What Happened to the Linux Foundation?

submitted by useless_aether from techrights.org

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]indianusjones 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I lobbied (unpaid "good guy" in this case) for Oregon's HB2892 in 2003. I quickly discovered that you need more than public support to move a bill through the State Legislature: you need industry support.

I met with a representative for the Linux Foundation to urge their support. I thought their backing the bill would be a no-brainer. I found myself stunned as I heard them tell me that while they supported the bill they would not make a public statement to that effect.

Why? Well, they didn't come right out and say it but it didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that one of their major supporters was IBM. IBM was still getting a ton of revenue selling Microsoft products at the time.

The phrasing the Linux Foundation representative used was something like, "understand that we have a diverse mix of supporters."