The European Commission is always right. So is Microsoft.

The European Commission is becoming a thoroughly disappointing these days. Here’s a few examples.

• The full draft of the ACTA has been leaked (grab it here) and as my colleague and friend Andre Rebentisch has described, the European Commission seems to know very well how to dig a hole for itself and stay in it.
• Meanwhile the works around the second European Interoperability Framework have taken an interesting twist. Having started on rather excellent premises, different copies of the draft are now circulating, and they appear to have been watered down by the direct influence of the Business Software Alliance.  Open Standards, let alone Open Source, now seem to have been put aside.  When will the Commission learn how to make the difference between the interests of the European people and the Chinese and US economies?
• It is also interesting to note that the Business Software Alliance and organizations supported by Microsoft have the ears of the European Commission, while Microsoft’s own search engine, Bing, is displaying interesting results on Microsoft’s own competitors. Just look up for OpenOffice.org in Bing, and you will see.
• Meanwhile it is to be noted that the Commission has also opened a public consultation on the European Interoperability Strategy; it is to be hoped that it will not be a ground for further delay and sterile talk to be ended by the Commission making decisions based on the direction of the wind.