Ite, non missa est
,----[ Quote ]
| As the deadline of the 2 nd of May is drawing near, I thought it useful to
| clarify some of the actual concerns surrounding the standardization of OOXML.
| Perhaps this piece will help dispelling some myths.
|
| [...]
|
| I wanted to point that out because I increasingly get the feeling that some
| want us to forget this process and to switch to some other topic (XPS for
| instance?). I know that there are more interesting topics to work on; after
| all, ODF 1.2 is not that far out in distance, and I expect all the love and
| kisses to be sent by our friends in Redmond. But I am still sticking to it
| not clinging, but sticking, not because of a perverse and pathetic hope I
| would appear to have against OOXML, but because I believe that the bells and
| whistles have been taken out a bit too fast.
`----
http://standardsandfreedom.net/index.php/2008/04/22/ite-non-missa-est/
Legal challenged for OOXML lie ahead...
Recent:
Buy, Cheat, Steal, and Lie: The OOXML Story
,----[ Quote ]
| A 2007 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit may end
| up coming back to haunt Microsoft in their ongoing U.S. antitrust battle. The
| case revolved around claims by Broadcom that Qualcomm had deliberately
| included its patents in the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
| standard in order to create a monopoly for its products. The appeals court
| held that if a company acts deceptively to gain adoption of a standard that
| then results in a monopoly to their advantage, they can be held to have
| violated anti-trust laws, irrespective of their right to determine the use of
| their patents. Interestingly enough, the Court of Appeals ruling relies on a
| Federal Trade Commission ruling which in turn relied on — drumroll, please —
| United States v. Microsoft, the very case that put MS under supervision in
| the first place.
|
| All we can say is, we hope that with this many available avenues, something
| is done to rectify the farce acted out over the last several months.
`----
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/buy-cheat-steal-and-lie-ooxml-story
ISO Fantasy
,----[ Quote ]
| What OOXML Is · The ISO process, brutal and corrupt as it was, has been
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| covered to death by everyone. Its output, soon to be known as ISO/IEC 29500,
| differs from ECMA-376 in two ways. ¶
|
| [...]
|
| What Microsoft really wanted was that ISO stamp of approval to use as a
| marketing tool. And just like your mother told you, when they get what they
| want and have their way with you, they’re probably not gonna call you in the
| morning.
`----
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/04/15/OOXML
BE, NL: governments will not use ISO OOXML
,----[ Quote ]
| Asked to comment on last week's ISO approval for OOXML, Fedict's chief IT
| architect, Peter Strickx, said: "There will have to be multiple
| implementations, in order for us not to become dependent on a single vendor.
| It will also have to be compatible with open standards that we already use,
| in this case Open Document Format ODF."
`----
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7562
DE: German Foreign Ministry will not use ISO OOXML
,----[ Quote ]
| In the weeks prior to the second round of votes last September,
| irregularities were reported in the standard committees in many participating
| countries. These claims continued until after the final discussion, in
| February and March this year.
|
| The European Commission has started an investigation into the allegations.
| The Commission sent a letter to all EU national standards committees in
| Europe, requesting information about the process. Sources at the Commission
| declined to comment, as the investigation is on-going and no official
| position has yet been adopted.
`----
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7561
Software wars
,----[ Quote ]
| Allegations of committee-stuffing, the outcome of votes overridden by
| political appointees, a final decision that many involved consider tainted:
| this may sound like a discredited election in some third world country. But
| it is actually a description of an ugly fight over international technical
| standards that wrapped up this week. Microsoft came out on top, but at the
| cost of tarnishing its reputation and the credibility of an important
| back-room process that oils the wheels of many global industries.
`----
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c9743360-01a8-11dd-a323-000077b07658,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fc9743360-01a8-11dd-a323-000077b07658.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.computerworlduk.com%2Ftool
Related:
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 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
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
Protest in front of Town Hall for Document Freedom
,----[ Quote ]
| The protest organized by FSUG and FCI seems to have attracted a lot of
| deserved attention, despite the hurried execution.
`----
http://hpnadig.net/blog/Protest-for-Document-Freedom
Techies protest proprietary standards; seek policy
,----[ Quote ]
| Ever since the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) vote on April
| 2 adopted Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) as a document standard, techie
| blogs and websites have been inundated with posts and articles voicing their
| opposition to proprietary software and technical issues with the new
| standard.
`----
http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/15/stories/2008041554380500.htm
|
|