Once again, what's wrong with OOXML
,----[ Quote ]
| To conclude, Microsoft have, with OOXML, shot themselves in both feet, then
| put the bloody stumps into their big mouth and chewed, hard and long. They
| created a fradulent process by corrupting ISO at a high level. They engaged
| national bodies in this process, then bought and bullied those bodies into
| voting “properly”. And when the committees refused to be intimidated, they
| went to ministers and tried to bribe them. They used their press and
| astroturfing budgets to sell this as a fair and necessary process. They
| pretended that they were the victim, of an autocratic ODF and a manipulative
| IBM.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-46154/once-again-what-s-wrong-with-ooxml
Excellent Summary. Recommended read.
Related and recent:
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 "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
Related:
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
Fighting Megatron: five steps to freedom
,----[ Quote ]
| The free software world is being attacked by a large, wealthy, brutal
| monopolist, who I’ll call “Megatron” for today. As I wrote last month,
| Megatron is driving its OOXML tank through the village church of open
| standards, doing unspeakable things to the ISO process, with the intention of
| locking in a generation of computer users to its stack of patented,
| restricted, and undocumented formats. It’s about freedom, some of us want it,
| others want to take it away from us.
`----
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/fighting_megatron_five_steps_to_freedom
Swiss Cheese [for OOXML]
,----[ Quote ]
| The present spin doctors of Microsoft and ECMA managed to convince Mr.
| Thomann to reject every serious technical and general concern we had
| regarding OOMXL by pointing to compatibility reasons. At the end we had a
| majority against Microsoft but which (giving the unfair rules) results in a
| Swiss vote for Microsoft. Mr. Thomann was fretting and fuming at the end of
| the meeting how it can be that successful international companies (we had
| representatives from IBM, Google, ...) vote against the best interest of
| their customers and theirself!
|
| Yes, this is how the democratic system at SNV / ISO works. After the meeting
| I could not eat as much as I wanted to puke...
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-15521/swiss-cheese
Interview with Ecma’s Secretarie General
,----[ Quote ]
| The following is an interview of Jan van den Beld, the Secretarie General of
| Ecma International.
|
| [...]
|
| (ramble on multiple and proprietary 'standards')
|
| DB: But don’t you think that encourages patent wars?
|
| JvdB: I have never thought so deeply about it (how the pemission of multiple
| standards encourages patent wars). In a way yes, of course, there are hardly
| any subjects in hi-tech where no patents are involved. That is one of the big
| worries about bodies being concerned with patents So, we stay out of it. If
| you have a patent, you get an unconditional right and what you do with your
| patent is your business. You can ask "is that good?" Well that’s an
| interesting question.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?page_id=2259
No is no, to OOXML
,----[ Quote ]
| I’ve heard several reports of supporters of OOXML trying to get national
| standards bodies to change their votes from “NO with comments” to “YES with
| comments” because “it’s the same thing.” The logic, which I’ll explain in a
| later post, is that any comments will trigger a ballot resolution meeting, so
| there is no need to be so negative and vote NO.
`----
http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1762
IBM is still locked out of the Portuguese OOXML meeting
,----[ Quote ]
| In spite of various communications, we [IBM] are still locked out and will
| not be allowed to participate. Microsoft will be there, as well as a special
| Microsoft guest, as will various Microsoft business partners, and others.
`----
http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1755
OOXML does not buy its way in Italy
,----[ Quote ]
| Particularly noteworthy is the fact that among those favouring the adoption
| of the standard without reservation a large majority is made of business
| partners of the proposing entity [Microsoft], a law firm retained by the
| latter, the official certified business partners association of the proposing
| entity.
`----
http://www.piana.eu/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=1#0
Packing The Court At The ISO?
,----[ Quote ]
| ...P member countries ('participating member' countries) sending
| representatives, and I am interested to note the majority of
| their representatives are, as individuals, also Microsoft employees.
|
| [...]
|
| How can they not see that OOXML (ECMA 376) is unwanted by anyone outside of
| Microsoft? How about it Brian Jones? Are you really so desperate that you
| have to resort to that?
`----
http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/packing-the-court-at-the-iso/
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft maintains that while it would have been easy to support the Open
| Document Format (ODF) natively, it had to move to MS-OOXML because this was
| the only way for them to offer the full features of its office suite. But if
| Microsoft itself is not able to represent its internal data structures in the
| Open Document Format (ODF) in its Microsoft Office suite, how could an
| external conversion program from MS-OOXML accomplish this task? The answer to
| both questions is that it is not possible because two things cannot be the
| same and different at the same time.
`----
http://www.heise.de/open/artikel/92735
|
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