"Yeah, the sheep's clothing looked silly" --FFII about Microsoft Florian

Summary: Unmasking of lobbyists of Microsoft (some of whom use fake identities), including some examples of their latest positions and actions

"The German speaker "Daniel Schmitt" revealed his real name was Domscheit-Berg," told us a source from the FFII. "Here is a Microsoft eGovernment lobbyist Anke Domscheit-Berg, she praises Wikileaks.

"Would be interesting to dig into the Wikileaks-Microsoft connection," said the source. "Note that Wikileaks published confidential Microsoft documents."

The Wikileaks connection is further explained by the FFII which calls it "Wikileaks theatre". That's because "We only knew Domscheit-Berg as the rare name of a female Microsoft lobbyist."

In reply, the FFII was told that Wikileaks may have some very indirect and rather distant connections with Microsoft (for example, those who help them with hosting). Former Microsoft staff (weak link) exists through the Pirate Party^*.

Later on the same observations were made in public, e.g.

- "Here #Microsoft lobbyist Anke Domscheit-Berg praises #wikileaks http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/interview_dlf/1235045/"

- "#Microsoft Cryptome files were "leaked" on #wikileaks http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread546635/pg1" (source)

- "Confidential #EU Open Source Strategy documents were "leaked" via Wikileaks http://bit.ly/aDHpXL" (source)

- "@FreakkaerF Don't you think there is a conflict of interest? Government relations means lobbying. http://bit.ly/9vQVY3 #wikileaks" (Source)

It was through Wikileaks that "The OSS document "leak" discredited the whole EU process," concluded the FFII

We wrote about ACT's role in the leaked item under:

• European Open Source Software Workgroup a Total Scam: Hijacked and Subverted by Microsoft et al
• Microsoft's AstroTurfing, Twitter, Waggener Edstrom, and Jonathan Zuck
• Does the European Commission Harbour a Destruction of Free/Open Source Software Workgroup?
• The Illusion of Transparency at the European Parliament/Commission (on Microsoft)
• 2 Months and No Disclosure from the European Parliament
• After 3 Months, Europe Lets Microsoft-Influenced EU Panel be Seen
• Formal Complaint Against European Commission for Harbouring Microsoft Lobbyists

The same lobbyists who derailed this document are still active and they are paid by Microsoft to serve its interests while pretending to do the opposite, e.g. weeks ago in IGF [1, 2, 3]). Here they are even blogging about it and revealing their pro-software patents agenda in Europe.

The opening lines of Purple Rain serve to sum up the challenges faced by innovative SMEs around the world, seeking to protect their investments with IP. At the Internet Governance Forum, no one means to cause them any pain…but they do. There is a widespread campaign by some, primarily in the OSS community (but they are not alone) to devalue and trivialize intellectual property around the world and SMEs have the most to lose. This campaign has many faces including debates surrounding so-called Open Standards, development, accessibility and blatant preferences for open source software.

They are still promoting patents, pretending to represent small companies (on Microsoft's behalf) and belittling the "OSS community" which exposes their lies as nothing but lobbying from full-time lobbyists. They are clearly lobbying against the GPL (hallmark of Microsoft FUD) based on the following paragraph:

In open standards discussions, the definition of “open” seems to be creeping towards “implementable via the GPL,” a license that was created specifically to be at odds with IP. There are plenty of open source licenses which are compatible with IP and we need to make sure that OSS does not necessarily mean only the GPL. Anyone can choose the GPL as their license, particularly if he or she is trying to build a community around their software project, but there should be no entitlement that the world will always accommodate it. There are positives and negatives to selecting the GPL as your software license and everyone should go in with their eyes open. If SMEs are going to be involved in the standards process and allow their IP to be part of the process, there have to be ways to protect it, such as field of use restrictions, even in a royalty-free implementation of a standard. There might be instances where implementations of standards need to be developed under another GPL-compatible license so that those rights can be preserved. It happens all the time today and the world has not ended.

Microsoft Florian, who goes by the deceiving name "FOSS Patents" (maybe it means that FOSS must be subjected to patents), said another revealing thing, which puts him on the same side as ACT (they both lobby for RAND). Microsoft Florian wrote: "By that I mean political bodies could consider it positive that software patents put a limit (not an end) to commoditization."

“Still it was a conflict of interest when your site "leaks" confidential documents of the company.”
      --FFIIThis is being discussed on the FFII's mailing lists today (Microsoft Florian has been attacking the FFII, whose goal is to eliminate software patents). Shades of the "ODF Foundation".

"We are not into witchhunting," wrote the FFII. "Still it was a conflict of interest when your site "leaks" confidential documents of the company." (there is a lot more of this discussion in our IRC logs)

One must remember that Microsoft Florian's 'leak' is where TurboHercules' attack on IBM began. He is smacking IBM and he is also smacking Red Hat right now, in order to promote software patents, daemonise Microsoft's top competitors, and prevent any platform from being the commodity Microsoft does not want it to be (Florian is a Microsoft software proponent [1, 2, 3, 4], pretending to care about FOSS, for some credibility alone).

"Yeah, the sheep's clothing looked silly," said the FFII to Microsoft Florian, pointing to his latest attack on Red Hat. ⬆ ____ ^* The Swedish Pirate Party is connected to Microsoft through its head, Rickard Falkvinge, who previously worked as a project leader at Microsoft. His party is now publicly attacked by Microsoft Florian.