Microsoft: Free Softwares Are Anti-Commercial

Recently, Microsoft admitted that they successfully attempted to remove references of free softwares from an U.N document, known as Vienna Conclusions (2.8 MB PDF). The document, presented at last week's UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) conference, discussed about issues around Information Technology and creativity.

In original document, it stated:

Increasingly, revenue is generated not by selling content and digital works, as they can be freely distributed at almost no cost, but by offering services on top of them. The success of the free software model is one example...

But after Microsoft's request, the statement been changed to:

Increasingly, revenue is generated by offering services on top of contents...

The reason why Microsoft asked? Their answer is:

While we largely agree on the point that more choices should be given to creators and users (and the subsequent conclusions on Creative Commons or Wikipedia) we explicitly disagree on the notion that "increasingly, revenue is generated not by selling content and digital works, as they can be freely distributed at almost no cost, but by offering services on top of them. The success of the Free Software Model is one example" and propose to delete this text part completely, as it contains only an one-sided perspective on the ICT industry. The rationale for this is, that the aim of free software is not to enable a healthy business on software but rather to make it even impossible to make any income on software as a commercial product.

Basically, Microsoft just plainly said that all free softwares are anti-commercial and bad for businesses. But many developers today know this statement is false since there are several successful free softwares that actually make profits for the companies who made them. For example, Red Hat is a for-profit company that developed free softwares (Linux, etc.) and still maintains to bring in profit by offering services on top of those free softwares (as stated by the original document).

It saddens me to see Microsoft propaganda influenced the decision of supposedly-impartial international body. Well, just like what FSFE president Georg Greve said... "Just another monopolist trying to uphold their monopoly by preventing freedom of markets -- which is what Free Software really aims at."