Bonum Certa Men Certa

Rob Weir and Bob Sutor Return to Discussing the OOXML Frauds

Someone has to put it bluntly

In recent weeks, especially after the publication of a damning article from a journalist who had received Microsoft incentives, Microsoft has been constantly accusing IBM. It dares to portray IBM as the 'bad guy'. But wait! Is Microsoft trying to make us all forget how it orchestrated a takeover of the whole process and pretty much broke the law? Are we supposed to pay attention to IBM rather than realise that Microsoft could actually get sued for its endless OOXML corruptions around the world?

This is all well-documented and it's not going away. The real story was told and it will continue to be told time and time again. Having IBM come under fire is Microsoft's idea of diverting attention away from the real felon or attempting to respond like a 5-year-old who sticks his tongue out and says "he does it too" (only in the boy's wishful mind).

As means of reflection, noooxml.org wrote about this serious issue as well.

It is getting personal. Now Microsoft openly attacks IBM and IBM employees. The accusations against IBM of leading the international effort against office open xml ISO standardization are far from reality. However, the real matter is if that accusation is defamatory for IBM.

[...]

The campaign has to criticize the submitter. IBM clearly prefers a more diplomatic approach. Standard experts as IBM's Rob Weir provided widely recognized factual analysis. IBM may talk about "small nations that are easily influenced" while a campaign would call them a "banana republic". Through the debate we got closer and closer to more direct communication. From mostly unreadable marketing language we transformed the language of the submitter into emotional frank statements.


Here is Bob Sutor's polite response where frauds (pardon the strong word, but you have to call it what it is) are renamed "bad behavior".

IBM: Microsoft is engaging in "bad behavior"



We spoke to Bob Sutor, vice president of standards and open source for IBM, who responded to Microsoft's recent claims regarding IBM's involvement in the OOXML dispute. "IBM believes that there is a revolution occurring in the IT industry, and that smart people around the world are demanding truly open standards developed in a collaborative, democratic way for the betterment of all," Sutor told Ars. "If 'business as usual' means trying to foist a rushed, technically inferior and product-specific piece of work like OOXML on the IT industry, we're proud to stand with the tens of countries and thousands of individuals who are willing to fight against such bad behavior.


At times when Brian Jones makes cheesy and hostile remarks about IBM employees [1, 2] it becomes rather clear that Microsoft's new strategy is to accuse others rather than justify its own behaviour (some examples are appended at the bottom, embedded as hyperlinks).

That strategy which revolves around diversion won't work for Microsoft. People already know (or will soon know) far too well what has happened and they also understand that OOXML is nothing but another proprietary format.

Microsoft hosted four different conference calls last week where officials called its proprietary XML standard essential to progress, and said Microsoft could not possibly support the Open Document Format.

[...]

Blogs like Boycott Novell and Noooxml have gone into fine detail on Microsoft’s takeover of national standards bodies and its attempt to, in effect, transform the ISO into a vendor consortium.


For the time being, you are advised to avoid OOXML at all costs. .docx is used almost nowhere and it's Microsoft Office-only. Don't help it spread. There's already an international standard called ODF. It's far better, technically and morally. Contrary to what north-western parts of America (and their press) want you to believe, ODF is thriving among software vendors, governments and even businesses.

Related articles:



OOXML is fraud

Recent Techrights' Posts

Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
 
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete
Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders