Plans for organisation

By anonymous contributor

Okay, here's where we are starting...

We spent some time yesterday trying to come up with categories (we'll divide them up and each of us take a few to start), figured it would be best to begin organizing from the ground up. We're sure there will be sub-categories added as we go along, and once we get the basics hammered out we'll send them to you.

Because the word "government" is rather vague, we've decided to also include government-funded orgs, and maybe some foundations that have influence in governments (we won't leave out the ISO mess either).

We don't want to only focus on the usa, so we are working out at least five other countries (to start with) where Microsoft already has undue influence, then a list of whatever countries we find where MS is just beginning a push for more influence, it might help to counteract their efforts before they become too successful (it's probably already to late for that to work, but it's worth a try, right?). However, because the usa is so huge and MS influence so deeply embedded here, it's probably going to be the most complex and time-consuming.

Anyway, there are three of us to work on this during spare time. No guarantees here, but we will do our best to get it started, then we can maybe (with your help) get it set up on a BN wiki page and let others add, correct, etc. Figured the first part of getting it broken down and organized would be the hardest part, after that it should be easier for you (and various other contributors) to keep it orderly as it continues to grow.

We're new to this stuff, so we have a lot to figure out and it might take a while to get things into a coherent state of being. We'll probably have questions from time to time. Hope that's okay.

Anyway, that's where we're at for now.

There is something you could do but that would require more high quality research with the wiki. Just browse the internet and collect all those debates where ACT jumped to the rescue of Microsoft. You can get a list of at least 40 different debates including the quote of Zuck that he is no lobbyist. I mean just "EU consumer rights directive: statement of Zuck in Infoweek" "blablabla consultation: submission of ACT" etc. "Microsoft developer conference: Zuck says sosundso"

If that research is done you can submit the list with a cover letter to the Commission (Kroes and Kallas) complain in an amicus curiae fashion. Notabene Zuck was rejected before by the Commission. Maybe that decision can be found and quoted from there.