03.03.08
Bill and Steve Couldn’t Buy the US Vote This Time Around
United States rejects OOXML
The many nasty events which occurred ahead of the vote in September 2007 have probably escaped people’s attention and memory span/capacity. We have not forgotten, however, how a US vote against OOXML back in August or July was turned into a “Yes” after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer had phoned high-level diplomats. We have it documented.
“…a US vote against OOXML back in August or July was turned into a “Yes” after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer had phoned high-level diplomats.”This illustrates a level of corruption that you could just about equate to the incidents of political influence in Poland and bribery in Sweden and maybe even in India (Nigeria’s story aside). This is no way to make international standards which assume voters are gentlemen.
A couple of articles were published which speak about the decision to reject OOXML and also include the nation which you would expect to patriotically vote in favour.
But if the standard is adopted in its current form, “there are likely to be hundreds of defects”, said the head of the US delegation at the meeting, Frank Farance.
There is also this one, which was sent to us by a reader:
The U.S. voted no on Microsoft Office standard at ISO
Instead, the U.S. delegation seems to have listened to companies like Google, which said Microsoft was making a mockery of the process; to Sun, which says Microsoft has broken the ISO process; and to the Linux Foundation, which called the company’s arguments “ridiculous.”
The reader contacted us to say (in relation to the above): “Is ODF built-in support for Office2007 coming with the next office service pack? In case the ISO process fails you can bet for it!”
A post will come shortly to explain why Microsoft ought to hurry up and support ODF. It may already be doing just that, but if this is the case, Microsoft won’t admit it for another 25 or so days until the final vote. █
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.