Bonum Certa Men Certa

In Another Attempt to Derail British ODF Policy Microsoft Calls Its Systematic Bribery "Internationally Recognised"

Microsoft wants us to embrace the criminal's standard, not a real standard

ODF format



Summary: Microsoft strikes back against the British government for 'daring' to consider something other than proprietary software with proprietary formats

CRIMINAL organisation Microsoft, which is renowened for its illegal activities and collusion with other criminal entities, is calling its syndicates in the UK to go retaliate against British politicians who favour Free/libre software, fair competition, British companies, and real standards. This was predicable because it happened before (e.g. watering down of policies). It's Microsoft's way of "doing business". Corruption is the de facto standard when it comes to Microsoft deals with the British government (various departments). We included evidence in over 100 posts over the years.



Microsoft's latest retribution attempts are centred around the requirement of a standard. Microsoft wants us to believe that its crime-riddled proprietary formats, collectively referred to as OOXML, are in any way 'standard'. They're not. Not even in the UK. They're corruption. Recall that even Britain’s BSI faced lawsuits over this corruption, as we covered in old posts such as:



Having been found to be bribing governments (probably as big as China's, not just banana republics), Microsoft should watch carefully its next move in the UK. If it attempts to bribe officials again (even 'soft' bribery), then it will receive a lot of blowback but no jail time, as it's exempted from punishment for such crimes and Ballmer ran away on time.

Microsoft says that choosing ODF "sets a worrying precedent because government is, in effect, refusing to support another internationally recognised open standard," referring to OOXML in the latter part. Well, everyone who watched this carefully knows the huge levels of corruption involved there, including bribed officials, rigged voted, etc. Nobody really considers OOXML "internationally recognised"; except Microsoft boosters and fake 'journalists' perhaps. Those know are informed recognise it as an internationally-recognised case of systematic crime by Microsoft. Here is a summary of just some of these crimes (counted up to an early point in time).

The British press says "Microsoft hits back at government's open source plans," noting that "Microsoft has urged its partners to pay closer attention to what it describes as the government's "ill-considered" proposals to move to a more open IT model."

Here again we see Microsoft acting by proxy. We saw that before. Whenever some Free software house (small business) in the UK receives some business from the government Microsoft sends out its proxies/partners as though they are some kind of "task forcex" (Microsoft terminology), commissioned to destroy any traces of non-Microsoft in the public sector. It's an act of cleansing and it's very well designed and occrdinated by the Redmond-based convicted monopolist.

"Last month," the article gives context, "the government hinted it was considering moving away from technology such as Microsoft Office in favour of open-source offerings in an effort to break supplier "oligopoly"."

Yes, indeed, and what's wrong with that?

"According to Microsoft," says the article, "the government is currently undergoing a consultation on plans to mandate the use of Open Document Formats (ODF) and to ditch Microsoft-developed Open XML (OOXML)."

Yes, indeed, because that's the ethical and technical thing to do. We are going to take part in this consultation and we are going to urge our readers (especially British readers) to do the same. Microsoft is certainly going to use its proxies to bombard those in the consultation (sometimes it infiltrates those who assess the process, too, in addition to sending template letters to 'DDOS' the process, occasionally with sockpuppets) and the words from Microsoft are especially appalling because OOXML is a story of bribery and corruption, OOXML is not really a standard. Marketing, deception, revisionism, personal attacks etc. are going to be used by Microsoft to try to make it look like ODF is all about IBM and OOXML is 'the' standard. In reality, it's not an international standard but an international case of crime (that tte European Commission was assigned to handle). Hundreds of examples can be given to show this, including bribery, entryism, retribution, bullying, etc. If OOXML was a real "open" standard, then how come when I leaked it (as if one needs to 'leak' standards) Microsoft and its cronies threatened litigation against me? So much for "open"... they were hiding the technical flaws and the fact that it's just a scam (cannot be implemented by anyone but Microsoft, which also did not implement it, ever).

A Cabinet Office representative stated in response to Microsoft’s comments: "As part of our long-term economic plan, we're committed to opening up government procurement to a wider range of suppliers. We want to see a greater range of software used and for departments to choose what is right for them and the users of their services."

Simon Phipps, who back in the days of these Microsoft crime worked at Sun, calls for people to participate in the consultation. Any Updegrove, who was at the forefront back then as well, says "[t]he deadline is next Wednesday - make sure you're heard!" We will be writing a letter and we urge others to do the same, possibly over the weekend. Talking about Microsoft's crime and the rogue process should not be a taboo; justice has a lot to do with it. If the UK moves to ODF and embraces Free software, then other nations will use that as an example and follow suit.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
 
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
Links for the day
Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
a rather sensitive matter
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, Planet Ubuntu, Anti-Linux FUD, and Microsoft SPAM
It's not easy to altogether avoid take articles these days
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: "MBA Tear" and Slop ('AI') as Plagiarism
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2025: "Convicted Felon and MElon Trade Insults" and Europe Snubbed by US Again
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2025: Microsoft XBox Bracing For More Mass Layoffs, Climate Disaster, Fake 'Money' Tokens From US President
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: Vanishing Cultures and MElon Implosion
Links for the day
Extortion is a Crime, Even If You're Based in Another Continent and Work for Microsoft
reported to British authorities
We're in 6/6 Now, Almost Halfway in 2025
2025 was probably the best year for us
South Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
We're hardly even "Cherry-Picking" or conveniently singling out one South American nation
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part III: Data Protection Failures, Just Like at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Just less than a decade ago we showed that the EPO had illegally shared staff data with third parties
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 05, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 05, 2025