Microsoft lobbyist using TBT for legal threats
,----[ Quote ]
| Jan van den Beld, who was promoting OpenXML at the Geneva BRM for CompTIA, a
| well know Microsoft lobby group, is using the Technical Barriers to Trade WTO
| treaty for legal threats to governments:
|
| He also advised governments against mandating just one electronic
| document standard as it may run foul of World Trade Organization policies
| and open themselves to possible legal challenges. "One of the big
| concerns of WTO is that you should not use standards as a barrier to
| trade," he said.
|
| "If a government enforces [use of just one standard], that would mean the
| whole country is not allowed to use OpenXML. Then, they could get into a
| very difficult legal situation as they can be challenged legally,"
| opinioned van den Beld.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-52518/microsoft-lobbyist-using-tbt-for-legal-threats
Add this to existing examples of bullying against CIOs who supported ODF.
Related:
Multiple Standards according to ECMA
,----[ Quote ]
| On a Microsoft event in Portugal, called TechDays 2008, ex-ECMA and now
| CompTIA (Microsoft lobbyst group) member, Jan van den Beld explains how
| multiple standards come to be on ECMA
|
| [...]
|
| What does Jan van den Beld - former Secretary General of ECMA - have to say
| about multiple standards? He seems to be puzzled himself!
|
| Quote from his presentation:
|
| Q: Why do you want to have 5 [DVD related] formats? Do you still call that
| standardization?
| A: You are well paid. Shut up
|
| Check out the video at 4:10 and amaze yourself!
|
| This was on Microsoft Techdays 2008, in Portugal.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-49659/multiple-standards-according-to-ecma
The commercial value of ISO privileged access
,----[ Quote ]
| Jan van den Beld 'sents love letters' to the ISO system and leaches out
| against parties who want to appeal.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-50865/the-commercial-value-of-iso-privileged-access
Return of the Living Dead - Brainless Attack on MoSTI - Part Deux!!!
,----[ Quote ]
| I dont know what the attraction is, but somehow we all love the morbid
| fascination of Zombies in action. First, Microsoft^H^H^H^H^HCompTIA hires Mr
| Jan van der Beld, Ex-Ecma Secretary General, to fly all the way here in KL,
| for an event supposedly about "good multiple standards". There he challenges
| us to find a better way to Fast Track large, immature vendor dependent
| specifications. The answer is of course: "Don't do it." Later on that same
| day, like a man possessed, he turns up at a PIKOM meeting only to rant and
| thump tables.
|
| Then today, in our fantastic broadsheet turned tabloid "The New Straits
| Times" features a "Comment" by our so called "cooler head" Datuk Dr Mohd
| Ariffin Aton entitled "Walking the Talk on neutrality policy". If you've
| forgotten about him, you may be forgiven, but he is or rather WAS the CEO if
| SIRIM Bhd.
`----
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/return-of-the-l.html
Former ECMA Sec. Gen challenges ISO/BRM critics to create a better process
,----[ Quote ]
| "If people say this whole ISO process is lousy, out of date and doesn't work
| anymore or is broken, I challenge anybody to make a new worldwide process,"
| van den Beld told PC World while in Australia working for the Computing
| Technology Industry Association.
`----
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1518565063
And the award goes to... (top 10 worst Ecma responses)
,----[ Quote ]
| If there are awards to be given to categories of worst dispositions provided
| by Ecma in response to comments by National Bodies for the OOXML balotting on
| 2 September 2007, then the ODF Alliance's list of top 10 (plus 1 bonus!) is a
| good one. The categories are:
|
| 10. Worst Ignored Request
| 9. Worst non-Answer
| 8. Worst use of XML
| 7. Worst Introduction of Security Holes
| 6. Worst 'Back Door' Tactic
`----
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/02/and-the-award-g.html
Give us the password!
,----[ Quote ]
| What is needed now is the public and unconditional access to the works of the
| TC 45. What is needed now is for the Ecma to give the password to their page.
| Give us the password!
`----
http://standardsandfreedom.net/index.php/2007/12/13/give-us-the-password/
A Peek Behind the Ecma OOXML Curtain
,----[ Quote ]
| A particularly contentious issue has been whether Ecma is trying to make it
| as easy as possible, or is trying to make it as difficult as possible while
| still scoring PR points, for interested parties to view proposed dispositions
| of comments, and whether it does, or does not, have the latitude under ISO
| rules to be more transparent. The fairly opaque, and sometimes contradictory
| nature of those rules, has not made the debate any easier, and gives rise to
| the possibility of confusion, at best, and serious mistakes, at worst, as
| Pamela Jones pointed out at Groklaw this morning.
|
| The result is that there will be very little real data available to the
| general public until Ecma opens the curtains on January 19. And the import of
| what little data does become available is usually the subject of instant
| disagreement.
`----
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2007121304552774
Microsoft accused of stacking ISO committee
,----[ Quote
| In a memo sent following his last meeting as head of the working group on
| WG1, which is handling Microsoft’s application to make the Word format an ISO
| standard as ECMA 376, outgoing Governor Martin Bryan (above), an expert on
| SGML and XML, accused the company of stacking his group.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1777
Martin Bryan: we are getting “standardization by corporation”
,----[ Quote ]
| A November informative report of Martin Bryan, Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34
| WG1 highlights the fallout of the ECMA-376 fast-track process for ISO. He
| says he is 'glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible'
|
| [...]
|
| In what is an astonishingly outspoken report, Martin Bryan, Convenor, ISO/IEC
| JTC1/SC34 WG1 has given us insight into the total mess that Microsoft/ECMA
| have caused during their scandalous, underhand and unremitting attempts to
| get - what is a very poorly written specification {i.e. DIS 29500 aka OOXML,
| AR} - approved as an ISO standard. …
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-30107/martin-bryan:we-are-getting-standardization-by-corporation
Dysfunctional ISO - Courtesy of Microsoft
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2007/12/dysfunctional-iso-courtesy-of-microsoft.html
Microsoft wins Open XML vote, frowns at Indian panel
,----[ Quote ]
| Industry experts said they were "unhappy" with the Microsoft which has almost
| accused the committee of being packed with "open document format (ODF)
| supporters".
|
| "I am very upset and uncomfortable with such complaints. In fact, the
| chairperson of the committee (LITD 15) offered to step down over the
| allegation," D.B. Phatak, professor at IIT Mumbai, told DNA Money.
|
| IIT Mumbai is a member of LITD 15, and Phatak was part of the deliberations
| that have been taking place within IIT on the issue.
|
| Phatak said a Microsoft official was asked if it would withdraw the
| complaint, but the company refused as the "complaint was made by some higher
| officer in Microsoft".
|
| Jaijit Bhattacharya, country director of government strategy for Sun
| Microsystems India, a company that has been at loggerheads with Microsoft for
| years, talks in a similar vein.
|
| "I am surprised that such allegations are made against India's top academic
| and government institutions … such allegations lack credibility,'
| Bhattacharya said. Venkatesh Hariharan, co-founder Open Source Foundation of
| India said, "I am just amazed and shocked at the depths to which Microsoft is
| willing to descend."
|
| He said Microsoft's complaint is a "great disservice to the committee, its
| chairperson and the BIS".
`----
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14636329
A Microsoft Slur in the OOXML Saga -- Did I Tell You or Did I Tell You? -
Updated
,----[ Quote ]
| Remember I told you I've noticed that people who don't support Microsoft's
| agenda end up the victim of smear campaigns?
|
| The New Zealand Open Source Society is reporting that an employee at
| Microsoft New Zealand recently sent an email to one of the technical bodies
| advising an NB involved in the OOXML ISO process, smearing a man's
| reputation, Matthew Holloway, apparently to undermine his technical input
| which was critical of OOXML.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080318151252279
Tim Bray: Life Is Complicated
,----[ Quote ]
| Those with long memories might suggest a parallel between Rick’s position and
| mine when in 1997, I was sitting on the XML Working Group and co-editing the
| spec, on a pro bono basis as an indie consultant. Netscape hired me to
| represent their interests, and when I announced this, controversy ensued.
| Which is a nice way of saying that Microsoft went berserk; tried
| unsuccessfully to get me fired as co-editor, and then launched a vicious,
| deeply personal extended attack in which they tried to destroy my career and
| took lethal action against a small struggling company because my wife worked
| there. It was a sideshow of a sideshow of the great campaign to bury Netscape
| and I’m sure the executives have forgotten; but I haven’t.
`----
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2007/01/24/Mixup
How to Royally Annoy National Bodies
,----[ Quote ]
| Guide to future monopolists on how to alienate yourself from National Bodies:
|
| 1. Waste NBs time in reviewing monstrous draft specifications
| 2. Claim that these specs can do everything for anyone by standardising
| marketing material
| 3. If you don't get your way at a certain level, lobby the superior above.
| Dont stop! Go all the way to the head of the nation if you think you can!
| 4. Leak press stories to journalists to pressure Ministries to make a
| decision. Quick!
| 5. Try to shut down TCs if actual technical work is done revealing issues
| with your plan
| 6. Question Question Question everything (process, fairness, the system,
| members) when things dont go your way
| 7. Otherwise create another TC with friendly experts
| 8. If the NB allows new members just by paying membership fees, encourage
| your business partners to join with marketing funds. Stack-stack-stack it
| high!
| 9. Stalk decision makers, even if it means traveling around the globe with
| them
| 10. Refuse changes in the spec especially if it breaks your product which
| you released prior
| 11. Have private interviews with TC members in the guise of funding for
| their new projects/research grants/interoperability initiatives and
| conveniently talk about their position on your spec.
| 12. Get your Business Partners to write in form letters. Some don't even
| bother to change the templates
| 13. Attend TC meetings uninvited by fabricating business cards
| 14. Send Lawyers in to Technical Committee meetings who prefer not to
| engage in "high-school" debates
| 15. Make rude and inaccurate statements against TC members in public
`----
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/how-to-royally.html
Q&A: Former Mass. CIO feels 'bittersweet pride' after battles with Microsoft,
legislature
,----[ Quote ]
| As CIO of Massachusetts from February to November last year, Louis
| Gutierrez had to endure most of the brunt of Microsoft Corp.'s political
| wrath over a state policy calling for the adoption of the Open Document
| Format for Office Applications, or ODF -- a rival to the software vendor's
| Office Open XML file format.
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9012760&source=rss_news50
,----[ Quote ]
| Quinn: Almost to a person, to anybody involved or who knows about
| the ODF issue, they attributed the story to Microsoft, right, wrong
| or otherwise. Senator Pacheco may be a bully but I do not believe he
| is disingenious and would stoop to such a tactic. Senator Pacheco and
| Secretary Galvin's office remain very heavily influenced by the
| Microsoft money and its lobbyist machine, as witnessed by their
| playbook and words, in my opinion.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060119232859729
|
|
