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The EFF is a public interest organization with its own goals. We need an industry lobby. The closest things to that that we currently have are ACM and IEEE, bot
by rabidsnail 15y ago
The EFF is a public interest organization with its own goals. We need an industry lobby. The closest things to that that we currently have are ACM and IEEE, both of which suck hard as lobbies.
- _delirium 15y agoThe ACM and IEEE probably suck even more than they need to, but I don't see much hope of the tech industry being a good lobbying force even with a better organization. Part of the problem is that it isn't really all on "our" side (if you read "our" to be the EFF side). We do have a fairly strong industry lobby of sorts already, the BSA, but it almost always takes the Hollywood side (and initially supported SOPA). I think, unfortunately, a lot of "our" companies just aren't on "our" side (Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, etc.), because of their MPAA-esque paranoia about piracy, jailbreaking, etc. If it would be possible to make a professional association like the ACM take a stronger and more visible stance, imo that'd be a better approach, because the tech industry's employees are often intelligent, but the tech industry's companies would imo be more likely to just lobby as a special interest, not in any sort of enlightened way. So it needs to be structured so the employees, not their employers, control the lobbying organization.
- rabidsnail 15y agoThe BSA is a lobby for the shrink-wrapped software industry, which is even more in competition with the internet services industry than the movie industry is.