07.20.07
Microsoft Already Plans to ‘Extend’ Its ‘Standard’; ECMA and ISO Named and Shamed
The weekend is almost here. The amount of news that is related the monopoly enabler (OOXML) is fairly large. Here is a quick summary.
Pamela wrote a long article which cites others. It also contains some very alarming piece of information. The takeaway: Miirosoft is proprietizing standards and ‘extending’ them. We have seen this before.
….when you proprietize standards, you touch me. And that is precisely what is happening with OOXML. Microsoft’s own expert at the Portugal meeting said so pointblank: Microsoft will add proprietary extensions, he said, to do things ODF can’t do.
Rob takes a look at some unbelievable slides from ECMA. These pretty much confirm that ECMA should be treated as nothing but a coin-in-the-slot standards organisation.
I’ve joked about the Ecma process before, but I never thought I’d see it written out officially like this. Standards are made available “on time”? Minimize the “risk” of changes? I thought the whole purpose of technical review was to find the problems and fix them? As always, the man who pays the piper calls the tune.
Bob has more to say about the questionable voting process.
I mention this because this general issue of stacking committees to force favorable votes is now under examination with respect to OOXML and the ISO/IEC JTC1 Fast Track process.
Mr. Jelliffe seems rather unhappy. He posted “Bribery Watch!”. It seems like a bizarre way of accusing people of inaccuracies or maybe even slander. These arguments needn’t get ugly, but where corruption (yes, it’s a strong word, I know) is identified and where people game the system, something simply must be said. If you say nothing, the consumer will continue to suffer whilst greedy corporation exploit loopholes. Whose side are you on?
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Keep it anonymous said,
July 21, 2007 at 6:42 am
What is actually going in in Portugal (and I am sure thet in many other countries) is like this:
As seen in Groklaw:
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=2007071812280798&title=Notes%20from%20Portugal%20on%20%20the%20July%2016th%20Meeting%20on%20Ecma-376&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=0#c596254
Notes from Portugal on the July 16th Meeting on Ecma-376
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 20 2007 @ 06:48 AM EDT
This is as fishy/unfair as it can get.
As a Portuguese, i really don’t see the point (besides unfair bullying) of
having MS business parters there. In this particular case, these people are
mostly sales/account managers who really don’t have a clue about what they are
talking about. They just wanna have their way (M$ way) through. They are
representatives from corporations which their core business is 100% M$ for
decades now. Worst even, some these companies have strong political connections
thought corporate stock share owned (guess what) by politicians.
I strongly dislike Manuel Cerqueira presence there, who is nothing more than an
openly M$ lackey and a clueless wannabe politician. ASSOFT is the Portuguese BSA
version strongly focus on fighting software piracy of its two major associates
M$ and Autodesk.
ASSOFT is a private association but his tactics and propaganda are strongly
backed up the Portuguese government. Being a Software association it should had
help ANSOL developing more OSS in Portugal. Instead went through the “money
side”:It’s has done 0%(zero) for OSS and 100% for M$ and Autodesk in
Portugal. In fact has damage OSS oportunities here every chance it gets.
The general tactic is the following:
1-MS account managers bury Portuguese companies with expensive “do it all
and pay it later” M$ solutions well served with a high poisonous
marketing.This is the time and place they say “OSS sucks, go our way”.
Naivelly, so they do.
2-Most companies here cannot cope with the expensive m$ licencing costs, but as
they are all tied up with the M$ solutions, they choose to pay much much later.
3- Meanwhile the extortionists who keep a list a such companies (assoft who
else) team up with the portuguese police (in fact on many ocasions they like to
pretend they ARE the police) and go to the m$ rescue.
4- The company is then burried in fines and lawsuits, and its managers could
face the usual up two 3 years piracy jail sentence, not because they were really
software pirates, but because they were defrauded by this kind of ppl, Manuel
Cerqueira and his goons.
5-There is a major exception to points 3-4. The Portuguese state and it’s public
companies.Why? Assoft doesn’t want to ruin the beautiful political relationship
it has. Ridiculous consequence:The government for instance can use loads of
piracy, but the major Portuguese companies don’t
The same tactic is applied to Autodesk Solutions.
This is the kind of people that they *do really* want in such meetings.
Alex
Skeptic said,
July 21, 2007 at 8:39 am
@Anonymous: While your comment is very much appreciated, could you please refrain from cheap shots such as “M$”? The problem is that Microsoft fanboys will dwell on that and unfairly try to dismiss your otherwise excellent points. Thank you.
Keep it anonymous said,
July 21, 2007 at 9:51 am
Ok, thank you for the recommendation on “M$” I just use it as a shortcut to avoid writing “Microsoft” ™, which is much longer: From now on I will write MSFT (its acronym in Nasdaq) instead.
Anyway it was written M$ in the original post I was just quoting (so it was not me).