Bonum Certa Men Certa

It's Almost Official: ISO is Controlled by Microsoft, by Insiders

Protests in Norway (OOXML)



ISO can twist, shout or even whine about personal attacks all it wants. It knows very well that it has too much to hide and its damage control attempts have thus far done more harm than good [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

When it comes to actual proof, too much evidence was gathered which shows that it had probably been corrupted (just like most parties that were involved in this saga since the early days). Here is some of the latest.

Recall our previous post about Alex Brown and the British Library. For some reason, anti-FOSS brigadier Jeff Gould has just reposted this copy of one press release that serves as another smoking gun against ISO, which has conflicting interests where Microsoft is concerned. This was also caught by linux.com just hours ago. We append this press release to this item for future reference.

The same press release was sent to us yesterday by someone whose name shall not be disclosed but whose level of authority is high. He added:

"As Dr Alex Brown says in his own words:

"Alex Brown was convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Process, and has recently been appointed to the panel to advise the British Library"

"So, the guy stands to make a bundle out of doing Microsoft's dirty work, he was responsible for the BSI change of position, and he's been given an advisory post to the British Library (known Microsoft glove-puppet) as well.

"No conflict of interest there then..."

According to this new post from ZDNet, plenty of time remains for an appeal. How much more evidence is needed to show the extent of this fiasco?

Outspoken OOXML opponents Sun and IBM have not commented on possible plans for an appeal. But at least one spokesman for the ODF Alliance said it’s too early to tell.

“I wouldn’t be surprised, given the number of documented irregularities, if an [national standard body] formally appeals. ISO rules require that an appeal be fully documented so I would expect an NB considering such a appeal to use more of the time (two months) allotted,” said Marino Marcich, a spokesman for the ODF Allliance, in an e-mail to ZDNet.


If in doubt, watch this older post about Alex Brown and the British Library. Then consider the gradually-accumulating findings about the BSI. Yes, again. It's almost as though the man handling OOXML at ISO and the BSI is a Microsoft pawn. And he's probably not alone according to the previous convenor who fled to retire. ISO should come out of its bunker and make some confessions already. It's its duty as a body that used to thrive in trust and integrity before getting captured by a predatory vendor.




As OOXML gains approval to become an International Standard, XML is poised to take centre stage for the future of high value data content storage

Press Release



17 April 2008

As OOXML gains approval to become an International Standard, XML is poised to take centre stage for the future of high value data content storage

Valuable business data held in Microsoft Office documents now visible and usable

XML is now poised to consolidate its position as the dominant format for high value business data according to Dr Alex Brown, director of Griffin Brown, an industry leading data quality specialist and convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Process.

Dr Brown commented, “Despite the huge controversy surrounding it, the standardisation of Open Office XML (OOXML) is great news for business. As the large majority of organisations in the developed world use Microsoft desktop applications, it is a significant step forward that data held within these documents can now be accessed by any XML tool. This finally opens the way for legacy documents to be accessible for compliance, audit trail, archiving and even migration to other, non-Microsoft, systems.”

ISO/IEC DIS 29500 was originally developed as the Office Open XML Specification by Microsoft Corporation which submitted it to Ecma International, an information technology industry association, for transposing into an ECMA standard and subsequently published as ECMA standard 376.



Ecma International then submitted the standard in December 2006 to ISO/IEC JTC 1, with whom it has category A liaison status, for adoption as an International Standard.

Since it is based on XML, Office Open XML is a platform-independent standard for word-processing documents, presentations and spreadsheets. The standard, which has been trialed by hundreds of organisations, has now received the necessary votes for approval as an International Standard. Independent software vendors, including Apple, Corel, Microsoft and Novell have already shipped implementations of the Open XML standard within popular applications such as iWork, iPhone, WordPerfect, Open Office and Microsoft Office 2007. The new standard will ensure that billions of documents created during the last twenty years, will continue to be forwards compatible with new technologies and applications.

Dr Brown went on to say, “We are reaching the mature stage of the Information Economy where successful organisations rely upon data to support their core business. Now that OOXML is to become one of ISO’s standard document formats alongside PDF and ODF, it brings previously opaque office content into a format where it can reused and repurposed, while monitoring and improving its quality.”

-ends-

NOTES TO EDITORS:

About Dr Alex Brown



Alex Brown was convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Process, and has recently been appointed to the panel to advise the British Library on how to handle digital submission of journal articles.

About Griffin Brown

Founded in 1997, Griffin Brown is based in the heart of ‘Silicon Fen’ in Cambridgeshire, UK. Griffin Brown provides Data Quality solutions and services to commercial publishers, financial, legal and research organisations and government departments.

XMLProbe offers breakthrough technology for automated XML quality management by providing an effective and flexible XML quality assurance system.

XMLProbe enables organisations to:

€· Reduce costs caused by poor-quality XML data



€· Ensure standards compliance for submission and receipting systems

€· Go beyond the level of validation that XML DTDs and Schemas offer

€· Have the means to implement an effective XML data quality policy

€· Manage content by producing informative at-a-glance quality reports

Some of the world's largest publishers use Griffin Brown Data Quality software to improve the quality of their structured content and drive down processing costs, including Cambridge University Press, Blackwell Publishing and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.

Griffin Brown is privately owned, backed by seed capital from current and former employees.



For more information please visit: www.griffinbrown.co.uk

Editors Contacts:

Dr Alex Brown
Director
Griffin Brown
Tel: +44 (1223) 425730
Email: alex@griffinbrown.co.uk



Andreina West
PR Artistry Limited
Tel: +44 1491 639500
email: andreina@pra-ltd.co.uk



I sold out

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
 
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
When You Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol
New US Editor in The Register is 84% Microsoft/Windows Booster
It'll be worrying if it carries on like this
Links 25/07/2025: Slop Blunders and China Has Code of Conduct for Lawmakers in HK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Some Books and Babies and Capital
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2025: NOAA Cuts Endanger Lives, "Europe's Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis"
Links for the day
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day