The free and open source software community has witnessed, over and over again, how far a visit to the right government officials can go. Bill Gates seems to know the game, and what cards he should play in every occasion to “make things happen”.

Over the last few years, it was apparent to us that making good software and creating good standards was just not enough to fight such a strong political presence. How could the free and open source world fight this?

Here is the proposal, in a nutshell (for the lazy readers): creating a fund aimed at informing government officials and prime ministers in the world about free software, and making sure that they receive similar benefits as they would if they chose to push for a Microsoft contract.

On a sunny and seasonably warm January 27, 2007 Saturday afternoon about 500,000 people marched in Washington DC to send Congress the message to end America’s occupation in Iraq and bring the troops home. But, if the U.S. (and other countries) war machines have their way, future conflicts will rely less on human troops and more on automated weapons systems. And for all the reasons that FOSS is being chosen to satisfy businesses and individuals IT needs, so too is it being chosen by the world’s militaries to design, simulate, test and control their future weapons.