Linux wins Prix Ars due to MICROSOFT INTERVENTION

[marleen@dds.nl]

Greetings,

Below you will find a press statement from members of the 
.net jury of this years Prix Ars Electronica. You will read 
about the real paths that lead us, the jury, to award this 
years golden nica to the operating system linux.

Best,

Marleen Stikker

______________________________________


       FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
       Linz, Sep 6, 1999


Media Contacts:
Marleen Stikker
Centrum de Waag
Amsterdam/ The Netherlands
Tel: (+31)20-5579898
Fax: (+31)20-5579880
Email: marleen@dds.nl
Website: http://www.waag.org

Dr. Christine Schoepf
ORF Prix Ars Electronica 99
Linz/ Austria
Tel. (+43)732-6900-24218
Tel. (+43)732-6900-24270
Email: christine.schoepf@orf.at
Website: http://prixars.orf.at



ARS ELECTRONICA PLAYGROUND FOR CORPORATE STRATEGIES

We, the "net." jury, have just learned that next years 
ars electronica festival will be titled "OPEN SOURCE". 
This has been inofficially agreed on by the direction of 
the ARS ELECTRONICA and the sponsors Siemens, Microsoft, 
Oracle and HP, e.a. From reliable sources we also learned 
that the decision was made weeks before the ".net"-jury 
decision on "linux".


WHY WE ARE GOING PUBLIC

Because we have also just learned that the above-mentioned 
IT-companies are involved in a linux distribution joint 
venture and a strategic alliance. Their joint venture startup 
will most probably become one of the leading linux 
distributors, directly attacking Red Hat and SUSE.

This is the classic oligopolistic strategy.
They cannot buy linux, nevertheless, they will take control 
over the distibution of the competitor.

We were suspicious before, but now we are strongly convinced 
that there was indirect but heavy influence by corporate and 
ars electronica executives to reach the "linux" decision...


THE JURY WEEK-END

For the jury welcome dinner, a few corporate people had been 
invited, too. Everybody was discussing about where Ars 
Electronica could or should be going. For the corporate people 
the main hype was of course the .net category, e-commerce and 
the commercial impact of the "mass communications" medium 
internet... and they were all constantly talking about the 
creative potential of linux and its open source strategy.

Then, at the actual jury meeting, deciding on a winner appeared 
to be quite a hard decision (not to say compromise). Whilst the 
majority of the jury had a clear favourite in the russian info-
intelligence startup "etxtreme.ru", another juror started 
talking about "that we need to decide on something that is really 
taking two steps ahead, not some arty-farty stuff". So "linux" just 
came up as a smart solution. we took this path, we formulated our 
statement and came up with the source code as art work, with our 
position against "beautiful" web-sites. it was a strong moment. 
And we saw linux as the perfect continuum to the corporate artwork 
of etoy.com, the Ars Electronica winners of 1996.


TERRORVISION AND THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION

But the information about the secret linux distribution joint 
venture between Microsoft and Siemens in combination with next 
years topic made us alert.

Our conclusion: the industry has strongly lobbied and put 
pressure on at least one jury member to award "linux". We now 
have to interpret this in persepective of next years ars topic. 
They pushed the topic. The idea is to use the art and science 
community to soft launch their linux activities and control 
open source strategies. They do understand that open source
has evolved into a stronger development strategy and they have 
to jump that train early enough, in order to avoid another 
"internet" desaster.

So as artists writers and scientists we are used as lab-rats 
and cheap alternative researchers. This is NOT what artists 
need and it is certainly not what Ars Electronica should be 
aiming at.


NEXT STEPS

We believe that investigative journalism is needed to further 
describe and interpret this incident..
We definitely want to engage in bringing transparency into the 
"who`s, when`s, where`s, and for how much money" of this years 
decision making process of Prix Ars Electronica.

For the press, we are available for background information and 
extended infos on the topic via email or at our on-the-fly press 
conference:

     sept 8, 1999, 1630h
     brucknerhaus in linz


Regards,

     Derrick de Kerckhove
     Lisa Goldman
     Joichi Ito
     Marleen Stikker


Contact:
Marleen Stikker
Centrum de Waag
Amsterdam/ The Netherlands
Tel: (+31)20-5579898
Fax: (+31)20-5579880
Email: marleen@dds.nl
Website: http://www.waag.org