07.31.08
Perens on Microsoft Crimes: From SCO to OOXML
Microsoft to ODF supporters: you won.
Microsoft to press: OOXML is winning.
Earlier on we wrote about Microsoft using its patents offensively. It keeps claiming to be a victim, but it’s nothing more than double-speak — a case of buttering both sides of the toast. Since Microsoft sues using its patents in an unprecedented fashion, people begin to react. There is nothing extraordinary here, but Microsoft tried to justify going hostile.
Bruce Perens brings back memories of the confidential E-mails predating (if not preluding) the SCO lawsuit. He seems very convinced that Microsoft had a hand in it and he’s looking for more ’smoking guns’ so that he can share his research in high-reach press (maybe trade journals).
Crimes Microsoft Gets Away With - So Far
News publications are cautious about making accusations, and because of that, some nasty acts of Microsoft are essentially being erased from the record.
[...]
Microsoft convinced Baystar Capital to put $50 Million dollars into SCO’s lawsuit against IBM and other Open Source users, and promised to “backstop” Baystar’s investment if SCO lost money, according to this sworn testimony. But I’m told that one person’s testimony, even sworn testimony, isn’t proof.
I’ve left a comment there with some more details. I published an article about it before (also here), but according to Pamela Jones, a judge’s confirmation is still needed.
“The road to OOXML has been riddled with Microsoft corruption.”Some of the examples given there are from the OOXML fiasco. We wrote about this earlier today. A ZDNet article now cites CompTIA. It’s a Microsoft lobbying arm that fought for OOXML (Van Der Beld [1, 2, 3], anyone?). Total loss of credibility there, for sure! History is being rewritten.
The road to OOXML has been riddled with Microsoft corruption. From start to finish. It is all well documented. Interestingly enough, they also quote Microsoft’s Oliver Bell, who seemed to be concerned with BoycottNovell’s exposure of the corruption (he asked about us). Gray Gray Knowlton too was concerned. Might they end up escaping the company like others already have following the embarrassment and breaking of laws?
The EC has yet to slap Microsoft with heavy fines when the investigation is complete. The market cannot take care of itself when abuse becomes the ‘norm’.
It’s down to Neelie now. ISO has already been corrupted to the point of providing Microsoft a safe haven. █
“Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO in order to win approval for its phony ‘open’ document format, OOXML. This was so governments that keep their documents in a Microsoft-only format can pretend that they are using ‘open standards.’ The government of South Africa has filed an appeal against the decision, citing the irregularities in the process.”
–Richard Stallman, June 2008
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.
mike said,
July 31, 2008 at 6:15 pm
That’s strange - facts never seem to get in the way of a good story anywhere else in the business world (or news world).
They certainly seem to keep diligently reporting FUD and outright lies from the big boys all the time.
It probably has more to do with paid for bias (e.g. advertising, swag), bullying (e.g. threats - they all must pay ms a lot for crap software), just wanting to ‘back the winner’ (in the us particularly people seem to want to associate with the richest, no matter how they got there), or downright laziness (they have slick pr pieces from their own ‘pr newswire’ and similar services which are cheap ‘news’).
aeshna23 said,
July 31, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I totally disagree with the woman in the video. The type of lawyers who file the lawsuits she discusses are even worse parasitic scum than Microsoft itself. The EU bureaucrat woman basically wants to give this parasitic form of lawyers open season to destroy companies and economies. What we need is the elimination of software patents (and whatever other legal obstacles exists). Open source software is on the path to winning and only insane patent lawsuits (perhaps plus some other archane obstacles) can possibly stop its victory.
Stephane Rodriguez said,
August 1, 2008 at 1:23 am
“That’s strange - facts never seem to get in the way of a good story anywhere else in the business world (or news world).”
It’s even simpler than that. Microsoft pays big for getting anything they want to say to the world through wire news, AP/Reuters/AFP/…
Whatever gets in the wire reaches all press around the world.
Since journalists don’t investigate, most of the time they republish the wire news itself.
Microsoft sponsorship of press, magazines isn’t even useful here.
That’s just a very efficient top-down flow of daily Microsoft PR that targets their customers and governments. It is much more powerful than blogs. Especially when blogs are negative, while Microsoft is positive. Facing choice, customers favor the latter.
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 1, 2008 at 1:33 am
It’s a bit worse than that. Microsoft pressures/bribes those who write about ti critically. There are examples of this in the OOXML fiasco (arm-bending, request of publication, invitation of journalists to free trips and so forth).
Stephane Rodriguez said,
August 1, 2008 at 4:09 am
Oh that’s true, but that’s a second layer I would say. I think the first one, wire news, is the one with most impact. It’s really a continuous stream of Microsoft PR that gets distributed everywhere.