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ISO/IEC Recommendations on Appeals & Latest ODF News - Complete document as
text
,----[ Quote ]
| Bottom line to me? I think Microsoft sees a way to make some money with ODF,
| but it wants to change it to suit its own needs better. It didn't participate
| in the ODF process, although it was free to suggest anything it wanted. Now,
| when it looks like the world really does want ODF instead of OOXML,
| surrogates are sending a dual message -- first, that ODF has won, so OOXML
| isn't worth fighting any more (and anyone who does is an "extremist"
| anti-Microsoft whiner), and two, that OASIS isn't able to do a good job with
| ODF, so the same folks who brought you OOXML should take it over.
|
| [...]
|
| Because Microsoft's not done until ODF won't run? By that I mean, run as it
| does. They are not meeting for nothing, in my opinion. It's not busywork.
| There is an agenda, no longer quite so hidden. It's the opening part of the
| effort to take over ODF control, I think, so Microsoft can make it less open,
| probably, so as to make buckets of money from it, without Microsoft having to
| actually be open. On that page on What is Rick Smoking?, you'll find a list
| of who was to go to the meeting of this advisory group, and a commenter
| says, "So a quick tally shows that there will be 25 participants, of which 12
| are Ecma TC45 members (as listed) or Microsoft employees (Brett Roberts, Dave
| Welsh, Jasper Bojsen, Kimmo Bergius, Shahzad Rana and Wemba Opota)."
`----
Get the picture? Is that who you want in charge of ODF?
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080718170044877
Read the whole thing if you can. The Redmond filth are playing dirty, kindly
smiling while they do it.
"We need to slaughter Novell before they get stronger….If you’re going to kill
someone, there isn’t much reason to get all worked up about it and angry. You
just pull the trigger. Any discussions beforehand are a waste of time. We need
to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger."
--Jim Allchin, Platform Group Vice President at Microsoft
Recent:
SC34 meeting next week: yet another stuffed committee?
,----[ Quote ]
| Next week on Monday and Tuesday there will be an SC34 meeting, where the
| maintenance of the inexistant DIS29500 specification will be discussed.
| Surprise, half of the seats will be occupied by Microsoft and ECMA:
|
| Adam Farquhar (Ecma)
| Alex Brown (UK)
| Benjamin Henrion (BE)
| Brett Roberts (NZ)
| Dave Welsh (US)
| Doug Mahugh (Ecma)
| Francis Cave (GB)
| Isabelle Valet-Harper (Ecma)
| Istvan Sebestyen (Ecma)
| Jasper Hedegaard Bojsen (DK)
| Jean Paoli (Ecma)
| Jean Stride (GB)
| Jesper Lund Stocholm (DK)
| Jirka Kosek (CZ)
| Keld Simonsen (NO)
| Ken Holman (CA)
| Kimmo Bergius (FI)
| Manu Setälä (FI)
| Michiel Leenaars (NL)
| Murata Makoto (JP)
| Patrick Durusau (US)
| Pia Elleby Lange (DK)
| Rex Jaeschke (Ecma)
| Shahzad Rana (NO)
| Wemba Opota (CI)
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-75107/sc34-meeting-next-week:yet-another-stuffed-committee
OpenXML: Finally the hidden agenda is emerging
,----[ Quote ]
| Not so long ago, the major evidence for me was the number of countries that
| changed their votes in the last days OpenXML voting, signaling a major
| political agreement for the approval of standard, but now, a few months later
| more strange thing is happening.
|
| The last of them is that we in Brazil, and all other NBs, will have to cast
| until July 29, our vote regarding a proposal for a “new work item” at SC34,
| which deals with the translation between ODF and OpenXML documents. If this
| proposal is approved, it will be generated by SC34, trough an “accelerated
| process”, a technical report on the subject.
|
| I think this discussion is really natural, but we need to observe a simple
| detail: “The approval of OpenXML as an international standard is under
| appeal !!!”.
`----
http://homembit.com/2008/07/openxml-finally-the-hidden-agenda-is-emerging.html
Toy Soldiers
,----[ Quote ]
| One example is the proposals in SC34 to create a new project to create a
| Technical Report on translating between ODF 1.0 and OOXML 1.0. This might
| have made sense at some point in the past. But this proposal seems out of
| place now.
|
| Consider:
|
| 1. No one supports ODF 1.0 today. All of the major vendors have moved on
| to ODF 1.1, and will be moving on to ODF 1.2 soon.
| 2. No one supports OOXML 1.0 today, not even Microsoft.
| 3. No one supports interoperability via translation, not Sun in their
| Plugin, not Novell in their OOXML support, and not Microsoft in their
| announced ODF support in Office 2007 SP2.
|
| [...]
|
| Given the leisure to do the job right, my bet is on Microsoft. Everyone knows
| it for what it is now. There is no longer need for elaborate attempts to
| disguise the fact that OOXML is and will remain a Microsoft-only standard.
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/07/toy-soliders.html
Related:
Microsoft admits Swedish employee promised incentives for Open XML support
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Corp. admitted Wednesday that an employee at its Swedish subsidiary
| offered monetary compensation to partners for voting in favor of the Office
| Open XML document format's approval as an ISO standard.
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9033701
Microsoft Looks for the Big Guns in OOXML In-Fighting
,----[ Quote ]
| Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense
| and the Secretary of Commerce to push the American National Standards
| Institute to ignore the votes of its advisory committees and vote "yes" on
| ISO standardizing Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) format, the one in
| competition with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) pushed by IBM and Sun.
|
| Gates reportedly picked up the phone when the last INCITS ballot failed by
| one vote to support Microsoft.
`----
http://xml.sys-con.com/read/419573_p.htm
Microsoft influencing partner NGOs to support OOXML in India
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is encouraging its business partners to promote its Office Open XML
| specification (OOXML) to the Indian Bureau of Standards (BIS) and Ministry of
| IT. This move has incensed supporters of the rival OpenDocument Format (ODF)
| who fear that the "soft" Indian state may not be able to stand up to
| Microsoft pressure tactics.
`----
http://www.linux.com/feature/128528
Microsoft India using NGOs to fake support for OOXML
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-44038/microsoft-india-using-ngos-to-fake-support-for-ooxml
Becoming a better company: Microsoft helps NGOs in India
,----[ Quote ]
| Of course, there has to be some trade-offs, because there should never be
| free lunch, even for the ones who starve: Microsoft, according to this
| article, has conditioned its help to Indian NGOs to their support of OOXML.
| What the NGOs had to do was to send letters of support on OOXML to the
| federal government of India.
`----
http://standardsandfreedom.net/index.php/2008/02/29/becoming-a-better-company-microsoft-helps-ngos-in-india/
Microsoft "persuades" NGOs to support OOXML
,----[ Quote ]
| Our friends at Linux Delhi have put up a copy of the form letters that
| Microsoft has been sending NGOs on the OOXML issue. Apparently, these NGOs
| have been sending copies of these letters to the Ministry of IT and Bureau of
| Indian standards.
`----
http://osindia.blogspot.com/2008/02/microsoft-persuades-ngos-to-support.html
Developers around the world, unite!
,----[ Quote ]
| Monopoly and proprietary software have an advantage in influencing state and
| governmental institutions because of their large market base and ready
| capital. Unscrupulous ways of influencing state governments have persisted in
| India, for example, where executives of proprietary software cajole
| government heads to promote their brands in lieu of some form of charity
| given. FLOSS activists must overcome this huge challenge in order to get
| their philosophy accepted and model implemented for the good of people who
| are still on the barren side of the digital divide.
`----
http://thepost.com.pk/OpinionNews.aspx?dtlid=147277&catid=11
Using NGOs to Push Agendas
,----[ Quote ]
| The extent to which Microsoft can go in its efforts to get OOXML is
| interesting. Microsoft has "persuaded" several non-profit organizations to
| bombard the Indian IT Secretary and the Additional Director General of the
| Bureau of Indian Standards with letters supporting its OOXML proposal. A copy
| of the form letter they have been circulating to NGOs is given below.
| Somebody should interview these NGOs to see how much they really know about
| OOXML and open standards.
|
| The sequence of events leading up to the spamming of GoI? is:
|
| Letter from an NGO thanking Microsoft (name changed to protect their
| identity)
`----
http://wiki.linux-delhi.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/OpenStandards/MsNgoLobby
,----[ Quote ]
| Pieter Hintjens, president of the Foundation for a Free Information
| Infrastructure, a non-profit organisation that is campaigning against the
| Microsoft proposal, said: "We've recorded fairly systematic manipulation of
| the voting process. We've seen what amounts to vote-buying in Italy,
| Portugal, Colombia, Spain. In Sweden and Denmark, much the same happened –
| Microsoft paying their business partners to join the vote."
`----
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=FT&Date=20070830&ID=7401878
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
Microsoft accused of more OOXML standards fiddling
,----[ Quote ]
| However the 11 new countries are refusing to say how they will vote. These
| include Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Malta, Pakistan,
| Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela. Most people seem to think
| that these have been put there by Vole to make sure the standard gets pushed
| through.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=42106
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