CEO of Open Technology Fund Resigns After Closed-Source Lobbying Effort (vice.com) 31
The head of the Open Technology Fund (OTF) Corporation, which funds internet freedom projects and technologies, resigned Wednesday because she said she became aware of a lobbying effort that would push the group's funds toward closed-source tools rather than the open-source ones it has traditionally championed. From a report: In a resignation email sent to an OTF mailing list, Libby Liu, the inaugural OTF CEO, mentioned that the Trump administration had recently sworn in Michael Peck as the new head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which is the OTF's grantor. She said that she learned of lobbying efforts to push money to closed-source tools. "As you all know, OTF's flexible, transparent, and competitive funding model has been essential to our success in supporting the most secure and effective internet freedom technologies and innovative projects available," she wrote. "I have become aware of lobbying efforts to convince the new USAGM [U.S. Agency for Global Media] CEO to interfere with the current FY2020 OTF funding stream and redirect some of our resources to a few closed-source circumvention tools."
Well they can try... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Integrity Counts (Score:5, Insightful)
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The alternative is she stays, and because she alone can't stop the funds being taken by her organization, would be stuck taking money from a source that's controlled / heavily influenced by closed source advocates.
Presumably the other board members (or whatever) do want to keep taking the money.
Her position really then is untenable, based on her own principles, if she can't change the outcome / reject the funding.
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Are you unaware that two members of the Voice of America, another organization within the U.S. Agency for Global Media, resigned on Monday
[...] as a result of the recent congressional confirmation of a conservative activist and filmmaker to be the head of the agency that oversees the government broadcast organization. -- Edward Wong, New York Times, June 15, 2020
It is no coincidence this is happening as an immediate aftermath of President Trump's getting the Senate's confirmation of Michael Pack, a close ally of Stephen K. Bannon, as chief executive of the USAGM.
Realistically, there is no standing up to the hand-picked political appointee of the President of the United States. She would be im
Against its own name (Score:3)
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Here, let me help you past the headline...
"The head of the Open Technology Fund (OTF) Corporation, which funds internet freedom projects and technologies, resigned Wednesday because she said she became aware of a [external] lobbying effort that would push the group's funds toward closed-source tools rather than the open-source ones it has traditionally championed."
Re:Against its own name (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the USAGM here that's prompted the resignation.
OTF is just a grantee under USAGM. USAGM being a government entity can come under lobbying efforts. It would seem that the USAGM's head is now receiving funds from closed source tools, thus that would make OTF's funds tainted. What's crazy is that OTF was designated a grantee in April of this year and becoming one is not easy. So that's like a few thousand work hours that just went up in a puff of smoke if the directors walk away from these funds. I'm guessing the CEO is walking because the directors are a bit hesitant to drop a government grant.
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How would it taint the funds?
AFAICS none of their grantors are pure open source users.
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How would it taint the funds?
It's a subjective bar. All I'm indicating is that the CEO clearly believes there to be some form of taint to USAGM receiving lobbying funds from some org. The who and where that bar is to the taint is purely up to the person calling it. You can use OTF's charter as some sort of guideline, but in the end it's just a subjective term based on who interpreting whatever values being considered.
I don't think it refers to open source. (Score:2)
The agency was organized in the wake of the failed green revolution in Iran, in order to counter Iranian and other regimes' use of technology to censor opposition opinions and spy on their own citizens (irony duly noted).
The "open", I think, refers not to the software licenses of the projects it supports, but what the philosophers like Henri Bergson and Karl Popper called an "open society". Popper in particular was concerned with the tendency of totalitarian regimes to claim a monopoly on truth, and to poli
Defund USAGM? (Score:1)
The agency describes itself [usagm.gov] thus:
Re: Defund USAGM? (Score:3)
The BBC is not government owned. It receives government funding. It operates independently of the government under royal charter, via a board of directors internally chosen and independent of government imposition.
Unlike any government agency in any country.
With government attempts to subvert the BBC's independence, yes, there's a bias swing. But it's so marginal that most of the complaints against the BBC come from government supporters.
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and look for private sponsors to help them do it
Well OTF has been around since 2012, so very likely they have secured funding and private sponsors. The thing is that a lot of people work really hard to secure grants. The OTF just dropping that funding is all those hours just going poof up in smoke. It sounds like the directors are a bit hesitant to drop the grant and thus the CEO is walking. Also, dropping a grant has ramifications for a non-profit. So I get the sentiment, but that doesn't make the pill any less bitter for them.
and I don't like them granting my money further down at all
Well if the money was
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No, actually, they don't — according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], USAGM is their "parent organization".
Had they had any other sponsors worth mentioning, there'd be no need for their CEO to protest.
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I think people understand that Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are the US equivalent of RT. It's a well-known fact that Radio Free Europe was originally a CIA front. That doesn't mean it didn't do any good.
USAGM limits party membership to only one half. This prevents it from becoming a simple mouthpiece for just one party.
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Exactly — as I said, being government propaganda is not necessarily bad.
That's fine, they can continue to operate. But I still don't want them to be sponsoring other organizations...
Wha... (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone help me out...
She's in a position to prevent/thwart/stop someone from making a change to how OTF operates...thereby allowing someone new to the board that can make the change...
Doesn't pass a first reading/smell test.
So she quit? I don't get it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Help me out here - she hears that someone is talking about doing something she believes is antithetical to the company's charter, so instead of fighting for what she believes is right, she quits? How does that help anything? This makes no sense to me so I'm clearly missing something important...
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According to TFA she quit when she noticed that Trump had appointed one of his buddies to funnel the cash into closed source projects. She correctly surmised that OTF has just become another corrupt channel for taxpayer money to Friends of Trump and that there was little she could actually do about it.
Resigning in protest at least raised some awareness of the issue, but unfortunately some people don't read beyond the headline, or maybe just assumed she is incompetent for some unfathomable reason.
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waves at the crazy OMB person...
TDS is curable, but it requires you to open your eyes.
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Cronyism is pretty much the only reason Trump wanted to become president. It's the hallmark of his presidency. All that "drain the swamp" stuff was just so he could take up residence there.
Misdirection? (Score:3)
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Your source is Steve Bannon on a channel called "War Room 2020". Excuse me while I shovel this tonne of salt.
It's actually really sad how anyone with a Chinese surname or heritage is now accused of being a "pro CCP China hoodlum". It's just straight up racism and it's been getting worse.