Microsoft Caught Red-handed. Again.
Is it me or is this just plain sleazy?
| Microsoft
Corp. landed in the Wikipedia doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay
a blogger to change technical
articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site. ... Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft. [more]
|
The articles concerned OpenDocument and OpenXML, two key areas that pit the Microsoft pay-and-pay-forever ethos against the wider open source community.
More disturbingly, it makes the content of Microsoft's own Encarta encyclopedia highly suspect. After all, if they're prepared to pay contributors to create FUD in other publications, what do they get up to when they control the whole damn thing?
Only a month ago they tried bribing bloggers with laptops. Little wonder Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger's creating a new resource called Citizendium where there'll be "gentle expert oversight" of contributions.
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Comments
While you're there, check out some of the comments about his blog...
"When you take dirty money, you get soiled. Microsoft is not some poor oppressed underdog that needs you to ride to the rescue, but a ruthless convicted illegal monopolist that gets dirtier with age. It can take care of itself- no need to make yourself yet another Redmond casualty."
"It seems both silly and redundant to have to point out that you cannot both be paid ("contracted" in your terms) by an interested party for an opinion on an issue, and be "independent" on that issue. I am aware that there are people who would make the argument that this is ethically possible, but note that such arguments are almost invariably made by people who are being paid to do so. Even in a courtroom setting, where the system goes to great lengths to maintain a version of this illusion, expert witnesses are presented as "for the defense" or "for the prosecution"."
Posted by: Geoff | January 26, 2007 11:16 PM
How were they caught when it was the blogger himself who first broke the news about being paid by Microsoft? I would read his post first before making judgments on the issue.
http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/01/an_interesting_offer.html
Andy, wouldn't DRM free hardware simply mean it couldn't play DRM protected content? I don't see how that would sell when someone could purchase a device that could play both protected and unprotected content.
Posted by: Michael | January 26, 2007 4:41 PM
It's definitely *not* you - it definitely *is* sleazy.
Hmm... just a thought...
Surely there's a market for completely DRM-free hardware (if such hardware no longer exists, we're talking "potential market"). It'd be good if a switched-on (say) Chinese entrepreneur realised that and developed it. ( No doubt the US would notice that and "heavy" China with trade sanctions etc.
Sigh... :(
Posted by: Andy | January 25, 2007 9:29 PM
I hate the fact that the more informed I am about what mischief scullduggery and underhanded tricks the big players get up to (thanks Geoff)the more sad n bad the future seems. Especialy so when these outrages actions are only reported in the alternative or more specialised media, never in the mainstream media where it could make a differance. Why is that? Does no one care? Oh that's right, Murdock again.
Posted by: Adam | January 25, 2007 3:27 PM