Summary: The German government urges the public to stop using Internet Explorer for security reasons, but not a word is said about Microsoft's violations of the law and violations of standards

The recent outcry in Germany over ODF neglect is being amplified or supported by an IBM-backed group which bemoans the old TCO FUD. It is suggested that exit costs should be factored in. As europa.eu put it, "Exit costs, the cost of IT vendor lock-in, the cost of network effects and innovation should be included in any Total Cost of Ownership financial estimate of IT projects, says the OpenForum Academy, a think-tank.

"Next to suggesting improvements to the TCO model, the think-tank called on governments to make open standards a requirement for all of its IT. "Open standards are the key to software interoperability and should be made a requirement of all government IT", said OFA Fellow Jochen Friedrich."

In his blog, Friedrich writes about the government of Germany, which ought to take note of Microsoft's violation of the law in the Web browsers market. A recent report says that the Germany government only discouraged the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer due to security issues. Not much is said about the lock-in, either, putting aside the corruption and disdain for the law (the latest charm offences from the Gates Foundation is another poor attempt at whitewashing the leading perpetrator).

According to Reuters: "The German government urged the public on Tuesday to temporarily stop using Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer following discovery of yet-to-be repaired bug in the web browser that the software maker said makes PCs vulnerable to attack by hackers.

"The security flaw, which affects hundreds of millions of Internet Explorer browser users around the globe, publicly surfaced over the weekend."

In other news, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10 continues to violate standards. Microsoft has still not changed. To quote The H: "The patch's author, Adobe employee Roy T. Fielding, said that the code modification was made because Internet Explorer openly violates the W3C's as yet unapproved DNT standard. Section 3 of this document expressly specifies that a browser must not determine a preference for this header, and that users should actively decide whether a value of 0 ("Yes, I want to enable tracking") or 1 ("No, I don't want tracking to be enabled") is to be applied."

Violation of standards at Microsoft is not limited to the Web. No government should pretend to be unaware of this. ⬆

"Microsoft implemented ODF with all the grace of a 6 year old asked to tidy up their room"

--Jeremy Allison, LCA 2010