My Opinions

First we have the unfinished business of the OpenXML normalization: Open Document is an ISO standard today, and Microsoft wanted to kill it and replace it with OpenXML, its home presudo-standard entrenched with patents, inconsistencies, undisclosed and unspecified informations; since having TWO standards for office documents actually means having no standard at all, ISO would surely not have welcomed OpenXML, had it been submitted as an ISO proposal. What is Microsft strategy then? Simple: just make OpenXML a standard somewhere else (an ECMA standard), then strongarm ISO by asking them to automatically convert OpenXML into an ISO standard as a consequence of it being an ECMA standard, without examining it.

Now, another example is shown in the field of electronic voting: the NY regulations about electronic voting have provisions for rsource code escrow and review of all components used in a voting machine, which is a minimum requirement for anybody taking a few seconds to think abbout the implied issues. Now, I learn from Bo Lipari's Blog that Microsoft lobbyists, that do not want to have their source code escrowed (which is fair), but also want to make sure voting machines run on Microsoft OSs (which is less fair), are working to change NY law!

Do you see the trend, or should I elaborate further?