Bonum Certa Men Certa

Watch Out, OASIS

"The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles."

--Martin Bryan, Former Convenor of OOXML WG1



It might seem as though Microsoft could ruin soon OASIS just as it ruined ISO with ECMA. Even the IEEE and a certain situation irked some observers after it had gotten closer to ISO. OASIS, being one that thrives in openness and transparency, needs none of Microsoft, yet according to this, Microsoft might want to treat it like it already (mis)treats ODF. It gives away money. Has the world forgotten how viciously Microsoft attacked ODF [1, 2] and at a later stage slammed OASIS as well, especially through its 'talking heads'?



GNOME trashRegarding this latest development, Pamela Jones at Groklaw wrote: "I gather OASIS has no sense of irony. It's a Security Challenges for the Information Society conference, September 30 through October 3 in New London: "The Forum will provide a unique opportunity for the security standards community (public sector, private sector and standards developing organizations) to come together to discuss current issues and challenges, strategic approaches, recent successes, and future outlooks." Microsoft is a Gold sponsor, and DTrace is Platinum, which is a higher category, but the OASIS newsletter titles the item, "Microsoft sponsors upcoming OASIS Security Forum near London". And so it begins, I fear."

Does Microsoft suddenly think that OASIS is not all that bad? Is this just presence? Does it want to make it worse, so as to make it "equally ruined" w.r.t. ISO? Speaking of 'talking heads, Patrick Durusau can't help unleashing some outrageous letters. A new rebuttal:

Unlike editors as Durusau Microsoft standardisation participants are loyal drones of their company's standard they edit. SC34 won't be able to do anything which is not approved or developed in the United States. External input would be ignored unless there is a leverage. We saw it during the process. "Vendor capture" as we call it. The whole situation makes a joke out of international standardisation institutions. ISO should be as concerned as industry veterans are.

So why surrender to perpetrators because Durusau finds it more cozy? I have to admit, that is the wrong question. The true evil ISO perpetrator is IBM, a company behind everything...


ODF is not IBM. Far from it. So, what are these letters about anyway [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]? ⬆

"That particular meeting was followed by an anonymous smear campaign against one of the TC members. A letter was faxed to the organization of the TC member in question, accusing the TC member in question of helping politicize the issue (which is, of course, untrue). I too had the dubious pleasure of hearing first hand how Microsoft attempted to remove me from the TC (they did not succeed, thanks to integrity and cojones of the organization I am affiliated with)."

"If this unethical behaviour by Microsoft was not sufficiently despicable, they did the unthinkable by involving politics in what should have been a technical evaluation of the standard by writing to the head of the Malaysian standards organization and getting its business partners to engage in a negative letter writing campaign to indicate lack of support of ODF in the Malaysian market. Every single negative letter on ODF received by the Malaysian standards organization was written either by Microsoft, or a Microsoft business partner or a Microsoft affiliated organization (Initiative for Software Choice and IASA)."

A Memo to Patrick Durusau



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Massive Cuts Inside Microsoft (the Media Does Not Talk About That)
It is in many ways like IBM a decade ago
IRC's Growing Popularity in 2026
No company controls or profits from IRC, it is in the Commons
 
Links 01/11/2026: Malaysian Media Perishing, France Belatedly Identifies Social Control Media as Weaponised Yellow Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/11/2026: "Trick-or-Treating seems to be dead, at least in our neighborhood"; BaseFree Numerical System and Human Emacs
Links for the day
Links 01/11/2026: Digital Ninimalism and "Palantir Cofounder Announces Cruel Plan to Breed Thousands of Lab Monkeys for Medical Experiments"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 31, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, October 31, 2026
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: MangoWM, Qutebrowser and Codeberg, Plugh
Links for the day
In US Government Sites, GNU/Linux Measured at New All-Time High of 7% (or About 10% Across Desktops/Laptops Alone)
There's no doubt GNU/Linux is growing
Intel Has Just Lost in One Single Day Over 150 Billion Dollars in 'Value' (Market Cap), Intel is Also Over 50 Billion Dollars in Debt
This really says a lot about Wall Street and the slop bubble, doesn't it?
They Hate Him Because He's Effective
Effective voices invite more aggressive censorship attempts
Audience Growing in Spite of the Deluge of Webslop
We probably benefit from the rejection of LLM slop
The Munich FUD Tactics (Microsoft Modus Operandi): Microsoft-Connected Sites Claim Denmark Failed With Free Software, But That's Not What Actually Happened
With Microsoft, it almost always boils down to politics
Links 31/10/2026: John Romero Comeback After Being Shafted by Microsoft, Google Faces Criminal Probe Over Deforestation in Finland
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Rambling on Self-hosting and Ad Video Screens Don’t Make Money
Links for the day
Can't Trust Big Banks, Let's Try 'Bros' Instead?
But let's blame "North Korea"
"AI" as Surrogate for Debt and Distraction From Computing (Bots Described as "Agents" and/or Any Form of "Intelligence" is More Like a Religion)
We're letting people without even college degrees game the "market" (Wall Street) by lying to it
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXV - Election Integrity at a Time of Back Doors and Very Severe Bugs in UEFI
How dare British media comment on insurrection following a US election?
"The Judge Accepted That Mrs Schestowitz Had Been the Subject of a Vicious Campaign of Online Harassment"
That's consistent with how they men treat women
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Hallowe'en and "Thinking About People"
Links for the day
Links 31/10/2026: The Hinge on Apple's Constantly Breaking New Foldable iPhone Was "Built With Slop", Slop Causes Cash Squeeze GAFAM
Links for the day
Amazon's Debt Skyrockets by Almost 100 Billion Dollars in 9 Months
On top of that there is additional (secret, kept stealth by accounting tricks) debt
Google Illegally Destroyed a Quarter Million Trees Without a Permit for a Hypothetical Project That Might be Cancelled, Debt Has Soared by 30 Billion Dollars in 3 Months ($10 Billions Borrowed Per Month)
Google is bleeding from slop
Slavery at Microsoft
illegal if true
Many People "Left" Red Hat This Month, Including Yesterday
We already saw this with SUSE
Gemini Links 31/10/2026: "Where I Draw the Line With" Slop Plagiarism and "Nobody Cares That You're Leaving Proton" (Over Slop)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 30, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, October 30, 2026
Links 30/10/2026: "Over 41,000 DHS Employee Records Leaked Online" and Concerns Over Radicalism in France
Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXIV - It's an Inherently American Issue and American Elections Are at Risk From Restricted ('Secure') Boot and LLM Chatbots (Disinformation at Scale)
We'll focus a lot on US elections in the coming days
Birss Replaces Vos in UK's High Court, LLM Slop Plagiarism a Contentious Issue
Only days ago we mentioned Sir Geoffrey Vos in relation to lobbying for LLM slop
"Early Retirement" (Silent Layoffs) for Everybody Except the Executives
Some will stick around even past 70
Despite the Mass Layoffs Microsoft's Debt Soared by 5.1 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months
This is why Microsoft asks 60,000 workers to leave
Gemini Links 30/10/2026: Solar MiniBBS, Kubernetes With FreeBSD, "Sysadmin Day"
Links for the day
Microsoft Layoffs Far Worse Than the Media Tells (Microsoft Spin Laundered as "Reporting")
Some people are made to "retire" and sign an NDA to make it seem like a happy ending and mostly consensual retreat
Links 30/10/2026: Google Crashes on Slop Disappointment and GAFAM's "Data Center Blitz Is Burning Through Cash and Scaring Wall St."
Links for the day
Fake 'Articles' in The Register MS Concerning "AI"
We don't suppose The Register MS will be around for much longer after this bubble pops
What Linus Torvalds Told Me Two Decades Ago
It seems like he was eager to distinguish himself from the "elders" of FSF [...] For anything "revolutionary" to happen in the sciences one must accept the risk of living in poverty like Tesla (the person, not the right-wing fanatics) and Torvalds isn't too old to "cause a stir"
GNU/Linux as a Free Software Platform is More GNU (and GPL) Than Linux
GNU predates Linux by nearly a decades and it was born to tackle injustices
Who Or What Are Security Professionals/Experts?
Companies like GAFAM are willing to tolerate cheaters because those companies themselves are cheats
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXIII - What Garrett Did Puts Elections at Risk (Also in His Own Country, Where a Dictator Trusts Only Machines That 'Support' Him)
UEFI 'security' is only as trustworthy as its ferocious boosters
Gemini Links 30/10/2026: RIP Patrick Stewart and Amp Integration
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 29, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, October 29, 2026