[Watch this. Wow!]
OOXML Vote: Irregularities in Germany & Croatia and a Call for an Investigation
of Norway
,----[ Quote ]
| If Microsoft gets this OOXML format "approved", it will be by irregularities
| in the voting, it seems. Here's more on what happened in Germany and a report
| on what is being called a scandal in Norway. And another odd process in
| Croatia.
|
| If you can read German, here's the story on what happened there. For those
| who can't, when they went to vote, they were not allowed to vote disapprove,
| so the choice was to approve or to abstain. It was a tie, 6:6, which means no
| consensus. So under the rules I've read, that would have meant that they
| should send a vote of Abstain.
|
| But surprise, surprise!! A solution helpful to Microsoft: the representative
| from DIN decided to cast a vote, which isn't the process. DIN isn't supposed
| to vote, because it's supposed to advise. But this, they rationalized, was a
| vote not about whether to accept OOXML on the basis of *technical* issues,
| but whether to accept the approval suggestion of the technical committee. So
| DIN voted to accept DIN's suggestion. Hence Germany ends up in the Approve
| column. I know. No doubt there will be objections filed.
|
| Norway's at least as bad. Here's an article from Norway, and the translation
| of the title of the article is, "Scandal in Standards Norway. I didn't write
| that headline. They did. And here's why. The article says there should be an
| investigation of the irregularities there, because while there were only two
| votes to approve, from Microsoft and a business partner, Statoilhydro, and
| all the others voted no, 21 votes, they approved anyway. Here's how they
| shuffled the deck in Norway. So they put everyone out of the room, and
| Standards Norway, three people were left in the room, and they usurped the
| decision and made it their business to decide to approve anyway.
|
| Unbelievable. If it was happening in only one country, you might think it was
| local difficulties. But when it happens in place after place, one can only
| conclude that Microsoft, although outnumbered in a fair vote, has sufficient
| clout behind the scenes to shove this format into the world's mouth and hold
| its mouth closed by force until the world is compelled to swallow. Remember
| that Microsoft memo that surfaced in the Comes v. Microsoft litigation? The
| one about how to stack a panel discussion at conferences so it would be
| favorable to Microsoft? The key was to get to be the moderator.
|
| One thing is certain. Unless ISO steps up and fixes this mess, it will lose
| the world's respect, and rightly so. Either the rules mean something, or they
| don't, but if they don't standards don't mean anything either.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008032913190768
Speechless. The face of corruption in its full glory. Maybe it's time for the
EC to rethink that probe and just consider an immediate/gradual embargo
instead.
Look at Microsoft fanboys responding:
Why Miguel, Why?
,----[ Quote ]
| You seem completely unfazed by the questionable tactics Microsoft has
| employed to try to ram this spec down the ISO's throat.
|
| Maybe it is time for you to get back to your roots. Your entanglement in
| Microsoft technology has become more troubling every year. It is as if, you
| cannot see the thorns of the brambles you are wading through. It troubles me
| personally, the free desktop world needs good coders and if nothing else you
| certainly are that.
`----
http://mrcopilot.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-miguel-why.html
Related:
EU Initiates Investigation Against Microsoft OOXML Push
,----[ Quote ]
| But with Steve Ballmer taking over as CEO, there was supposed to be a kinder,
| gentler Microsoft - one that would play nicely with its competitors. When
| antitrust regulators in turn challenged this new Microsoft, it issued not
| challenges to fight to the end to prove that it had done nothing illegal, but
| statements promising to "cooperate fully."
|
| But at the same time, Microsoft is still a tough competitor. As Microsoft's
| Director of Corporate Standards Jason Matusow famously warned at his blog
| last year:
|
| Make no mistake; all parties are looking at the full picture to find
| strategies that will result in the outcome they desire. Provided - of
| course - that they do so within the context of the rules that apply to
| the process, this is exactly what one should expect to happen. It is
| going to be a very interesting next few months.
|
| Indeed, the months that followed proved to be interesting indeed. Microsoft
| said that some of its employees became over zealous, most flagrantly in
| Sweden, where marketing assists were promised to several business partners as
| incentives to join the national standards committee and vote for OOXM.
`----
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080208082501776
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
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
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
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
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
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
|
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