Zak,
When I said "some arguments embodied that of Microsoft's" it was a
factual statement. It was not meant to define the intention of the
bill. The purpose of why a law should be written is in its (1)
explanatory note and (2) in its statement of principles. So please don't
misinterpret my post nor misrepresent my intentions. There is sometimes
a danger of quoting a line or two (or in this case a paragraph) then
lengthily discuss the merits of what was said. This is the reason why I
refrain from quoting people, though I try, in my best capacity to
explain. Way back in college, I remember constructors and deconstructors
(not in C++ or OOP, but in Philosphy). People tend to deconstruct
statements made and reconstruct them to fit one bias. To avoid that,
the context from which the language was used must be realized when
reconstructing.
Everybody knows that M$ campaigned globally against FOSS. Bill Gates
even called its lobbyists "communists" and the CEO of M$ (I forgot, not
Bill) in 2005 called FOSS a cancer and asked governments to stop FOSS
legislation. Hence, I was actually pointing out that some arguments
raised here, while I sincerely believed to be well-intentioned, are the
same arguments being used by M$ against FOSS in the global arena, and
echoing it, is like helping the anti-FOSS propaganda campaign globally.
Now, just to clarify because this may be used against us and say that we
are legislating discrimination (which we are not, please read my
previous post), we have nothing against M$. It was a factual statement .
It was even far from discriminatory. I did not call M$ fascists nor
Nazis nor anything of that sort. It was factual and I have evidence to
prove it. And the *intent* of the statement is to reiterate the
consequences of statements we will be saying in *public* because we
might find ourselves in the future involuntarily on the other side of
the fence.
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