Association for Competitive Technology
The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is a trade association representing over 3,000 application software developers and small and mid-sized technology companies in the United States and in Europe. ACT was founded in 1998 by independent software developers who were concerned that the Microsoft antitrust case would cause great disruption of the platform for which they wrote software. The organization has evolved to become the leading voice of app developers whose issues primarily involve: .
- A competitive ecosystem in the mobile marketplace providing app developers with the best opportunities;
- Strong support for intellectual property rights;
- To limit government involvement in technology (such as antitrust actions or mandates to use free software / open source software instead of proprietary alternatives); and
- Concern governance of global internet infrastructure maintain a balance of government and industry interests;
The Association for Competitive Technology has played a prominent role in educating lawmakers on technology issues affecting app developers testifying before the Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees as well as the House Judiciary and Small Business Committees.
In recent years (circa 2005-2007), ACT lobbied against the Massachusetts endorsement of the OpenDocument standards.
It is sometimes claimed to be a front organization for Microsoft, though it has other large, independent members such as eBay, Oracle, Intel and VeriSign.
On March 9, 2006, the President of ACT, Jonathan Zuck wrote an opinion piece [1]which was published on news.com, criticising the Free Software Foundation's plan to fight Digital Rights Management (DRM) with the new version 3.0 of the GNU General Public License.
A draft of a European Commission strategy paper on open source software with modifications by ACT's Jonathan Zuck was leaked (via Wikileaks) in February 2009,[2] showing, in the words of Linux Journal, "how lobbyists operate in their attempt to neuter threats to their constituencies through the shameless evisceration and outright inversion of content."[3]
[edit] References
- ^ "GPL 3.0: A bonfire of the vanities?". http://news.com.com/GPL+3.0+A+bonfire+of+the+vanities/2010-7344_3-6047707.html.
- ^ http://wikileaks.org/wiki/European_Commission_OSS_Strategy_Draft,_Mar_2009
- ^ Glyn Moody: How to Hijack an EU Open Source Strategy Paper Linux Journal, February 27th, 2009
[edit] External links
- ACT official web site
- SourceWatch entry for ACT
- Discussion of ACT's lobbying in Massachusetts, with link to recording
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