"We’re giving away a pretty good browser as part of the operating system. How long can [Netscape] survive selling it?"

--Steve Ballmer

Later on this month, Microsoft partners will find themselves behind closed door in Geneva, far away from the press and the public. In this secretive (or private) meeting they will sit down for the purpose of making a proprietary, patent-encumbered, Windows-only format an international standards. Do you trust them? We spoke about the broken process in Geneva [1, 2, 3] and there are many reasons for mistrust.

While the shenanigans are behind closed door doing their thing we shall spend a week showing the reasons for mistrust. Think of it as a week-long, seven-day 'chart' which will take a glimpse at some of Microsoft's past deeds which have it deserve little or no trust. Some of the examples will be criminal acts, for which the company was never punished (or paid to settle before a conviction was reached).

To be fair, Alex Brown does indeed make an attempt to ensure that the process is fair. Here is the latest from his blog:

So, NBs need to do their homework so that delegations arriving at the BRM in Geneva are fully briefed. The delegation should ideally know their national position on all 1,000 or so distinct comment/responses that could be discussed. It is the responsibility of the delegation to faithfully represent their national position (not individual divergent delegate views), and to be prepared to respond to any fresh issues that arise in line with guidance their NB has given them.

Sadly for Alex, the BRM will be flooded by many other people who are merely 'puppets', or agents working on behalf of a corporate interest. Examples include the fact that Microsoft itself will represent Ireland and Portugal. Microsoft will be among those who decided on Microsoft's own cash cow. Others like Novell, including Novell, are paid (bribed) by Microsoft to support OOXML. Truthfully, that an insult to this whole process. It might be seen as a mockery and an injury that will hurt ISO for a long time to come. ⬆