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[News] Microsoft Wants "Unadulterated Bulls*it" to Become Standard

  • Subject: [News] Microsoft Wants "Unadulterated Bulls*it" to Become Standard
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:04:39 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
Rubber-stamping of OOXML raises concerns

,----[ Quote ]
| But if the standard is adopted in its current form, “there are likely to be 
| hundreds of defects”, said the head of the US delegation at the meeting, 
| Frank Farance.  
`----

http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/infrastructure/applications/news/index.cfm?newsid=7769

Nevermind the bulls**t, here's OOXML, says Microsoft

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft says it is "optimistic" that the Office Open XML specification will 
| be made into an ISO standard, despite a national body describing the ballot 
| resolution process as "bulls**t".  
| 
| Speaking after a week-long meeting to discuss technical issues raised 
| following last year's failed bid to have OOXML fast-tracked, Microsoft's Tom 
| Robertson said the company was hopeful of persuading sufficient national 
| bodies to change their vote to 'yes'.    
`----

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/173304/nevermind-the-bullst-heres-ooxml-says-microsoft.html


Context:

BRM Narrative

,----[ Quote ]
| Now that the BRM is over, I feel I can write about it a bit more; there are 
| some restrictions, but I’ll lay them out. Summary: A lot of good work was 
| done, but the process is irretrievably broken.  
| 
| [...]
| 
| What Was Bad · The process was complete, utter, unadulterated bullshit. I’m 
| not an ISO expert, but whatever their “Fast Track” process was designed for, 
| it sure wasn’t this. You just can’t revise six thousand pages of deeply 
| complex specification-ware in the time that was provided for the process. 
| That’s true whether you’re talking about the months between the vote and when 
| the Responses were available, the weeks between the Responses’ arrival and 
| the BRM, or the hours in the BRM room.      
`----

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/02/29/BRM-narrative


Related and recent:

European regulator fines Microsoft $1.35 billion

,----[ Quote ]
| In addition, Microsoft recently acknowledged that the commission is also 
| looking into lobbying efforts for its Open XML file format, which has been 
| derided by critics as insufficiently accessible. Microsoft unsuccessfully 
| sought last year to receive approval from the International Organization for 
| Standardization, or ISO, to have Open XML declared an international standard.    
`----

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/european-regulator-fines-microsoft-135/story.aspx?guid=%7B4421D497-DECC-41BF-9C86-E4C815C25241%7D


Robbery at the BRM?

,----[ Quote ]
| LinuxWorld mentions that the BRM organisors are making a paper ballot on all 
| the 900 comments. It seems that the BRM organisors are "robbing national 
| delegations of the opportunity to propose their own modifications".  
| 
| [...]
| 
| The purpose of this robbery might be to avoid any fix to the standard. 
| MS-ECMA have not proposed any changes, and this robbery is designed to get 
| the message that the BRM have fixed some issues.  
`----

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-43897/robbery-at-the-brm


Danish Unix User Group Files Complaint With EU Commission Against Denmark For
Mandating MSOOXML

,----[ Quote ]
| The Danish Unix User Group, DKUUG, has filed a formal complaint with the EU 
| Commission regarding Denmark's mandating ECMA 376, better known by us as 
| MSOOXML, for certain procurements.  
| 
| The complaint [PDF] is grounded in breach of the EC Treaty article 81 on 
| unfair competition. The press release says that the regulation "can be seen 
| as an attempt to continue the de facto monopoly of Microsoft in the Danish 
| state on office software, as the various public agencies and institutions 
| need to buy the products of Microsoft to comply to the regulation."     
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080226164131724


Ivory Coast represented by Microsoft Sénégal at the BRM

,----[ Quote ]
| The representative of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) here in Geneva is Wemba 
| Opota, a senegalese citizen,, who is responsible for Microsoft West Africa. 
| Now the cacao has definetely a bitter Microsoft smell.  
`----

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-43510/ivory-coast-represented-by-microsoft-senegal-at-the-brm


Microsoft's Wikipedia editor goes to the BRM to represent Australia

,----[ Quote ]
| Re: In Denmark, Microsoft has 2 out of 4 votes
| 
| InzpektorInzpektor 18 Feb 2008, 15:20 BST
| 
| The Danish delegation for the BRM will consist of:
| 
|     * IBM
|     * Dansk Standard (the national standards body)
|     * Microsoft - Themselves!
|     * Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Ciber A/S
| 
| So, I guess that means that the Danish votes are a tie. (Ofcourse with the 
| national standards body being the joker here :-) ) 
| 
| Reference:
| http://www.ds.dk/3537 (In Danish)
`----

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-41947/microsoft-s-wikipedia-editor-goes-to-the-brm-to-represent-australia


The BSI Has Been Corrupted by Microsoft — Another Chink in ISO’s armor

,----[ Quote ]
| Britain will be essentially represented by a Microsoft Gold Certified 
| Partner, having rejected OOXML several months ago. This apparently comes 
| after a reappointment.  
`----

http://boycottnovell.com/2008/02/15/bsi-sends-microsoft-partner/


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/


Portugal will send Microsoft to the BRM

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft, as president of the Portuguese Technical Committee, is already 
| controlling who will be at the BRM for Portugal. The Head of Delegation will 
| be... Microsoft!  
`----

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-27501/portugal-will-send-microsoft-to-the-brm


Microsoft's Stephen McGibbon to represent Ireland at the BRM?

,----[ Quote ]
| There are rumors circulating in Ireland that Microsoft's Stephen McGibbon 
| might be part of the Irish delegation to attend the BRM in Geneva. Microsoft 
| is already controlling the Portuguese delegation, you can expect that they 
| will control half of the table at Geneva. O'MyGod!   
`----

http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-29606/microsoft-s-stephen-mcgibbon-to-represent-ireland-at-the-brm


Tracking the Man with the Gavel: Alex Brown on the BRM

,----[ Quote ]
| I found Alex's last comment particularly interesting from a strategic point 
| of view.  As I've repeatedly noted in a variety of prior blog entries over 
| the past two years, Microsoft has adopted a high risk strategy by pushing 
| OOXML so aggressively through the Ecma, and then the ISO/IEC JTC1 process.  
| Already, it's received one set back, in that its failure to gain approval in 
| the first voting period has resulted in much bad press, and a seven month 
| delay (through the expiration of the second consideration period, which will 
| end on March 30).         
`----

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080130062110266


OOXML Questions Microsoft Cannot Answer in Geneva

,----[ Quote ]
| At Left: Highly respected Martin Bryan. As outgoing Conveyor of ISO/IEC 
| JTC1/SC34 WG1 he accused MS of stacking his group and said, “The days of open 
| standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are 
| getting ’standardization by corporation,’ something I have been fighting 
| against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees.”    
| 
| The trend is that Microsoft is opening up the boring legacy bits of OOXML, in 
| stupefying detail, while neglecting to document the pieces actually needed 
| for interoperability at a competitive level, like macros, scripting, 
| encryption, etc. In essence, Microsoft is opening up and releasing the file 
| format information that competitors like OpenOffice.org have already figured 
| out on their own, while still at the same time restricting access to the 
| information needed to compete. And the more MS realizes it has to open up the 
| specification, deprecate and modernize OOXML, what do you get? You get XML. 
| XML is XML. Strip out the non-XML garbage from OOXML and you will have the 
| OpenDocument Format.         
| 
| [...]
| 
| We need for MICROSOFT TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS. Rather than hiding all the 
| information we need and trying to cloak OOXML as ODF, we ask Microsoft to 
| please get off the sinking ship, collaborate with the global community (which 
| will welcome Microsoft) and help develop one universal file format for all.   
| Long term, Microsoft can only benefit from cooperating with the market!
`---- 

http://www.fanaticattack.com/2008/ooxml-questions-microsoft-cannot-answer-in-geneva.html


What Will and Won't Be Discussed at February's BRM on MSOOXML

,----[ Quote ]
| So if you had concerns about Microsoft's patent policy, forgeddaboudit. 
| It's been magically erased, and any comments are out of order.
| 
| [...]
| 
| They have chosen a room that can seat only 120 people for reasons unknown, so 
| there may not be room for all the delegates. Let me guess. The head of the  
| delegation is a Microsoft guy, and the ones who can't fit in the room are the 
| ones who have issues with the proposed format? You think? Hey, some of us 
| remember the games that were played already over rooms too small for IBM and 
| Sun.    
| 
| This is starting to look really, really bad. At a minimum, you have to say 
| this is the very opposite of an open process. I can't help but notice too 
| that Brown lists Rick Jelliffe's as one of the "cool blogs" he recommends on 
| Brown's blog. I think that is what novelists would call foreshadowing.   
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071211055139790


Opinion: Einstein's definition of insanity...

,----[ Quote ]
| But ISO standards have a much more political dimension to them than Internet 
| (IETF) or World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. Every country can vote,  
| although not all chose to do so. Over the past few weeks, some strange and 
| rather irregular national positions have come to light. My favourites were 
| Cuba voting "Yes" to the fast-tracking of OOXML, even though Microsoft is 
| prohibited by the US Government from selling any software on the island that 
| might even be able to read and write the new format, and Azerbaijan's "Yes" 
| vote, even though OOXML as defined isn't able to express a Web URL address in 
| Azeri, their official language.       
`----

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=632


Whither OOXML?

,----[ Quote ]
| Strangely, however, Microsoft appears to be soft-pedaling its own standard. 
| At GOSCON last week there was a panel on document formats, with reps from 
| IBM, Sun, Adobe, and Microsoft present. Each of the company representatives 
| got to speak for five minutes and present his company's perspective on 
| document formats.    
| 
| In his presentation, Matusow appeared to be backing away from OOXML as a key 
| technology. If you look at the slide he presented... 
| 
| ...you can see that the positioning now is that the tool is key, and the 
| document format secondary, which, to my mind, is a bizarre assertion, 
| although it's one that aligns with a positioning that, above all, must keep 
| Microsoft's tools in a predominate position.   
| 
| It appears to me that, having realized that the force-feeding of OOXML into 
| an international standards body is problematic, Microsoft is now trying to 
| present a soft TCO story which emphasizes sunk costs and pre-existing product 
| versions as a reason to stay on the Microsoft path, along with an 
| incomprehensible assertion that two document standards would be a good thing 
| (this last is the most oddball position of all; how can anyone state with a 
| straight face that the world would be well-served by having two incompatible 
| editable file formats?).        
`----

http://advice.cio.com/bernard_golden/wither_ooxml


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


Dissing OOXML

,----[ Quote ]
| Rather remarkably for a 6000-page specification, OOXML is on a fast track, 
| but it has come into collision with over 3000 comments on that specification, 
| many of them negative. The question is, how on earth can the national bodies 
| (NB) who do the prodding, poking and voting, work their way through those 
| comments to pick out the really key ones, and make sure that they get sorted 
| before approval is contemplated?     
`----

http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=464


More Irregularities in the OOXML ISO Process Surface

,----[ Quote ]
| If you read about what happened there in that article, "OOXML in Norway: The 
| haywire process," your jaw will simply drop. I do think there is something 
| the matter with the ISO process if this is how it works.  
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070827111019189


OOXML in Norway: The haywire process

,----[ Quote ]
| I believe that anything that sanctions unfair competition is bad. I believe 
| in a world where the threshold for competition is low and where everyone are  
| free to easily innovate. 
`----

http://blogs.freecode.no/isene/?p=3

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