Bonum Certa Men Certa

A Look Back at OOXML BRM, Stacking, ISO's Admission of Failure

Bye bye S O?

There are many news reports at the moment, but here are a few of interest.

The first one is a seemingly 'balanced' article that lets Microsoft characterise opposition to OOXML as "anti-Microsoft". This dishonest strategy was noted before. In any event, the article contains old information which we repeated a couple of times in the past week:

Others have expressed their disillusionment with the standards process as a whole, even those who work for the ISO.

The former convener, Martin Bryan, of the joint ISO/IEC committee working on document standards said that corporations are exerting more and more influence over the technical people at national standards bodies.

"The days of open standards development are fast disappearing," he wrote last November. "Instead we are getting 'standardization by corporation,' something I have been fighting for 20 years."


Have a look over a Groklaw, which posted this cumulative report.

We count 20 direct Microsoft participants [in the BRM]:

1 BELGIUM Mr. Bruno SCHRODER MICROSOFT 2 BRAZIL Mr. Fernando GEBARA Microsoft Brazil 3 CANADA Mr. Paul COTTON Microsoft Canada 4 COTE D'IVOIRE * Mr. Wemba OPOTA MICROSOFT West and central Africa 5 CZECH REPUBLIC Mr. Å tepán BECHYNSKÝ Microsoft Czech Republic, Ltd 6 DENMARK Mr. Jasper Hedegaard BOJSEN Microsoft Denmark 7 FINLAND Mr. Kimmo BERGIUS Microsoft Ltd 8 GERMANY Mr. Mario WENDT Microsoft Deutschland GmbH 9 ISRAEL Mr. Shmuel YAIR Microsoft 10 ITALY Ing. Andrea VALBONI Microsoft Italy 11 JAPAN Mr. Naoki ISHIZAKA Microsoft 12 KENYA Mr. Emmanuel BIRECH Microsoft East Africa 13 NEW ZEALAND Mr. Brett ROBERTS Microsoft New Zealand 14 NORWAY Mr. Shahzad Rana Microsoft Norge AS 15 PORTUGAL * Prof. Miguel Sales DIAS MICROSOFT Portugal 16 SWITZERLAND Mr. Marc HOLITSCHER Microsoft Schweiz GmbH 17 UNITED STATES Mr. Doug MAHUGH Microsoft Corporation 18 Ecma International Mr. Brian JONES Microsoft 19 Ecma International * Mr. Jean PAOLI Microsoft Corporation 20 Assistant to Project Editor Mr. Tristan DAVIS Microsoft

Is that normal? I doubt it, but if it is, could someone do something about it? How can employees of a company go against the folks that pay them, even if they privately think the format is junk? Some might, but they'd surely not be employees after that. Now might you get why the Czech Republic waxed poetic about how wonderful the BRM was?

[...]

But isn't it good to see how many are refusing to do so? Consider the pressure, the threats, the stacking the deck, evidently some promises too, not to mention the confusing and ever changing rules, and it's remarkable. And yet all around the world, people have the courage and the integrity to say No.


It is worth adding that some countries were represented directly by Microsoft employees, in order to essentially vote on a Microsoft cash cow. It cannot get more insane than this, can it?

Regardless of the outcome, as we have already said yesterday and Andy Updegrove now assures readers, ODF is likely to maintain its growth rates.

Many journalists and others have asked me whether I have a prediction on what the outcome will be, and also what I think it will mean if OOXML is approved. I don’t have an answer to the first question, as there are too many countries involved, and too much may change until the last minute. But I do have an answer to the second question, and that answer is the same one that I have given every time that a new decision point has loomed in the ongoing quest for a useful format standard that can bring competition and innovation back to the desktop, as well as ensure that the history and creativity of today will remain accessible far into the future.

That answer is this: if anyone had asked me to predict in August of 2005 (the date of the initial Massachusetts decision that set the ODF ball rolling) how far ODF might go and what impact it might have, I would never have guessed that it would have gone so far, and had such impact, in so short a period of time. I think it’s safe to say that whatever happens with the OOXML vote is likely to have little true impact at all on the future success of ODF compliant products.


At the end of the day, Microsoft might come to regret what it did to ISO. Here is a decent new comment:

I'm thinking Microsoft's minions truly hate that their bad behavior is being watched and documented so closely by so many people. It's not big news on Fox News, so they likely thought it wouldn't be noticed by the general public. I know the US won't do anything to stop the big, spoiled Microsoft brat from bullying the world, but there is hope that the EU might be paying attention too...so maybe there will be some justice along the way...some far off day.


Microsoft's punishments for this are yet to be seen.

"If you flee the rules, you will be caught. And it will cost you dearly."

--Neelie Kroes (about Microsoft), February 27th, 2008



Neelie Kroes

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rust is Eating Linux
That's a recipe for problems
Cindy Cohn (Executive Director of EFF) is a Millionaire, Earned Almost $30,000 Per Month Before Departing While the EFF Lost Money
EFF is "Big Business"
Microsoft XBox is Dying as More Retailers Stop Stocking It and Massive Layoffs Planned Again
Microsoft is circling down the drain
 
Links 06/10/2025: Grokipedia as Malicious Slop, US 'Martial Law' a "New Normal"
Links for the day
Fake Economics and Clown Computing Circuses
who's gonna pay for these scams?
Nobel Prize in Economics Does Not Exist, It's Propaganda From Sveriges Riksbank
"It is that time of the year when it is important to remind people that there are no Nobel Prizes for professional wrestling, astrology, or economics"
Non-Denying Denial From Microsoft (Again) Regarding the End of XBox Consoles
It's kind of hilarious that even the site chosen by Microsoft to relay its BS, based on past loyalty, isn't quite buying it
Bringing Back Lost Articles From the 1990s: Microsoft Products Leave Door Open to NSA
Nothing has changed since then
When the Slop Bubble Pops People Will Say Richard Stallman Was Right (Again)
What was once known as Computer Science turned into "IT"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 05, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 05, 2025
Links 06/10/2025: Science, Hardware, and Andrej Babis Making a Comeback
Links for the day
Links 05/10/2025: Slow News Day and Wondering About the Canada Post Walkout
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/10/2025: Telnet Debugging and The Programmer’s Brain
Links for the day
More Than "Just a Rumour": XBox Seems to Have Just Died
At this point, why would any studio out there target or partner with XBox?
How to Tell Your Community, Project or Company is Being Infiltrated by Saboteurs
How to identify nefarious social engineering
The Fortieth Birthday of the FSF Made Us Extremely Happy
It feels like the 'hacker community' is regrouping to discuss things and prepare for the next Big Challenge
Chat Control 2 Them, Not 2 U
Follow the advice of Dr. Patrick Breyer
Mozilla: Throw Away Your "Old" PC and Enable "Digital Rights Management (DRM)"
This is heading in a bad direction
Controlling Our Computing for Another Forty Years
40 years of freedom
Motivational Small Place to Run Large Sites
We deem this scenery motivational and inspiring
Techrights' Text Version (Daily Bulletin) Turns Five This Month
our plain-text bulletins are turning 5 this month
We'll Continue Covering the Moribund OSI and Other Dysfunctional if Not Hostile Institutions
Stefano Maffulli's departure is due to his defection and due to him failing the mission in pursuit of money (his salary)
Links 05/10/2025: Lufthansa Layoffs (4,000) and More Spotify Woes (Aside From Massive Debt)
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day