08.27.07
Lying One’s Way from Loss to Victory
Forget about Microsoft top executives manipulating votes through politicians. For a second, forget about endless deception and FUD. But it’s hard, isn’t it?
What we have been been witnessing in recent months seems like nothing short of crime. But crime pays. Lies pay. On the fact of it, Microsoft is successfully bending the vote of the United States government (among others as a possibility). It is not because the government realised something that it had not understood before. It’s not not because OOXML is suddenly seen as acceptable for standardisation. It’s about money, protection, and nepotism.
It appears as though phonecalls from Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates have proven to be effective. They manage to get around the technical committees and talk the launguage which is not technical.
In a reversal, the American representative to the ISO standards body is now tentatively supporting the approval of Microsoft’s Office Open XML document format as an open standard this year.
Ignoring technical debates and turning them into politics is one thing. But what happens when the debates themselves involve bald-face lies? Rob Weir has many examples including a brand-new one.
I just received an email from someone in a national standards committee considering the OOXML ballot, concerning false information given to his committee which suggested the Sept. 2nd ballot deadline was not real, that they actually had 30 more days to decide. I’m not going to name names in this post, but I will say that this isn’t the first note I’ve received regarding such tactics. Some of the other ploys I’ve heard of include…
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I’m expecting that such shenanigans are only going to increase as we go into the final week of this 5-month ballot.
We have accumulated many other examples of cases where Microsoft vainly (and knowingly) lied in order to sway votes their way. It is manipulative, it is dishonest, and it should be made illegal. If breaking the law for lockin and monopoly is the way our world is run, then serious system revision is needed. It’s needed now.
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.