NewsForge: Perens on Sincere Choice Political Push and What’s Next for Him

“Bruce Perens, the guy who coined the term ‘Open Source’ way
back in 1997, has been in the news a lot lately. Some of the media
attention has been on his parting of the ways with Hewlett-Packard
(Perens calls his departure more of a amicable decision — The New
York Times’ description of it as a firing was a bit overblown,
Perens says).

“But Perens has also been getting coverage for his Sincere
Choice initiative, a political platform responding to the
Microsoft-backed Initiative for Software Choice, with ‘choice’
meaning customers should be able to choose either proprietary
software or … proprietary software. It’s kind of like the old
joke about music choices in the rural United States: ‘We like both
kinds of music out here, country and western…’

“NewsForge: Why did you launch Sincere
Choice?

“Perens: I started it because I heard about
this Microsoft-instigated Software Choice a few months before that.
They were keeping a very low profile, trying to get other companies
to join. I just thought, ‘Well, somebody should point out that this
is made in the tradition of soft money political campaigns.’ They
don’t really ever mention the topic; they just sort of make a lot
of mother- and apple-pie-like statements around the topic. But the
real meat is that they’re for patents in industry standards. They
feel that Open Source isn’t necessary for acceptance of
standards…”

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