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Inaction From Ombudsman/EU Commission Regarding Microsoft Lobbyists Derailing Public Policy

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Summary: Many months after the original complaint (almost a year) a deadlock is reached and Microsoft gets away with legalised corruption of EU guidelines

LAST YEAR I went through a lot of trouble trying to submit feedback and expose the role played by Microsoft lobbyists in derailing documents which promoted Free/libre software and/or open standards. Thanks to Wikileaks we already had sufficient evidence, but we asked for the evidence to be provided by a verified source, namely the EU Commission. This long journey was covered in posts such as:



  1. European Open Source Software Workgroup a Total Scam: Hijacked and Subverted by Microsoft et al
  2. Microsoft's AstroTurfing, Twitter, Waggener Edstrom, and Jonathan Zuck
  3. Does the European Commission Harbour a Destruction of Free/Open Source Software Workgroup?
  4. The Illusion of Transparency at the European Parliament/Commission (on Microsoft)
  5. 2 Months and No Disclosure from the European Parliament
  6. After 3 Months, Europe Lets Microsoft-Influenced EU Panel be Seen
  7. Formal Complaint Against European Commission for Harbouring Microsoft Lobbyists
  8. 'European' Software Strategy Published, Written by Lobbyists and Multinationals
  9. Microsoft Uses Inside Influence to Grab Control, Redefine “Open Source”


Today we received the following message with a 7-page PDF from the Ombudsman's Microsoft Exchange server (they are still stuck with proprietary software). The message says:

From - Tue Jun 29 15:04:11 2010 X-Account-Key: account11 X-UIDL: UID16773-1237770691 X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 10000000 X-Mozilla-Keys: Return-path: <EO@ombudsman.europa.eu> Envelope-to: [roy] Delivery-date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:40:27 +0100 Received: from smtp15.europarl.europa.eu ([136.173.62.228]) by blueberry.active-ns.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from <EO@ombudsman.europa.eu>) id 1OTa70-0001IA-PE for roy@schestowitz.com; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:40:27 +0100 Received: from EMAILLUXSV31.ep.parl.union.eu (unverified) by SMTP15.europarl.europa.eu (European Parliament) with ESMTP id <T96908f85e588ad3ee41ddc@SMTP15.europarl.europa.eu> for [roy] Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:40:19 +0200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01CB1788.3C8C821C" Subject: Complaint Nr. 1719-2009-(MAM)JF Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:40:20 +0200 Message-ID: <44E78AF8B41BA34C8988D3EB5783B2B201C404FE@EMAILLUXSV31.ep.parl.union.eu> X-MS-Has-Attach: yes X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: Complaint Nr. 1719-2009-(MAM)JF Thread-Index: AcsXiDxE1b0lnSc1RryOrWc8/LFItw== From: "Euro-Ombudsman" <EO@ombudsman.europa.eu> To: [roy]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------_=_NextPart_001_01CB1788.3C8C821C Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<<1719-2009-(MAM)JF-S2009-113616.pdf>> =20 Dear Sir,

Please find attached a letter from the European Ombudsman which was sent to your postal address on 20 November 2009 and returned undelivered on 23 Junbe 2010.

Yours sincerely

The Registry


It's not clear why it bounced and why it took 6 months to return to the sender. In any event, the enclosed PDF reveals nothing new; the Commission was asked to provide a copy of edits from Microsoft's lobbyist (Association for Competitive Technology). It never provided this, despite repeated requests. Sending just the final documents is absolutely useless as it says nothing about the process which was not transparent and was also stuffed by multinationals. It's rather outrageous, but at least we have documented proof of what happened and why the system is broken. More recently, this same broken system derailed the EIFv2 (see coverage below) and it's going to happen again and again unless something is reformed or the 'bad apples' get thrown out. “The more corrupt the state, the more laws,” said Publius Cornelius Tacitus. Replace "laws" with "lawyers"?

  1. European Interoperability Framework (EIF) Corrupted by Microsoft et al, Its Lobbyists
  2. Orwellian EIF, Fake Open Source, and Security Implications
  3. No Sense of Shame Left at Microsoft
  4. Lobbying Leads to Protest -- the FFII and the FSFE Rise in Opposition to Subverted EIF
  5. IBM and Open Forum Europe Address European Interoperability Framework (EIF) Fiasco
  6. EIF Scrutinised, ODF Evolves, and Microsoft's OOXML “Lies” Lead to Backlash from Danish Standards Committee
  7. Complaints About Perverted EIF Continue to Pile Up
  8. More Complaints About EIFv2 Abuse and Free Software FUD from General Electric (GE)
  9. Patents Roundup: Copyrighted SQL Queries, Microsoft Alliance with Company That Attacks F/OSS with Software Patents, Peer-to-Patent in Australia
  10. Microsoft Under Fire: Open Source Software Thematic Group Complains About EIFv2 Subversion, NHS Software Supplier Under Criminal Investigation
  11. British MEP Responds to Microsoft Lobby Against EIFv2; Microsoft's Visible Technologies Infiltrates/Derails Forums Too
  12. Patents Roundup: Escalations in Europe, SAP Pretense, CCIA Goes Wrong, and IETF Opens Up


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