
mailto:kim at holburn.net aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request
Cacert Root Cert: http://www.cacert.org/cacert.crt
Aust. Spam Act: To stop receiving mail from me: reply and let me know.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD] http://www.saqqara.demon.co.uk/
datefmt.htm
Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
-- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961