Despite a heated campaign to defeat International Organization for Standardization (ISO) status for Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML), over the weekend, even some staunch critics acknowledged that the company has likely garnered enough votes to win. However, that doesn't mean that they've given up the fight.

Ever since Open Document Format was standardized by ISO and Microsoft started pushing its own “open” format a significant portion of the Free Software community has been buzzing about how bloated, not really open and ultimately redundant Microsoft’s format is and moreover how Microsoft is using various “dirty tricks” to get its format approved as an open standard.

As informed in my penultimate post, I’ve contacted ISO and IEC (actually Mr. Gabriel Barta from ITTF), and he stated that he only “recommended” that the details were not revealed, and that him cannot do anything against it ( nor against Microsoft, or against this poor delegate).

anonymous supporters of OOXML use Domains by Proxy registar in order to register a site with a very similar address of Document Freedom Day's. The OOXML support site is Document Freedom Day **dot com** and redirects to a well known astroturf site which pretends to be a community of OOXML supporters.

Recently I accidentally went to a short promotional Microsoft presentation (non-US) about OOXML for work...I came away from that presentation with the impression that Microsoft as a company, and especially at the executive level, doesn't actually have a clear understanding of what an Open Standard is.

... Apparently, he was the last person to get into the flight and the first to deplane. Interestingly, that was the day when BIS met to discuss OOXML. For those who have been following this issue, India's final vote on the subject will be on 20th May 2008. Talk about timing!

Remember I told you I've noticed that people who don't support Microsoft's agenda end up the victim of smear campaigns?... The New Zealand Open Source Society is reporting that an employee at Microsoft recently sent an email to one of the technical bodies advising an NB involved in the OOXML ISO process, smearing a man's reputation

The Programmers Guild disputes that more H-1b visas would benefit "U.S. global competitiveness," and they would represent undue competition for Americans seeking jobs in this recessionary job market.