Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Uses Position of Power to Impose OOXML on National Assets

It is truly astonishing to find that many government bodies actually have their key positions occupied by Microsoft employees. I am intimately familiar with quite a few examples and I will name only two.

The first one is very recent. It comes from New York where Microsoft muscled the legislature and lobbied to pass a so-called 'Microsoft amendment' that is discriminative towards Open Source.

Microsoft’s proposed change to state law would effectively render our current requirements for escrow and the ability for independent review of source code in the event of disputes completely meaningless - and with it the protections the public fought so hard for.


An older example involved changing of an important report by a Microsoft employee.

That agreement was nearly imperiled last weekend, though. Gerri Elliott, corporate vice president at Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector division, sent an e-mail message to fellow commissioners Friday evening saying that she "vigorously" objected to a paragraph in which the panel embraced and encouraged the development of open source software and open content projects in higher education.


So much for independent assessment for the benefit of the citizens, eh? Welfare and greed are mutually exclusive and even contradictory.

Here comes the latest finding, which is concerned with Microsoft's OOXML -- the very effective venom that Linux 'partners' are forced to digest. Another discussion with Mark Kent led to another example where public money is being used to promote Microsoft's agenda by locking vital data to this monopoly. The BBC is not the only Linux-hostile establishment over here.

Watch this discussion in an article about archiving data using suitable formats

Open-source advocates claim that the Microsoft-championed format is not as open as it should be and doesn't compare well to rival formats such as the community-developed OpenDocument Format (ODF).

"If it were, Microsoft wouldn't need to make Novell and Xandros and Linspire sign NDAs (nondisclosure agreements) and then write translators for them," Pamela Jones, an open-source expert and editor of the Groklaw blog, wrote recently.

But the National Archives said that it is not wedded to any particular data format and that all technology options are being considered at this time.


Mark did a little legwork and found out a little bit more about National Archives, which seemingly chose to sidle with Microsoft and even gleefully talked about OOXML in a recent BBC article.

Mark wrote:

Look at this, from the *joint* National Archives and /Microsoft/ press release:

Adam Farquhar, Head of eArchitecture at the British Library and co-chair of the Office OpenXML standards committee said: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | | So this guy, paid for by *our* taxes, is working for Microsoft to promote their proprietary formats. Now look at this:

"Microsoft has shown considerable initiative working with The National Archives, The British Library and others to increase our ability to ensure access to today's digital information tomorrow. This announcement represents an important step and shows the sort of value that effective collaboration between public and private organisations can bring to the challenge of preserving our nation's heritage."
Which you can sum up as:
"we're putting national heritage, at tax-payer's expense, into the hands of the world's greatest monopolist, to ensure access to data in the future".
So we, the taxpayer, have to *pay* to have *our* data locked into a proprietary format which will never be readable on standard platforms, supplied by a company which cannot even manage to add a proper ODF format to its office suite, and pushed by a guy, Adam Farquhar, who *we* pay for, who chairs an OOXML "standards" committee.

This is just beyond anything you could imagine. Can we get this guy moved to a more suitable job - in Microsoft, say?


So there you go. Apparently, lock-in is about 'politics', not rational choices. Microsoft has always loved escaping discussions about technical merits and turning them into a political debate. It is easier. It's diversion.

We could probably just learn from continental Europe. It understands better than most that open standards are essential. OOXML is not open, even though the acronym contains the word "open" within it. OOXML goes against the existing unified standard. On the other hand:

EU backs standard for mobile TV

[...]

David McQueen, principle analyst with research firm Informa, is not surprised that the EU has come down in favour of DVB-H.

"It is the most open standard and there are more players in the market. Finland has networks already and in France there is a satellite hybrid solution," he said.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

It's Cheaper to Pay Bribes (and Produce Press Releases) Than to Pay Fines (After Lots of Negative Publicity)
Does the UK still have real sovereignty or do corporations from overseas purchase decisions and outcomes?
November 2023 Over With GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs According to statCounter
ChromeOS+GNU/Linux combined are about 7% of the "market"
 
Links 01/12/2023: Facebook Infested With Malicious Campaigns by Imposters, ACLU Gives Advice on Doxxing and Online Harassment
Links for the day
Just Like Its Budget Allocation, the Linux Foundation Devotes About 3% Of Its Latest Newsletter to Linux, Devotes More to Linux's Rivals
It's just exploiting the brand
Links 01/12/2023: Google Invokes Antitrust Against Microsoft
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
UK Government Allowing Microsoft to Take Over Activision Blizzard Will Destroy Jobs
Over 30,000 fired this year? More?
New Report Provides Numerical Evidence That Google Hired Too Many People From Microsoft (and Became Malicious, Evil, Sociopathic)
"Some 12,018 former Microsoft employees currently work for the search and data giant"
Google: Keep Out, Don't Save Your Files, and Also Let Us Spy on Everything You Do
Do you still trust "clown" storage?
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 30, 2023
IRC logs for Thursday, November 30, 2023
Links 01/12/2023: Many Suppressions in Hong Kong and Attempts to Legitimise Illegal and Unconstitutional Fake Patent 'Court' in EU (UPC)
Links for the day
Gemini Not Deflated Yet (Soon Turning 5!)
Gemini numbers still moving up, the protocol will turn five next summer
Links 30/11/2023: Belated End of Henry Kissinger and 'Popular Science' Shuts Online Magazine
Links for the day
Site Priorities and Upcoming Improvements
pages are served very fast
[Meme] One Person, Singular Pronoun
Abusing people into abusing the English language is very poor diplomacy
Ending Software Patents in Recent Years (Software Freedom Fighters MIA)
not a resolved issue
New Article From Richard Stallman Explains Why He Says He and She for Unknown Person (Not 'They')
"Nowadays I use gender-neutral singular pronouns for a person whose gender I don't know"
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 29, 2023
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 30/11/2023: Rushing Patent Cases With Shorter Trial Scheme (STS), Sanctions Not Working
Links for the day
Links 30/11/2023: Google Purging Many Accounts and Content (to Save Money), Finland Fully Seals Border With Russia
Links for the day
Lookout, It's Outlook
Outlook is all about the sharing!
Updated A Month Ago: Richard Stallman on Software Patents as Obstacles to Software Development
very recent update
The 'Smart' Attack on Power Grid Neutrality (or the Wet Dream of Tiered Pricing for Power, Essentially Punishing Poorer Households for Exercising Freedom Like Richer Households)
The dishonest marketing people tell us the age of disservice and discrimination is all about "smart" and "Hey Hi" (AI) as in algorithms akin to traffic-shaping in the context of network neutrality
Links 29/11/2023: VMware Layoffs and Too Many Microsofters Going Inside Google
Links for the day
Is BlueMail a Client of ZDNet Now?
Let's examine what BlueMail does to promote itself
Just What LINUX.COM Needed After Over a Month of Inactivity: SPAM SPAM SPAM (Linux Brand as a Spamfarm)
It's not even about Linux
Microsoft “Discriminated Based on Sexuality”
Relevant, as they love lecturing us on "diversity" and "inclusion"...
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 28, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 28, 2023