A week in the life of Open XML
,----[ Quote ]
| Meanwhile, a variety of voices have loudly bemoaned what they see as the
| unwelcome arrival of OXML on the global stage.
|
| On Wednesday rage spilled out onto the usually quiet streets of Oslo where
| around 60 data experts, led by ex-chairman of the Norwegian Standards
| Institute (NSI) Steve Pepper, protested about the approval of the contentious
| file format.
|
| Pepper stepped down from his role at the NSI last week following the group’s
| U-turn on OXML. It had voted, in September last year, to reject the
| specification as a standard.
|
| [...]
|
| Some politicians have also continued to express their opposition to
| Microsoft’s dominant position in the software market. This week an EU
| parliament member from Germany’s Green Party filed a question (pdf) with the
| EC asking it to consider banning the firm from selling its products to
| European Union governments for up to five years.
|
| Heidi Rühle argued that such a ban was justified following the record fine
| (€1.35bn) handed down to Microsoft from the Commission in February this year.
`----
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/04/11/ooxml_protests_resolutions_ec/
Good for ODF...
At the Texas Hearing on Electronic Documents
,----[ Quote ]
| I believe that it is important that we recognize the concept of what I will
| refer to as "Civil ICT Rights" – rights such as freedom of speech, and
| freedom of association, that we increasingly exercise on line, rather than in
| person. I am happy to report to you that certain interoperability standards
| can play an essential role in guaranteeing our Civil ICT Rights. Not
| surprisingly, I call such standards "Civil ICT Standards." By adopting the
| right standards, the State can help ensure that any citizen, anytime, and
| from anywhere, can interact with her government electronically – even with
| many modern cell phones.
`----
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080409110045256
Days ago:
EU: Europarlement testing Ubuntu, OpenOffice and Firefox
,----[ Quote ]
| The European Parliament's IT department is testing the use of GNU/Linux
| distribution Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Firefox and other Open Source applications,
| the British MEP James Nicholson explained last week in a letter to Italian
| MEP Marco Cappato.
`----
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7565
Is Microsoft Now Banned from EU Contracts?
http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=697&blogid=14
Euro MP thinks Microsoft should be banned from government contracts
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/10/member-eu-parliament-asks
Green MEP says Microsoft should be excluded from EU contract awarding procedure
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/106338/from/rss09
Recent:
EC probes OOXML standards-setting process
,----[ Quote ]
| A spokesman for the European Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes, told
| The Register that regulators were continuing to scrutinise interoperability
| issues related to Microsoft’s products following complaints from the
| Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) group.
|
| As part of that process, the EC formally contacted a number of national
| standards bodies, including the Norwegian Standards Institute (NSI),
| requesting more details about possible irregularities in the OOXML
| standardisation process.
|
| [...]
|
| “It must be stressed that it is not the Commission's intention to influence
| the outcome of this process, but the Commission considers it essential to
| ensure that European competition law is not violated in the course of the
| standard setting process,” he said in an email to El Reg.
|
| In January the EC began formal anti-trust probes against Microsoft in two
| cases where it was alleged that the multinational firm had abused its strong
| market position. As part of the investigation into the first case, the
| Commission said that it would scrutinise OOXML on the grounds that the
| specification doesn't work with those of competitors.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/04/ooxml_ec_investigation_iso/
Related:
EU Commission Investigating Microsoft's MSOOXML Push
,----[ Quote ]
| I hope they think to investigate the smear campaigns that seem to always
| happen to anyone on the other side from Microsoft. What happened to Peter
| Quinn was by no means unique.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080208151410252
Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format
,----[ Quote ]
| Is this just a random coincidence? The median of the CPI index of the above
| mentioned 70 countries is 3.95. Of the most corrupted half (CPI index less
| than 3.95) 23 or 77% voted for approval (approval or approval with comments)
| and 7 or 23% for disapproval; 5 abstained. Of the least corrupted half (CPI
| index more than 3.95) 13 or 54% voted for approval and 11 or 46% voted for
| disapproval; 11 abstained - see the table below.
`----
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html
|
|
