Microsoft's Gift to Open Standards

Long-time readers of this blog will recall the bitter fight over the submission of Microsoft's OOXML formats to the ISO. To the dismay of most people in the world of open source, a compromise was reached that enabled Microsoft to claim that OOXML was being approved. Here is how Alex Brown, who played a crucial role in the standardisation process, describes it:

On Open Enterprise blog.

British Library = National Disgrace

I've noted before that there's something rotten at the heart of the British Library, which insists on locking down knowledge in Microsoft's proprietary formats. Now NoOOXML starts to pull all the threads together:

the company Griffin Brown, of which the BRM convenor Alex Brown is the director, sent out a press release 13 March 08 celebrating the 10th anniversary of XML:

Recent moves by Microsoft to standardise its Office products around XML file formats merely confirms that most valuable business data in the future will be stored in XML. … Alex Brown is convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Process, and has recently been elected to the panel to advise the British Library on how to handle digital submission of journal articles.

What's the betting those digital submissions end up in OOXML?
(Via Boycott Novell.)