05.09.08
Proprietary ‘Standards’, Private ‘Standards’ and Microsoft’s Secret ‘Standards’
Abuse is just a standard procedure
There are various picks from the news that are worth commenting on very quickly. Here goes.
Like Father, Like Son
We demonstrated before, using collusion stories for example, just how close Intel and Microsoft really are. There is almost no longer point in denying it, especially when Intel’s CEO suggests so explicitly.
You may wish to know just what approach Intel adopts for ’standards’.
Intel plays games with USB3.0
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This behaviour is not what defines ’standard’, it is what defines ‘proprietary’. Basically if you are competing with Intel, or are perceived to be competing with it, you have to wait and suck down a six-month disadvantage. The last time this happened was USB1.0. Intel played the same games and the standard was so broken it never worked.
If it sounds familiar, it probably ought to.
“There is nothing ethical about what came to be the ‘Wintel standard’.”Another thing never to be forgotten is the OLPC story, which sometimes evokes repulsion. It all began with the Fedora/AMD OLPC, which had Intel respond by offering considerable discounts to Asustek and also started this wave of products where the price was no longer fixed. Intel was dumping free hardware (selling at a loss) in countries like Nigeria just to make OLPC suffocate. Unfortunately, that’s not what Intel permits the mainstream press to tell you, despite strong evidence and actual eyewitness accounts.
OLPC was too disruptive to Microsoft and Intel just could not afford to stay out because it wishes to continue its all-or-nothing kickbacks/dumping crusade to eliminate competition in x86, notably AMD. Microsoft just needs to get as many children as it can "sort of addicted" to Windows (Gates’ terminology). It’s a sick world, but let’s not drift off topic, at least for the time being. There is nothing ethical about what came to be the ‘Wintel standard’.
Microsoft Pulled a China, or China Pulls a Microsoft
Watch what is happening in China
US warns China about standards war
THE FORMER English colony of Virginia has warned the glorious People’s Republic of China that it needs to follow technology standards and not impose them on the rest of the world.
That’s its job.
US Under-Secretary of Commerce Christopher Padilla warned that if China went around creating its own technology standards then it risked “technological isolation”.
Once again, if it sounds familiar, it probably ought to. Noteworthy is also Microsoft's special relationship with China. Now we come to the main item which affects Free software — as opposed to hardware — very directly. It’s about OOXML.
Whose Pseudo-standard Is It Anyway?
OOXML went private and never yet been out for the concerned public to see. The last complaint seems to have come from Rob Weir, but here is yet another that refers to Microsoft and ECMA disobeying rules and making false promises.
The fact is, nobody outside the Ecma and probably ISO knows how OOXML looks like now. It is particularly cumbersome, not so much because that could amount to one more irregularity against the JTC1’s SC 34, but also because it creates yet one more precedent in the long story of anti-competitive practices by Microsoft. At the time this article is being written, there is no sign of OOXML and according to the loosest estimations, we should have seen it on the 2 nd of May at the latest.
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Now if you care to ask me, what in blazes does this linguistic considerations have to do with OOXML? The repeated and successful attempts by Microsoft to influence the outcome of the OOXML standardization process at the levels of the ISO’s JTC1 and of the national standards body was in itself unseen and the evidence that some large corporations are ready to do whatever it takes to fulfill their strategic objectives. Yet, the incongruous, unexpected behaviour of the standardization world has given way to a near total impunity for the Ecma and Microsoft. No matter how twisted a situation can be, the JTC1’s SC34 should always be followed, and when the rules do not fit the Ecma, then the rules are ignored or simply changed. At this stage, we do not know the reasons for which OOXML has not yet been published. I’m not even requesting the very final, ISO -stamped version of OOXML, but just the final, post BRM, consolidated version of OOXML. That too does not seem to exist. But worry not, some reasons will be made up, almost on the fly, cunningly lame and incredibly mediocre explanations that will show the utter submission to powerful interests of some inside the SC34 and the complete brainwashing of others.
This scandal is not over yet. █
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.