Bonum Certa Men Certa

Updates on OpenDocument Format in Europe

We recently summarised OOXML-related misconduct in Denmark, for the sake of those who filed a complaint to fight such abuse. It happend around the time when Jesper Stocholm, a Microsoft partner from the BRM in Geneva, engaged in some conversations with me.

A new article from InfoWorld now covers the recent developments. It ends with mentioning of the opposition.

But Denmark's decision to support OOXML has stirred opposition. The Danish Unix Systems User Group (DKUUG) has a complaint pending before the European Commission charging that support for OOXML unfairly favors Microsoft, violating European competition law.

They're asking the Commission to nullify the Danish mandate. If local governments choose OOXML, "then there is only one company that has a fair chance," said Keld Simonsen, vice chairman of DKUUG.

The Commission has not asked Denmark for input as of yet on the complaint. But Lebech said the complaint appears to ignore that local authorities can also use ODF.

"We want to move toward open standards, but we cannot change the public sector overnight," he said.

Denmark plans to have a third party evaluate the decision to use both ODF and OOXML in February 2009, which could result in a change of strategy, Lebech said.


Frankly, this seems like a procrastination tactic. There is no route from OOXML to ODF, so they respond too late when the lock-in is irreversible.

Danes are encouraged to be reminded of an incident where Bill Gates blackmailed the Danish government. It's not just Denmark that becomes prey to such abuses, as the cited item demonstrates.

Heise (from Germany) has another new article which speaks about a declaration for open standards .

The declaration addresses the latter issue in its criticism of Microsoft's efforts to create the controversial Open Office Open XML (OOXML) specification, an alternative ISO standard to the open document format (ODF) already certified by the international standards organization. In a talk with heise online, internet pioneer Vint Cerf criticised the Redmond company, "in the Internet world we've learned that such things have to be nipped in the bud." As one of the speakers at the Geneva conference, Cerf emphasised that a format would be selected and standardised within the framework of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Extensions would be agreed upon by consensus among the parties involved. The great success of the internet is based on the open standards that have been developed with this attitude.

At the same time, Cerf recalled the standardization work that he influenced to a great extent surrounding the TCP/IP internet protocol, for which a special Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB) was established in the 1970s. At that time, Microsoft did not occupy the role it does today in the computer industry; Big Blue was the heavyweight back then. "If IBM had decided not to implement TCP/IP at that time, pushing its own standard instead, the Internet wouldn't exist," Cerf emphasised.

The Redmonders took part in the ODF standardization process, Cerf pointed out regarding the current discussion. That they now want to do their own thing can only be explained, says the Google evangelist, by their recognition of the commercial value of net-based software and that they have a "proprietary interest" in developing such programs.


We wrote about Cerf on several occasions in the past couple of weeks [1, 2, 3, 4]. Microsoft wants him 'muted'.

ODF format
World's default filetype

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Ultimate and Inevitable Fall of OpenAI (Even Brave is 'Bigger' Now)
"When you advertise at the Super Bowl, you’ve reached just about every consumer in America. It’s the last stop. If you’re not profitable yet, you never will be."
 
Links 10/02/2025: Announcing "Stringless" and Mental Health Improvement
Links for the day
Links 10/02/2025: Facebook Mass Layoffs, "Meta" Did What Aaron Swartz Had Done But to the Tune of 81.7 Terabytes
Links for the day
Microsoft Tarnishing the Brand of Arch
Of course Arch can do whatever it wants, but being associated with Microsoft is a badge of shame
Adding Slop to Your Blog Only Makes One Assume All the Text is LLM Slop
Simon Coter from Oracle has turned to slop
Macao is Leaving Microsoft Behind
Windows is falling to new all-time lows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 09, 2025
Microsoft's WSL (LSW) Shows That It Can Never Love Linux, Only Windows
that's just how Microsoft rolls
Activism in Times of War and a Coup
'Linux' Foundation works for fascism
What the Silencing of Neatnik Tells Us About Linus Torvalds Inside a Microsoft-Dominated 'Linux' Foundation
Is Linus Torvalds free to express his mind as he wishes about every topic, even just any technical topic?
Windows Down to 11.35% in Senegal, as Measured by statCounter
Another all-time low (Windows was at 99% in 2009)
"Latest Technology News" in BetaNews is LLM Slop Promoting OOXML and Proprietary Software at the Expense of LibreOffice and OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Remember that "open-source" and Open Source aren't the same; the former is fake
Links 09/02/2025: Coffee, Toxic Productivity, and Programming
Links for the day
Debian's Human Rights violations & Swiss women Nazi symbolism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 09/02/2025: Software Patents on MP3 and Another Scam Dressed Up as "Crypto"
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2025: Russian Energy Cut Off, LLM Pushers Show Signs of Desperation
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Does Not Have Media Companies and Lobbyists on His Side, But His Message Spreads Regardless
The message of RMS is spreading in spite of all the smears
GNU/Linux Rises to All-Time High in Chile
sharp rise for GNU/Linux in Chile
Links 09/02/2025: Hottest January on Record, Panama Blackmailed
Links for the day
Why We Still Love Gemini Protocol
Gemini Protocol may seem like something "old" (it's actually very new) and something "nobody would use", but many people use it
Gemini Links 09/02/2025: "Died as a Mineral" and Game Interface for a Non-Game
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 08, 2025
Links 08/02/2025: UK Back Doors and Religious Fundamentalists in Positions of Higher Power
Links for the day
Today's IBM (Red Hat) Isn't the Company That Fought a Microsoft-Sponsored SCO in Court
IBM is nowadays in a state of rapid disintegration
When You Simply Rebrand Almost Everything as "Hey Hi" ("AI"), "Hey Hi Workloads", "Hey Hi Datacentres" and Whatnot
The "growth" has been a growing lie for years if not decades
Microsoft Windows Falls to 12% in Myanmar
Remember that Microsoft is virtually 0% in mobile
This is the Man Who's Attacking Linus Torvalds et al in "a Disease" (Social Control Media)
One thing that Richard M. Stallman and Torvalds can agree on is that Social Control Media should be avoided
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: "Thought Leaders" and Returns to Gemini Protocol
Links for the day
Links 08/02/2025: MElon Coup, Mass Layoffs at Facebook, and PlayStation Network Down
Links for the day
Unlike GAFAM, Free Software Serves You, It Does Not Serve Governments and MElons (Overlapping Forces)
Tired of oligarchy controlling your life through gadgets and "apps"?
On Wars Against Founders
We need to insist that founders remain
When It Comes to Social Control Media, Linus Torvalds is Channeling Techrights
GAFAM workers know exactly who to aim at
New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption
Slopwatch: Carnival of LLM Slop and FUD Spewed by Bots, Pasted in by MaKenna Hensley and Day
Welcome to the Web in 2025. Articles about "Linux", "Security", and the Web (e.g. "Firefox") are fake.
Links 08/02/2025: News Corp Admits Traffic Declines, Wildlife Trafficking Tackled
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: Lamp and Notions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 07, 2025