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Raleigh, NC
Melanie Chernoff | As Public Policy Manager for Red Hat, Inc., Melanie monitors, evaluates, and works to influence U.S. and international legislation and government regulations affecting open source technologies and open standards. She also serves as chair of the company's Corporate Citizenship committee, coordinating Red Hat's charitable activities.
Authored Comments
The OSS "movement," if you will, is fairly new in the political space compared with other business interests, so I think it's natural that the messaging hasn't been as consistent thus far. But I do think that's been changing in recent years.
Are you familiar with Open Source for America? It's a great OSS coalition in the US that just formed in July '09, and you can see in the "Learn More" tab of their website that they have a "Benefits of OSS" page. I think this new org addresses a lot of your (very legitimate) concerns, and I would encourage you to get involved.
http://opensourceforamerica.org/
Thanks for your excellent question. The USTR has set up a process to receive public comments at http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#documentDetail?R=0900006480a7bbba
The comment period ends March 10, 2010 at 11:59pm ET.