03.31.09
Open Cloud Manifesto Would be Absolutely Right to Exclude ISO Corrupter, Microsoft
But Microsoft was not even excluded
THERE is some outrageous coverage in the press which not only misses the point that Microsoft was kept inside the “Open Cloud Manifesto” loop; it also falls for Microsoft’s PR stunt, which almost characterises the company as a proponent of openness.
Having witnessed how Microsoft has already subverted ISO, the OSI, ODF, and even the W3C, only one who was born yesterday would allow Microsoft to participate in such a forum or consortium. This is the company whose CEO overrules the judgment of his developers in order to break standards and injure the market. To quote one example:
“In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to correct this.
“Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also.”
–Bill Gates, Microsoft [PDF]
What sane person would allow such a company to participate in the formation of standards?
One important point to be made is that Amazon, which now has several Microsoft employees among its top ranks, is a proponent of lock-in as well. It’s not just the troublesome DRM in Swindle. Here is some more information about it:
Can you have an Open Cloud Manifesto without Amazon, Google, Salesforce and Microsoft?
[...]
The principles and document overall are cast in an open source light: If you have APIs that are proprietary—or may be—this document could look pretty rigid…. All of that sounds fine on the surface and customers should be able to cloud hop. But what if you have proprietary APIs like Microsoft’s Azure effort.
As Groklaw (PJ) put it, “it’s all about the APIs. The proprietary dudes want to stay that way and keep customers locked into their cloud. Happily, they were unable to block the Internet’s openness, but they are doing what they can to chop it up now into proprietary bits.”
“So, it turns out that Microsoft made a storm in a teacup, essentially crying about nothing, making drama..”In another article, O’Grady points out that Microsoft’s exclusion was perhaps deliberate when he says that “they may see Microsoft as a threat or impediment, or may not align with what they perceive to see as Microsoft’s ambitions in the space.” In response, wrote Groklaw: “You think? Maybe they watched the “openness” and resulting “standards” and “interoperability” a la Microsoft during the OOXML process at ISO? Maybe when you are drafting a document about openness, Microsoft is the last company that pops into your head? Or maybe, according to this article, the author of the manifesto says Microsoft’s story is surprising since it was one of the first companies shown the document? Ah, the rest of the story. Sadly, one of the authors is now doing some significant back pedaling in a NW direction.”
So, it turns out that Microsoft made a storm in a teacup, essentially crying about nothing, making drama, and hiding intent which is well characterised by the story about its total destruction of ISO’s reputation due to blackmail, bribes, smear campaigns, obstruction of justice and so on.
Speaking of OOXML, here is the latest disgrace:
Portuguese Public Administration forced to use Microsoft Office 2003/7
The Court of Accounts’s Counsil for Corruption Prevention is making a mandatory survey on corruption risks in public procurement, which all public administrators must reply, by law. However, not only the survey is available only in Microsoft’s binary format, but they also demand that it is returned in Microsoft Office 2003/7 XML format (MS-OOXML).
Microsoft is colluding with the Portuguese authorities, then abusing Portuguese taxpayers and AstroTurfing in Twitter for Microsoft Windows in Magalhães. All of this misuse of power has led to a formal complaint, which was filed with the European Commission. What happens next remains to be seen. █
