05.03.08
Quick Mention: The ISO ODF Smear
ISO ‘pulls a Microsoft‘?
On several occasions in the past we show that:
- ISO had several people replaced, sometimes giving way to more Microsoft-obedient ones
- ISO acknowledges that there are things to hide, e.g. when it does some 'damage control' and takes shelter
- ISO lies
- ISO changes its rules 'on the fly'
- Conflicting interests affect ISO
- ECMA (and its clients) controls ISO to a degrees [1, 2]
- The ISO process was called “brutal and corrupt” by one of the most senior participants
- A departing senior member, who was also the Convenor of OOXML, acknowledged that there was rigging in the progress, or a "standardisation by corporation," i.e. standards in exchange for money.
Rob Weir has just published “ODF Validation for Dummies”. He responds to something rather appalling from Alex Brown, Convenor of the OOXML BRM. Alex Brown is said to have been involved (or intervened externally) with the BSI as well. It was a secretive meeting, so it’s hard to tell for sure what actually hapepned there; there is a lawsuit against the BSI at the moment [1, 2].
One could venture to guess that Alex Brown is being implicitly called a “dummy”, but not in the sense that certain ‘dummies’ (expressing passiveness) are can be controlled by mega corporations or their common interests. For that we have seen some rather convincing evidence before, followed by admission of faults.
Anyway, here is the post from Rob Weir, in case you are interested in the gory technical details.
I think you agree that these are bold pronouncements, especially coming from someone so prominent in SC34, the Convenor of the ill-fated OOXML BRM, someone who is currently arguing that SC34 should own the maintenance of OOXML and ODF, indeed someone who would be well served if he could show that all consortia standards are junk, and that only SC34 (and he himself) could make them good.
Of course, I’ve been known to pontificate as well. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that. The difference here is that Alex Brown is totally wrong.
But let’s see if we can help show Alex, or anyone else similarly confused, the correct way to validate an ODF document.
This is getting rather ugly, but an ugly process simply begs for it. You reap what you sow. █
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.