06.05.08
Clearing the F[og|UD]: Microsoft Fought ODF Like Fire
There appears to be this newer case of rewriting history. This one is about Microsoft's treatment of ODF. In hindsight, Microsoft perhaps regrets what it did, but forgetting what had been done (and can never be changed) is inexcusable. Joining this push of disinformation we are saddened to find Patrick Durusau again [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8].
Open Malaysia provides the gist of it along with a proof-backed rebuttal.
When Patrick Durusau wrote that Microsoft had no opposition to ODF, he was indefensibly and gloriously wrong. Those of us involved in national standards bodies and on government policy panels have had the dubious honor of having to defend against Microsoft’s desperate attempts to kill any possible introduction of ODF as a voluntary standard.
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Then came along a recent blogpost by Harisfazillah Jamel, “Apabila Membuat Pilihan Dipersoalkan / When Choices are Questioned”, on the right of government agencies to make choices. It’s written in Malay, but it has been translated by Yoon Kit for the benefit of our international readers. It makes for extremely interesting reading on the pressure Microsoft Malaysia is placing on a government agency because of their choice to use OpenOffice.org/ODF over Microsoft Office:
Remember that Microsoft is still trying to chew and swallow that “Linux is a cancer” memo. It needs to get closer to developers in order to topple the opponent. Disinformation, such as the words you find above (courtesy of Patrick Durusau) is the equivalent of bait from companies like Novell, XenSource and Zend. There are other Microsoft partners that invite developers to join hands with Microsoft.
Also spotted among the news today is this good post about the economic and pragmatic impact of OOXML. You are encouraged to take a quick look.
The financial equation they could eventually think about is this one: how long is this fight going to last, and looking closer into it, why is the same strategy being implemented across the whole set of Microsoft’s technologies, namely through XPS vs PDF, SilverLight vs Flash and .Net vs the Internet. Rather than fighting competition, pushing competitors to bankruptcy and trying to fool around with legislation and processes (such as the ones from ISO), perhaps the time has come to embrace the competition, and walk the line of the industry. Shareholders have had their fair share of Microsoft’s “innovation” and other “ vistasters”.
Manipulation and disinformation is still abound. Be careful. █
“That particular meeting was followed by an anonymous smear campaign against one of the TC members. A letter was faxed to the organization of the TC member in question, accusing the TC member in question of helping politicize the issue (which is, of course, untrue). I too had the dubious pleasure of hearing first hand how Microsoft attempted to remove me from the TC (they did not succeed, thanks to integrity and cojones of the organization I am affiliated with).”
“If this unethical behaviour by Microsoft was not sufficiently despicable, they did the unthinkable by involving politics in what should have been a technical evaluation of the standard by writing to the head of the Malaysian standards organization and getting its business partners to engage in a negative letter writing campaign to indicate lack of support of ODF in the Malaysian market. Every single negative letter on ODF received by the Malaysian standards organization was written either by Microsoft, or a Microsoft business partner or a Microsoft affiliated organization (Initiative for Software Choice and IASA).“
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.