Only days ago we thought we had found this in Denmark, having encountered such madness in many other parts of the world. This is absolutely astounding. Watch this list. Microsoft sets the deck of cards and ensures that (at least) 9 of out 14 chairs in the technical committee are also in its pocket.

Are standards really being earned? How about buying them, essentially by using money to be accredited with proxies?

There are worse sins around, but this amounts to nothing but a broken system or corruption. In Portugal, a giant such as IBM was denied attendance.

In case you wonder how or why this is relevant to this Web site, Microsoft also bought endorsement from Linspire, Xandros, and Novell (if not more companies). It uses money to eliminate (or at least suppress) opposition. This is unacceptable. It's a good thing that people spot such manipulation, never letting it escape 'beneath the radar'.