Margo, I would like to thank you for writing 'Not Happy, John'. Although I have not finished the book yet but it leaves me cold and sad for the next generations of Australian's who will have to live with the results of John Howards 'leadership'. The reason for this email is a chapter in your book which has put the fear of God into me. The Chapter is titled 'Keeping Democracy in its place' in which Paddy Manning writes about the Howard Government and NGO's (non-government organisations).

I've spent four years helping start and run a non-government organisation called Computerbank NSW (www.cbnsw.org.au). It's a self funding group that recycles computers with Open Source software and gives them back to needy groups and individuals. During that time I had a run in with one of John Howard's hand picked and funded NGO called WorkVentures. Workventures attacked Computerbank NSW for using Open source software and being against 'friendly' multinational corporations. I took that one on the cheek and left it at that.

And on Monday the 28th of June John Howard and Bill Gates launched the Microsoft Unlimited Potential 'community initiative'. I glad that Australia )and Workventures) is getting a little money from Microsoft - after all Australia has a growing trade deficit in IT purchases with the USA. (See http://www.smithfamily.com.au/content.cfm?randid=763502 and http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech949.html.)

What interests me more is why would Bill Gates travel here other than to give crumbs from his pocket? Is it that there is a Federal Election on soon or is it about the Free Trade Agreement?

Paddy Manning's writing got me puzzled about the links between the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne and the American Enterprise Institute and the growing Conservative Philanthropy supported institutions involved in the attack on Open Source (http://www.mediatransparency.org) in the U.S. Microsoft is reported to fund these conservative groups. Given the PM's glowing speech about Microsoft, is there more behind the scenes then what the public is led to believe?

What could be worst for any 'neocon' would be a NGO or community group that they could not control? Open source software is just that. Open Source software is a major thorn in Microsoft side, with organisations such as Telstra, RTA and a number of banks looking into open source here in Australia as an alternative. Microsoft have tried every marketing technique there is to prevent the growth of Open Source, but has had little success.

The last iron in Microsoft's fire is intellectual property. With intellectual property law suits, Microsoft can slow the advance of open source, but it needs laws to assist it in doing so. So was Bill Gates here to lobby and help the Government to strenghten its position on the FTA against mounting evidence against the FTA?

There's a big FTA stoush brewing on copyright - http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9983163%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html, The Free Trade Agreement Threatens to Lock Software Patents and Anti-Circumvention Measures into Australian Law. Also see http://www.linux.org.au/fta/