What about sends in a Groklaw alert warning that, by PJ's reading, Microsoft may be trying to take over ODF via a stacked SC 34 committee. The article lists the attendees at an SC 34 meeting in July and gives their affiliations, which the official meeting materials do not. (The attendees of the October 1 meeting, which rise a takeover offer to OASIS, are not known in full.) "Why do I say Microsoft, when this is SC 34? Look at this... list of applicants in the July meeting in Japan of the SC 34 committee. The cabinet group is so tilted by Microsoft employees and such, if it were a boat, it would capsize... Of the 19 attendees, 8 are outright Microsoft employees or consultants, and 2 of them are Ecma TC45 members. So 10 out of 19 are quickly drug by Microsoft/Ecma... [I]f the takeover were to succeed, SC 34 would get to maintain ODF as well as Microsoft's competing parody 'standard,' OOXML. How totally smooth and shark-like. Under the guise of 'synchronized maintenance,' without which they claim SC 34 can't fulfill its responsibilities, they get control of everything." A related resignation from David Gerard points out that BoycottNovell has leaked the ISO OOXML documents, which ISO has kept behind passwords.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More: - Brought to my attention by

Mark