08.31.07
Has Microsoft Just ‘Pulled a Hungary’ on OOXML Voting in Poland? (Updated)
We haven’t a full translation yet, but early evidence seems to suggest that a panel’s decision in Poland is being overriden because it is not favourable to OOXML. Watch this space in case there are more updates to come.
There was no practical reason to do that and as you remember first [Polish] comitee rejected MSOOXML with 82% votes against it, but now second comittee approved MSOOXML without single vote against it!.
We mentioned Hungary yesterday, but here is some more text in English.
Hungarian Standards Institution to reconsider its vote!
Remember that a high-level politician got involved and wanted another vote to take place, this time with more Microsoft partners involved. This brings memories of Gates and Ballmer making phonecalls to politicians, thereby flipping the vote on OOXML in the United States.
Other new stories:
OOXML approval system open to abuse
Whether or not OOXML is a good candidate for an open standard is beside the point: there is prima facie evidence of voting in bad faith, without proper consideration of all the aspects of the proposal.
Microsoft admits Swedish employee promised incentives for Open XML support
Microsoft Corp. admitted Wednesday that an employee at its Swedish subsidiary offered monetary compensation to partners for voting in favor of the Office Open XML document format’s approval as an ISO standard.
Microsoft’s OOXML provokes standards turmoil in France
Microsoft, notably, disagreed with this consensus, and sought for the French vote to ISO to be an abstention.
Microsoft takes off gloves in open documents battle
Microsoft’s fight to get file formats for its Word, Access, Excel and Powerpoint products accepted by the ISO standards organisation is getting nasty.
Here is another headline: INCITS confirms: US to vote for Open XML in ISO
INCITS said “No”, but then, Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates started making phonecalls to politicians. It is very important to remember this.
Update: More information on Poland here.
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.
GNU/Linux said,
September 3, 2007 at 5:27 am
Here it is, news in English http://polishlinux.org/poland/poland-vote-for-microsoft-ooxml/
Roy Schestowitz said,
September 3, 2007 at 5:38 am
Yes, I’ve just blogged it (last night actually). Very disappointing.
http://boycottnovell.com/2007/09/02/ooxml-norway-denmark-poland/