Bonum Certa Men Certa

Is Microsoft's OOXML the “Greatest [of] Scam[s] of Computing History”?

Once a scammer, always a scammer

OOXML is fraud



Assorted links from 6 months ago:



This is now:

As expected, the Internet is abuzz with furious responses to abuse which affects each and every one of us in merely every country. Here is another set of links, which in turn contain some more links to detailed information. We really need to tidy these up and have material better organised for studying this widespread fiasco, which we earlier likened to a DDOS attack (too much, too fast).

An unanticipated response to this "scam" comes from Charles, whose words are echoed in the title of this one particular post.

If you thought you had seen everything about OOXML with the likes of Rick Jelliffe, committees that have been stuffed by Microsoft and its minions to the point where no other choice than approval would be possible, think again. And do open your eyes to one of the greatest scams of computing history. Below are a few examples of what I’m talking about today. But they are meaningful enough.


To learn about the likes of Rick Jelliffe, start with any of these anchors [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. It's a widespread phenomenon rather than an individual case. It doesn't make Rick Jelliffe a scapegoat, but rather just a part of an extremely revolting problem.

'Chaos' in Norway



The process in Norway was suspended. This ought to help the world realise just how severe the abuse had been.

Some members of the Norwegian committee that participated in the International Organization for Standardization's Office Open XML vote are calling on Norway's Ministry of Trade and Industry to suspend the country's "yes" vote pending an investigation, according to a letter to the ISO from the Norwegian committee's chairman.


We mentioned Norway on several occasions over the past couple of days alone [1, 2, 3] and summarised some older incidents from Norway here. If you study the abuses in Norway, you will hopefully find these pointers valuable.

Bill Gates and Denmark



“You may wish to know also about the notorious relationship between the Danish Prime Minister (PM) and Microsoft's Bill Gates.”The coupling of Denmark and Microsoft is a particularly unique one. We put together a heap of links right here and later posted a a gentle complaint about a Danish Microsoft partner, Jesper Stocholm, who was doing an exceptional amount of legwork for that company, even entering Linux forums to defend OOXML. He was not alone.

You may wish to know also about the notorious relationship between the Danish Prime Minister (PM) and Microsoft's Bill Gates. This goes quite a long way back (quiet visits to his house) and it has given the PM a lot of flak over the past couple of years. Here is the gossip of interest:

Rumors are running that he also lobbied Denmark [on OOXML], where it is well known that he is a friend of the Prime Minister.


Bill Gates' 'brave crusade' for OOXML did not go unnoticed. We covered or at least mentioned the 'Mexico report' and the recent sentimental blackmail.

"Gone" is "Yes" in Polish



Poland was covered recently in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Here is another update from PolishLinux, which shows how the rules got ignored, disregarded. The European Commission already investigates Poland's TC, for a fact.

* 24 members voted to approve (7 of them without even knowing that, since no vote was counted as a vote to approve), * 13 members voted against approving the standard (a ‘NO’ vote), * 4 remaining members decided that Poland should abstain from voting.


Some more background and information you can find right here.

The Cost of Lock-in



Here is a good assortment of links from a knowledgeable CTO.

Clearly, the entire process has become a mockery. It is quite infuriating having to watch this and being unable to change what is so very obviously a process that is now heavily undermined and compromised by vendor interests. ISO is losing credibility as a technical and independent standards gremium.

Why should we care? Nobody forces us to use OOXML, right? One of the posters in the Slashdot discussion wonderfully summed up the situation we will be in:

OOXML will pass, MS Office will use its own, non-standard version of OOXML, governments will claim they are in compliance with laws requiring open standards, and the rest of us will be in the same boat we've been in for fifteen years. It's all quite sick.
Yes, I reckon that's exactly what's going to happen, and that - of course - is exactly what Microsoft wants. Sigh...


The post above comes from a blogger who recently wrote a good piece that explains the "anti-Microsoft" label. And again, just to clarify, I don't hate Microsoft. I hate corruption (who doesn't?), which Microsoft appears to resort to every day, almost as though it's a bodily function. Microsoft is very quick and skilled at comparing opposition to corruption to something else, calling critics of corruption "Microsoft bashers" or "anti-Microsoft." They even tried this against Andy Updegrove (believe it or not!).

As you will find if you search the Web, I happen to slam corruption of all sorts and all kinds of companies get accused. But Microsoft is truly a treasure trove, for its history elucidated the fact that had grown, thrived, and sustained itself in great levels of corruption, sheltered only by media outlets which it owns (sometimes literally) and government 'insiders' that turn a blind eye. Crime can go unpunished when information channels suppress truths or mitigate representation of major incidents. And that's not even accounting for what happens with Rupert Murdoch in charge...

Also see (in relation to mislabeling of critics as means of distraction):



"It’s a Simple Matter of [Microsoft’s] Commercial Interests!"

--Microsoft's Doug Mahugh about OOXML in Malaysia

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
 
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025