12.13.07
Quick Mention: Summary of Microsoft OOXML Manipulation and Ballot-stuffing
A fairly comprehensive article on Microsoft’s stuffing has just been published. From its opening paragraphs:
THE GREAT STUFFING
The stuffing of national boards with Certified Partners, getting more countries to join the ISO as voting members – a full throttled attack.
Luckily, some of these manipulations are well-documented, so compiling reports about them should not be hard. Those dirty secrets are not going away.
Further to yesterday’s post about Denmark and its bizarre decision on OOXML, consider this new article that nicely summarises the issues raised in Groklaw.
There are only two problems with the inclusion of the Vole’s OOXML document format in this trial: OOXML is neither open nor a standard.
It’s only December and a few months remain before the BRM. As the day draws nearer, the more manipulation and dirty tricks we will see (with the exception of the Christmas vacation). This was expected.
“[OOXML] It’s a Simple Matter of [Microsoft’s] Commercial Interests!“
Doug shooting from the lip might be the best ODF advocacies to date. █
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.