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[News] [Rival] Microsoft Accused of Stuffing OOXML Ballots in Pakistan, Egypt

  • Subject: [News] [Rival] Microsoft Accused of Stuffing OOXML Ballots in Pakistan, Egypt
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:41:15 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Freelance
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
Pakistan and Egypt stuffed?

,----[ Quote ]
| We got indications that 2 P-members countries were stuffed with Microsoft 
| Business Partners. Those two countries applied for P membership in late 
| August and voted Yes without any comments. Don't be surprised if they are out 
| of reach for the European Commission.   
`----

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-48053/pakistan-and-egypt-stuffed


Recent:

OOXML vote in Romania, signs of committee stuffing

,----[ Quote ]
| Today four have joined the committee, all of them seem to be MS partners 
| (Fujitsu-Siemens is one of them, the others are local software companies). 
| The sad thing is that these companies or people have not shown interest in 
| the subject so far, have not participated in the 6 months online debate but 
| are probably going to cast their vote in favor of OOXML . What they are doing 
| is perfectly legal, after all anyone can join the committe, but it's sad to 
| see attempts at public debate and the chances of it changing something 
| getting offset by throwing money at the problem at the last minute.       
| 
| I'll keep an update on how things are progressing and the results and details 
| of the vote when it happens. 
`----

http://janimo.blogspot.com/2008/03/ooxml-vote-in-romania-signs-of.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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