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

[Chris Puttick]

On 17/01/07, Peter Vandenabeele <peter at vandenabeele.com> wrote:
> 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

Larger companies that support open source and open standards can be a
very effective lobbying balance too. Along the lines of "We employ 250
people in *our* country. All the money spent on our products and
services stays in the country. So follow our advice instead..."

Chris
-- 

http://thehumanjourney.net