Bray: Massachusetts Back-Room Sep 12, 2005, 16 :00 UTC (2 Talkback[s]) (8112 reads) (Other stories by Tim Bray)
"The comment period for the new draft Massachusetts office-file-format policy ended last Friday the 9th. During the week before that date, there was some pretty intense back-room politics going on. There are a ton of industry associations and lobbying groups, including: Mass Software Council, Technet New England, Mass High Tech Council, Mass Network Communications Council, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, and AeA. You can bet that every one of them was coming under pressure last week to speak up pro or contra the state's position. Since you have IBM and Sun on one side of this issue and Microsoft (plus, I hear, Adobe, which is weird) on the other, you can also bet that they were getting pulled both ways. I'm pretty sure that a lot of them ended up with a statement along the lines of 'On the subject of the new draft from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we're in favor of motherhood and apple pie.' But, I got my hands on a copy of the other side's talking points, and I think they make interesting reading..."
