Bonum Certa Men Certa

It's Official: ISO Committee Captured by Vendor Microsoft Corporation

Stuffed committee effectively renders ISO obsolete

ISO does nothing to save itself from sinking. Beginning with slightly older news about the protests in Norway and the subsequent exodus [1, 2, 3, 4], there is this new article from Heise, which explains how it relates to ISO's incompetence.

Thirteen of the twenty three members of the Standard Norge expert committee, which dealt with the standardisation of Microsoft's OOXML document format, have announced their resignations. They are protesting against the way Norway's decision in favour of ISO standardisation was made. In an open letter, they state that Standard Norge has clearly placed commercial interests ahead of what is best for society and what is technically and professionally desirable. In their opinion, the way it dealt with the process has resulted in Standard Norge forfeiting all credibility within the IT sector.


Now comes the uglier stuff. A reader has just infromed us that:

We now have a partial response to the question above, straight from the horse's mouth: According to Alex Brown: "By my (rough, unconfirmed) count, there were eight MS employees in 15 NB delegations (+ 4 people in the Ecma group) out of the 35 or so attendees." (http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/10/wheres-rob.html)

12 Microsoft + Ecma people out of 35 people ! Isn't this a record ? But of course Microsoft is NOT hijacking SC 34, as "Delegates are charged with representing national positions" (from the same horse's mouth).


Here is the post from Rob Weir, who in protest decided not to even attend or participate in Korea's behind-closed-doors fiasco.

To put it in perspective, the US SC34 shadow committee currently has around 20 members. Before Microsoft stuffed it we had around 7. Regardless, the US SC34 mirror committee typically sends a delegation of 2 or 3 people to international meetings. IBM attendance at these meetings has varied from 0 to 2. It really depends on where the meeting is being held. If it is being hosted by an NB where an IBM employee is a member, then he will typically attend. If something is on the agenda that I find interesting, then I'll typically attend regardless of location.


Further reading reveals an ugly picture.

Earlier on we wrote about Microsoft hijacking Brazil's voice (Microsoft hijacks many voices [1, 2]) and here is another nugget of information.

The company from Redmond is heavily investing in the ISO SC34 committee. Thanks to a brazilian blogger who manage to shed some light on what was going on in there, we hear now that Microsoft Korea was paying for dinner.


This seems like the old 'gentle bribing' of people using uninvited love and/or money. We covered such examples before [1, 2, 3, 4]. Microsoft does this type of thing quite routinely, especially when it wants to gag critics or needs to buy their consent.

At the end of the day, why capture the SC34 committee? It's about hijacking ODF [1, 2], as expected.

In relation to those implicit threats that I received from Alex Brown (he has just moved his Web site from PHP to Microsoft ASP .NET by the way), ComputerWorld had something to say.

The point is, the *entire process* should be out in the open: that's how we do things in the 21st century, remember - the Internet, open source, Web 2.0, that kind of stuff? You know, a collaborative endeavour that draws as widely as possible on people who have relevant skills, whoever they may be? If the ISO wants to cling to secret squirrel meetings with Terribly Important Experts in closed rooms, that's its prerogative; but if it does, it can't presume to be a modern global standards body with any credibility, and it should make way for others to do the job.

A transparent process should be a badge of honour for the participants, since no one can then impugn their actions, and a basic act of respect towards the users of that standard, who are not made to feel like peasants receiving grace as the holy ISO tablets are handed down from Mount Geneva.

Given the decidedly turbid process that has swirled around the standardisation of OOXML, the need for some clarity is all the greater. The idea of the ISO suing someone for doing what ought to be one of its primary responsibilities, because it might result in a loss of “revenue” - as if the whole point of the ISO and national standards bodies were to make money - is sad in the extreme.


To fight corruption, it is not always possible to remain gentle and abstain from becoming more blunt sometimes. It's interesting to see the ODF Alliance Awards being referred to as heroism. A lot of people took heaps of personal attacks and smear campaigns [1, 2, 3, 4] for 'daring' to defend ODF and the integrity of the standards process. Even Andy Updegrove, the polite standards expert who wrote about this award, has already been assigned the label "Microsoft hater" (labels like these are nasty [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) by the familiar group of snobs that is Microsoft and its money-sharing partners.

In summary, just when you think that ISO could not dive any lower, it keeps surprising. It's already a wreck due to Microsoft OOXML; now it wants to hijack and ruin ODF too, bending it Microsoft's way. It has already become evident who pulls ISO's strings.

OOXML protests in India
From the Campaign for Document Freedom

Recent Techrights' Posts

The 'Culture Wars' in Free Software Have Gone Out of Control
Social control media amplifies such utterly infantile discourse
10 Out of 10: RMS Attracts Massive Audience in Göteborg, Sweden (All Seats Occupied, Some People Standing)
a 55-second clip of his talk
The Lawsuit by Clients of Brett Wilson LLP Against Brett Wilson LLP is Officially On, It is Progressing, The 'Experts' Pick Outside Law Firms (RPC and Mills & Reeve) to Spare Them From Litigants in Person
So it is probably quite potent
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
 
Geminispace is Very Large
The word continues to spread and the number of participants grows
Teaser: To Compensate for the Fact Our Clients Are Terrible Human Beings Who Strangle Women (While on Microsoft's Payroll) and We Get Paid by Mystery Parties We Bombard You and Your Wife With Almost 10 Kilograms of Legal Papers
If you can't win an argument, then drown the other side with papers?
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, This Time During National Day Holiday
This time it's China again
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually