The Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) is a group of companies

Company

A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be...

 founded in May 2002. The ISC website characterizes its membership as "committed to advancing the concept that multiple competing software markets should be allowed to develop and flourish unimpeded by government preference or mandate".

According to many Free Software advocates, Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 founded ISC in reaction to the call for the adoption of Free Software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 by politicians in many countries.

The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) chairs the Initiative.

External links

• Software Choice (Official web site)
• MS 'Software Choice' scheme a clever fraud, by Bruce Perens
  Bruce Perens
  Bruce Perens is a computer programmer and advocate in the open source community. He created the Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric S...
  
  
• ZDNet: Microsoft-sponsored lobbyist to the EU: It’s a mistake to floss us