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04.28.09

Meet Obama’s Pick for Technology Advisory Panel

Posted in Free/Libre Software, GPL, Microsoft, Quote at 11:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

HERE is what Craig Mundie, whom Obama has just appointed, thinks about Free/open source software:

Never show source code, senior Microsoft man says

Craig Mundie, senior VP at Microsoft, told the conference in São Paulo yesterday, the secret to success in software is “never show the source”.

He said that the FSF [Free Software Foundation] wanted to destroy a business model in which industry standard software had benefited everyone for a long time.

Microsoft’s code sharing offer draws blank

[Craig Mundie] also said Microsoft is going ahead with the source code sharing programme despite the recent virus attacks targeting Microsoft products.

“When we enter into a source code sharing programme we have strict confidentiality clauses. We do not expect it to be leading to security breaches”

Commercial software, sustainable innovation

“The GPL turns our existing concepts of intellectual property rights on their heads. Some of the tension I see between the GPL and strong business models is by design, and some of it is caused simply because there remains a high level of legal uncertainty around the GPL– uncertainty that translates into business risk” [ --Craig Mundie]

Microsoft pays court to Washington

“At the height of the US government’s antitrust pursuit of Microsoft, Bill Gates and his execs were vigorously denouncing rivals Sun Microsystems and Oracle for using the Feds to try to cripple the world’s largest software company [...]

Privately [...] Microsoft lobbyist Paula Boyd met with Jonathan Cody, FCC chairman Michael Powell’s special policy advisor [...] Microsoft strategist Pierre De Vries and Microsoft attorney Scott Blake Harris (the FCC’s former international bureau chief) met with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s senior vice president, has met with Powell personally. And those are just a few examples.

Obama promotes the message about transparency, so why is this guy on his panel? Devil’s advocate?

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10 Comments

  1. Myfraudsoft said,

    April 28, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    Gravatar

    I thought that the secret to success in software is “…to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In Craig Mundie’s boss’s case, he went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and he fished out listings of their operating system.” [sic]

    pcolon Reply:

    That’s not sharing; It’s called scavenging, and to this day, no matter how wealthy, he’s still a bottom-feeder.

    Roy Schestowitz Reply:

    This past reference is important because Microsoft is now characterising him as the “good cop”.

  2. Omar Abdul-Hafez said,

    April 28, 2009 at 1:31 pm

    Gravatar

    Damn it man..!

    I’m so sad that some three-headed flying idiot like this guy was chosen by Obama, but I’m not surprised though. Obama ain’t no angel, and I could never understand how some people believe he’ll be better than Bush, and I didn’t by that either..

    Roy Schestowitz Reply:

    He’ll do better, but the government is run by a lot more than one person (and party).

  3. aeshna23 said,

    April 28, 2009 at 7:37 pm

    Gravatar

    Obama has been worst than Bush. He’s been utter disaster in terms of foreign policy: attacking our friends like Israel and defending our enemies. His economic policy contradicts what we know about economics: capitalism makes country wealthy and socialism increases poverty. The only thing the man has done right is rescind the evil Mexico City policy so that the United States can help organizations that provide abortions to third world women.

    Obama wants to release the Uighur muslims into the United States from Gitmo. When the Uighur muslims get around to conducting their Holy Jihad on American soil, it could backfire pretty badly.

    Roy Schestowitz Reply:

    At the moment, what I see is more American expansionism on foreign soil.

  4. Omar Abdul-Hafez said,

    April 28, 2009 at 9:36 pm

    Gravatar

    Craig Mundie, senior VP at Microsoft, told the conference in São Paulo yesterday, the secret to success in software is “never show the source”.

    Wow, so that’s the secret why Windows is the world’s most amazing and most successful OS? —->> NOT!!

    Roy Schestowitz Reply:

    It’s the emperor, without clothes.

  5. Omar Abdul-Hafez said,

    April 29, 2009 at 9:36 am

    Gravatar

    @aeshna23

    Quote: >>>Obama wants to release the Uighur muslims into the United States from Gitmo. When the Uighur muslims get around to conducting their Holy Jihad on American soil, it could backfire pretty badly. <<<

    Okay, excuse me, but I can’t accept this, because the truth is, I’m a Muslim myself. Plus, before talking about the “Jihad” thing, please go learn what the word exactly means, not by listening to Fox News or CNN, but by reading the correct interpretation of the word from the Arabic dictionary.

    Plus, isn’t that off-topic in the first place..?

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