Bonum Certa Men Certa

Nokia and Finland: A Mystery Behind OOXML and Silverlight

A concerned reader contacted us as soon as the following news had first made an appearance. You ought have come across some stories about Nokia and Silverlight by now, but if you haven't, here we go.

Herein we present some analysis rather than offering a more superficial breakdown of the news, in which case no new information will be added. From the Inquirer (to be considered as background):

Nokia signs up to Silverlight



[...]

Last year Silverlight announced its support for Linux and Macs. With this latest mobile push, Microsoft is moving toward making Silverlight a main competitor to the likes of Adobe flash.


Again, this is not true. Microsoft never announced such a thing for Linux, but it clearly continues to deceive with Novell's help. Moonlight is not Silverlight, either. It's not even a Flash alternative.

Here is what our reader told us:




Hi, Roy,

Something's going sour in Helsinki:

Five delegations gave default approval to the Ecma comments (Chile, Cote D'Ivoire, Czech Republic, Finland, Norway) http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/03/art-of-being-mugged.html

Nokia to turn its back on web standards in older phones.

[...]

It's toxic for sure. What have Bruce Perens or Eric S. Raymond (ESR) had to say about this? ESR publicized the 'Halloween documents' which talked precisely about problems like that one, i.e. decommoditization of technologies.




On the issue of OOXML, mind pressure in the potentially-stacked panel in Finland. Follow the links contained in this cross-reference for more information about OOXML in Finland. Nokia was involved in what seemed like misconduct at the time (nepotism and interest/partnership-oriented decisions). More recently we saw the 'donation-as-a-lockin' trick being pulled in Finland, as well.

“Additionally, coming to mind is the recent incident where a former Softie, who now works at Nokia, intercepted Ogg...”It would be interesting to find out if Microsoft's departing head of the Mobile Unit, who recently moved to take charge of Vodafone, is related to this somehow. Can any of the readers help us find out? Additionally, coming to mind is the recent incident where a former Softie, who now works at Nokia, intercepted Ogg, whipping it right out of HTML5. He kept insisting that Ogg is proprietary (even affected by patents) and that DRM is the way to go. Both are lies of course.

Let's not forget Nokia and Qt. The acquisition of Trolltech may have been somewhat malicious [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and it was soon followed by a flirt with Microsoft. It was about Windows Mobile. There are other deals including one that revolves around Microsoft DRM. To repeat this older news:

Nokia is to support Microsoft's PlayReady content access technology into the Nokia S60 and Series 40 mobile device platforms, starting in 2008.


Silverlight, just as a reminder, is a swing at Google and at LAMP, including of course GNU/Linux. Novell is sadly enough helping with this and I'm arguing with de Icaza over there in USENET at the moment. Me and others give him a very hard time with questions he is unable to answer about Moonlight and Mono licensing, especially when it comes to Novell and patent licensing. Responding to this latter issue our reader adds:




You have to wonder what's going on in the heads of people like him. Advancing the agenda of his movement not only sidelines better technology but causes active harm to the public in many countries.




Further to this, he points out suspicious decisions that relate to our earlier observations:




I would very much like to find out the rational for Finland and Norway moving NO -> Abstain -> YES recently and all in the face of corruption, irregularities, procedural violations, inappropriate constraints, and technical hortcomings.

ISO is not there to *develop* standards and MOOX is very clearly in the *early* stages of development. ISO is there to ratify finished standards. Clearly ISO's relation to Ecma needs to be reexamined.

[...]

It would help if we could get MS reflagged as the noxious and malevolent anti-American movement that it is...

A one-liner summing up the conflict of interests the Microsoft employees are under, would help.




Here is a timely press release from yesterday:



Curl’s RIA Platform Version 6.0 was announced in the fall of 2007 and makes it easier for developers to build enterprise-class RIAs.


Slightly older:



"The decision to release all of the Curl source code above the RTE was made to encourage broad adoption of Curl as a viable enterprise RIA platform and provide all of the components required to support development of Curl applications," Richard Treadway, vice president of product strategy for Curl, told LinuxInsider.




With the proliferation of mobile devices however, HTML browsing will not be available on all these systems, and the iPhone does not have Flash and probably will not have Silverlight either, said Ferraiolo. AJAX, however, is always there and is open and can be counted on, he said.


Those who say that RIA and Free software cannot go hand in hand are simply fulfilling their own prophecy and defend a selfish desire to take the proprietary route. Curl is Apache-licensed.

Some more timely warnings about Silverlight:



Avoid, avoid and avoid Silverlight. Do not allow Microsoft to seize the World Wide Web, which was established and succeeded owing to open standards and no cost barriers like software patents.

Silverlight toilet

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
 
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Motorcycling in Central Oregon, Protocol Styles and the Flag of Sark
Links for the day
Links 30/09/2025: Death Sentences, Internet Censorship, and Internet Shutdowns
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Social Control Media and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Richard Stallman About to Give More Talks in Europe, Some Confirmed Already
In Göteborg
Links 30/09/2025: CERN in "Have I Been Pwned" and More Windows TCO Blunders
Links for the day
Microsoft Canonical is Selling Mass Surveillance and Back Doors as "Security for Ubuntu"
If you are looking for a GNU/Linux distro to use, just remember that Microsoft has Ubuntu in the bag
Justice for Wildlife
animals cannot speak to humans who hate animals
Cowboys Gonna Be Cowboys (on the Internet, They're Not a New Problem)
Boys will be boys
Cowboys of the "Left" and Cowboys of the "Right"
Don't believe the lie that this is some "leftist" thing
When Codes of Conduct Serve to Protect Criminals From Much-Deserved Scrutiny
CoCs are typically unfit for purpose because enforcement lacks context and suitable understanding of the full background (the "full story")
It Took the Open Source Initiative (OSI) 4+ Years to Address the 'Data Breach' or Data Protection Violation Reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) in March 2025
We may never know the dialogue or its nature
Even Microsoft's Biggest Boosters (and Media Operatives) Are Turning Against Microsoft
Expect many more layoffs before the fake "results" next month
GNU Was Right 42+ Years Ago
Since then the abusive, user-hostile technology has spread like mushrooms
Old Isn't Always Inadequate
How many gadgets manufactured today (in 2025) will still work in 2075?
The Monkey Business of Rust People
Compatibility won't matter
Almost Half of the FSFE's Money (the Fake 'FSF', Misusing the Brand) Comes From Vodafone
That money always comes with strings, even if they're invisible to most of us
Microsoft Lunduke Spreads Deliberate Lies to Incite Online Mobs
Has he lost his reading comprehension skills?
Our 19th Birthday (in Just Over 5 Weeks From Now)
We meanwhile have ongoing, solid plans to cover patent-related issues when the FSF turns 40
British GNU/Linux Distro FydeOS Tops DistroWatch
That seems like a decent site and decent effort to keep an eye on
We'll Soon Have 75,000 GemText Pages
avoid many perils of today's Web
Google Used Free Software to Build a Monopoly. Now Google Kicks Free Software to the Curb
The "G" in "Google" does not stand for GNU. It never did. It's just another greedy company.
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Retro Hardware, Federated Fragmentation, and Nex Server Written in C
Links for the day
4 More Days Till "4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users"
We are now just 4 days away from the rare anniversary
Two Months After Merging to Hide GitHub Losses Microsoft is Doing It Again (This Time Windows)
Merging those two together is not a sign of strength but a tightening of budget
Speculations About the Next Large Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs
the mass layoffs are likely to happen on week 3 or 4 in October
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 29, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 29, 2025