[odf-discuss] EU study about the influence of FLOSS

[Peter Vandenabeele]

On 1/16/07, Lars D. Noodén <lars at umich.edu> wrote:
> What can we do differently this time around to make the policy reflect the
> reports findings as opposed to the last 8 - 9 years ?

One problem I see is that the community of free software users/developers is
a dispersed group of inidividuals, that have no clear presentation in
"employment
statistics" in comparison to established companies (majority of them still using
closed models, since the newer companies that use more "open" models are
often still smaller and growing). Those established companies can always claim:
"we employ 500 people here in your country, so please follow our advise".
That advise is in many cases to favor status-quo measures that will continue
to keep up their dominant position, often targeting "captive markets"
(a positive
word in VC and shareholder circles since it insures the initial
investment will be
earned back with a large leverage) and one such "status quo" measure is to
use closed standards, to create and maintain such a captive market.

One potential solution for the above problem of the dispersed group of
individuals,
is to organize "briefschrijfacties" [letter writing actions] to
relevant politicians
(equivalent to the method that Amnesty International is using). It could be a
combination of old-fashioned letters written on paper (still a larger
impact than
an e-mail) and personal e-mails (no bulk !!). I am convinced that such
an action,
if the number of letters are of similar magnitude to the amount of
people employed
at the established company that is lobbying for "status quo" measures, would be
quite efficient to counter the effects of such lobbying. There are
basic rules to such
campaigns, such as universal politeness, clear and personalized messages, etc.

Peter