Staggering Hypocrisy
Victor Meldrew used to exclaim: "I don't believe it!"
In the week that Microsoft successfully lobbied the EU Council of Ministers to import the US software-patent regime to Europe, to the benefit of Microsoft and the detriment of the European commercial and Open Source software industry, guess what Microsoft admitted.
That's right! The US system is not so wonderful, after all. A mere four days after foisting software patents on Europe, they announce that the US system needs to be reformed.
So the EU gets restrictive rules and control by MS and other patent monopolists, and MS gets "freedom to innovate" again back home.
Were they afraid that the Council of Ministers might have noticed the holes in their argument if they'd launched their campaign one week earlier?
Mr Meldrew might not have believed it, but I'm starting to wonder!
2 comments:
HA! You better believe it! If you don't the Merkins gonna get away with eating the world.
Staggering Hypocrisy? The Merkin business world (not to mention other parts of Merkin life) imbibe hypocrisy with the milk they drink as babes.
It's the way you play the game so you stay on top and have everyone under your feet as your footstool.
It's a philosophical dilemma! If you don't keep others down how can you manage to float at the top?
Hypocrisy indeed. I'm still shaking my head over the fact that while the courts have effectively declared microsoft (yes, that's with a lowercase "m"; bill doesn't deserve the dignity associated with capital letters) a monopoly, the usg (same rule applies here) still adopts his OS and applications as its standard and is only now even beginning to consider open source alternatives. One wonders just how far that effort will ultimately go before the assimilationists stop it dead in its tracks.
Sadly, this strong-arming by ms is just one more example of corporate hypocrisy in action. Still, I always caution people never to equate corporate amerika with true capitalism, since the latter would find the very thought of government intervention in the marketplace to be anathema. ms is just one more example of neomercantilism in action and should be viewed (and combatted) accordingly.
Love your blog, BTW!
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