06.23.08

“Money Trumps Justice”, Vendor Control Trumps Truth

Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Windows, Deception, Bill Gates, Standard, OpenDocument, Europe, Open XML, ISO at 2:52 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Whitewashing, concealing and blood-soaked gloves

No less than three times in the past few days alone we complained about the MSBBC’s blatant and shameless glorification of Bill Gates and his company [1, 2, 3], which is a BBC partner that lets Gates publish columns at times. It was very heartwarming to find that even Mitch Kapor could not help responding to what the BBC had done. [via Glyn Moody]

In an interview with the BBC which is being widely linked, I recently said “claims by Microsoft that people were buying their software because it was good are pretty self-serving.” The BBC didn’t run the rest of what I said about Microsoft’s success, probably because they were looking to find someone to set up opposite Bill. Fine. These days we have blogs, so here’s my unfiltered side of the story.

[…]

But it doesn’t mean that the great Gates fortune was acquired in an entirely fair way or that Bill should be held up uncritically as a model of a successful businessman for doing so. To do so is to rewrite history and endorse a way of doing business which is harmful both to consumers and markets

The BBC is far from the only establishment in the UK which is deep in Microsoft’s pocket. We shared many concrete examples of this before. One of those bodies (or buddies) which on the face got seized by Microsoft is the BSI.

Microsoft does not typically require control inside standards bodies, but this time around it pretends to be caring about standards rather than altogether ignore them (deviation from standards s a matter of strategy). This story of vendor capture was told here before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. To repeat what the title of this posts says, “money trumps justice,” just as Glyn Moody shrewdly puts it.

A little while back I was mouthing off about being willing to fork out a fiver in support of the UKUUG’s valiant attempts to get to the bottom of the goings-on in the OOXML vote at the BSI.

[…]

This is an important fight, because if the UKUUG is unable to continue its action, it will mean that money trumps justice. I don’t think anyone would want that - well, aside from one or two organisations, maybe.

It seems safe to assert that the Administration is accountable — at least in part — for what is now perceived as imperialism using lock-in. This is corruption that serves nobody but a small circle of individuals. To a degree, ODF is a necessary prerequisite to escaping this trap, technical arguments aside. █

“People said I should accept the world. Bullsh*t! I don’t accept the world.”

–Richard Stallman

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