Summary: Microsoft executive Steven VanRoekel becomes Managing Director of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

MANY FOSS PEOPLE ARE no friends of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) because the FCC is no friend of Free software. They went as far as public humiliation. Some recent FCC scandals aside (Professor Lessig wants them thrown out), the FCC repeatedly fails to carry out its job; business interests are sometimes blamed for bias, apathy, or sympathy towards offending companies which the FCC is there to regulate and punish. So, it may as well be stated that the new Managing Director of the FCC is a Microsoft executive, who is changing hats.

Former high-ranking Microsoft executive Steven VanRoekel has been named managing director of the Federal Communications Commission

This is also covered in:

• Genachowski Names Former Microsoft Exec Managing Director of FCC
• Genachowski Names VanRoekel, Schlick to Sr. Staff

In other news about former Microsoft employees, one of them is shutting down his Redmond-based business.

A year after receiving $1 million from angel investors, Redmond Web startup Sampa is shutting itself down.

Where will he be/they heading now? People should be very often reminded that an unfortunate fact of life is that people carry their biases, convictions, relationships and goals from one job to the next. And speaking of which, here is another attempted elevation of Microsoft's stock, which is very typical for Eric Savitz. Can his Microsoft bias be any more obvious? Microsoft is going down, not up (based on actual numbers). ⬆