Bonum Certa Men Certa

Perens on Microsoft Crimes: From SCO to OOXML

Microsoft to ODF supporters: you won.

Microsoft to press: OOXML is winning.

Earlier on we wrote about Microsoft using its patents offensively. It keeps claiming to be a victim, but it's nothing more than double-speak -- a case of buttering both sides of the toast. Since Microsoft sues using its patents in an unprecedented fashion, people begin to react. There is nothing extraordinary here, but Microsoft tried to justify going hostile.



Bruce Perens brings back memories of the confidential E-mails predating (if not preluding) the SCO lawsuit. He seems very convinced that Microsoft had a hand in it and he's looking for more 'smoking guns' so that he can share his research in high-reach press (maybe trade journals).

Crimes Microsoft Gets Away With - So Far



News publications are cautious about making accusations, and because of that, some nasty acts of Microsoft are essentially being erased from the record.

[...]

Microsoft convinced Baystar Capital to put $50 Million dollars into SCO's lawsuit against IBM and other Open Source users, and promised to "backstop" Baystar's investment if SCO lost money, according to this sworn testimony. But I'm told that one person's testimony, even sworn testimony, isn't proof.


I've left a comment there with some more details. I published an article about it before (also here), but according to Pamela Jones, a judge's confirmation is still needed.

“The road to OOXML has been riddled with Microsoft corruption.”Some of the examples given there are from the OOXML fiasco. We wrote about this earlier today. A ZDNet article now cites CompTIA. It's a Microsoft lobbying arm that fought for OOXML (Van Der Beld [1, 2, 3], anyone?). Total loss of credibility there, for sure! History is being rewritten.

The road to OOXML has been riddled with Microsoft corruption. From start to finish. It is all well documented. Interestingly enough, they also quote Microsoft's Oliver Bell, who seemed to be concerned with BoycottNovell's exposure of the corruption (he asked about us). Gray Gray Knowlton too was concerned. Might they end up escaping the company like others already have following the embarrassment and breaking of laws?

The EC has yet to slap Microsoft with heavy fines when the investigation is complete. The market cannot take care of itself when abuse becomes the 'norm'.

Ogg Theora





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It's down to Neelie now. ISO has already been corrupted to the point of providing Microsoft a safe haven.

"Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO in order to win approval for its phony ‘open’ document format, OOXML. This was so governments that keep their documents in a Microsoft-only format can pretend that they are using ‘open standards.’ The government of South Africa has filed an appeal against the decision, citing the irregularities in the process."

--Richard Stallman, June 2008

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