04.09.08
Norway’s Protest Against Microsoft Abuse Goes More Public (Updated)
The protests against OOXML in Norway were mentioned on a few occasions recently [1, 2, 3]. It appears as though they earned the media attention they had sought.
To be perfectly clear here, the protests are not against the national policy, which at the moment favours ODF, but against corruption, of which there is plenty of supporting evidence, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. A better and more recent roundup you will find here or here.
Finally appears at least one major article about the new protest. [via Groklaw]
OSLO, Norway: Roughly 60 data experts staged a rare and noisy street demonstration in downtown Oslo on Wednesday to protest the adoption of Microsoft Corp.’s document format as an international standard and against Norway voting for the move.
[…]
He claimed the committee ignored the advice of the vast majority of the Nordic nation’s software experts, was pressured by Microsoft and displayed “scandalous behavior.”
Here is a gallery of photos from the protest. There is some more information including the speech and photos right here.
There are some developments elsewhere in Europe. A few hours ago we wrote about the BSI. Here is the more formal page which touches on this issue. Even a week after the awful decision, people continue to pursue justice, proving that time did not heal Microsoft’s wounds. █
Update: here is some more media coverage of the protest in Norway. Simon Phipps writes about it also.
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.