Allegations of Microsoft Influencing Vote on OpenXML in Sweden
The Swedish Standards Institute (SiS) has approved the inclusion of Microsoft's Office OpenXML as an ISO standard. The Swedish Society for Free Information Culture (Förening för en fri informationsinfrastruktur), FFII, alleges that Microsoft influenced the vote via its Swedish partner corporations.
The report by the FFII states that, shortly before the vote, 23 new members appeared at an SiS meeting. Around 20 of them were Microsoft partners, says FFII. Whereas the mood among members had previously been dismissive, the result of the subsequent vote was a clear "Yes". As a member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Sweden thus recommends the adoption of Office OpenXML as an ISO standard.
The new members had not participated in a single session of the committee responsible for the decision, says the FFII. Of the 23 new members, 19 had applied for membership after August 23, FFII member David Vuorio writes in his blog.
ISO members are currently voting on the adoption of Office OpenXML into the standard.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.