“When the Open Cloud Manifesto is officially released on Monday, March 30, the CCIF’s name will not appear as a signatory,” Reuven Cohen, a CCIF founder and co-author of the manifesto, said in a message to CCIF members last night. “This decision comes with great pain as we fully endorse the document’s contents and its principals of a truly open cloud. However, this community has issued a mandate of openness and fair process, loudly and clearly, and so the CCIF can not in good faith endorse this document.”

The CCIF’s withdrawal of its endorsement comes a few days after Microsoft publicly trashed the manifesto as flawed. “We were admittedly disappointed by the lack of openness in the development of the Cloud Manifesto,” Microsoft manager Steve Martin wrote in a post to a Microsoft blog. “What we heard was that there was no desire to discuss, much less implement, enhancements to the document despite the fact that we have learned through direct experience. Very recently we were privately shown a copy of the document, warned that it was a secret, and told that it must be signed ‘as is,’ without modifications or additional input. It appears to us that one company, or just a few companies, would prefer to control the evolution of cloud computing, as opposed to reaching a consensus across key stakeholders (including cloud users) through an ‘open’ process. An open Manifesto emerging from a closed process is at least mildly ironic.”

Indeed, but perhaps to be expected given its leading proponent. IBM (IBM), after all, doesn’t really have a cloud offering of its own. Which is why the company is so keen on pushing this standard–and controlling it. As ZDNet’s Dana Blankenhorn aptly notes, “While [Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com] are selling cloud services, IBM is going into the business of building actual clouds. Open standards would benefit IBM, giving its customers assurances they are future-proof.”

Those who can, do; those who can’t, propose standards…

In a complete reversal of earlier policy, the software giant has decided to make IE8 default to a standards-compliant mode of rendering Web pages that favors interoperability, rather than an IE7 rendering mode that favors Microsoft (MSFT). “Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles,” Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch wrote in a post to the IEBlog. “Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind, interpreting Web content in the most standards-compliant way possible is a better thing to do. We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE8’s default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action.”

Quite the change of heart. Guess a record $1.35 billion in antitrust fines changes your perspective on these things. Certainly, Hachamovitch implies as much in his post. Writes Hachamovitch, “While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue.”

It certainly does. And if you don’t believe Hachamovitch, just ask Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel. He said exactly the same thing, using exactly the same words in a company press release announcing IE8’s Web standards compliance.

Less than three months after agreeing to comply with key elements of the European Commission’s 2004 antitrust order against it, the company is facing new accusations of monopoly abuse. Norway’s Opera Software ASA said today it has filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the European Union, accusing it of stifling competition by tying its Internet Explorer Web browser to Windows and hindering interoperability by not implementing widely accepted Web standards.

“We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them,” Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner said in a rather here-I-come-to-save-the-day statement. “In addition to promoting the free choice of individual consumers, we are a champion of open Web standards and cross-platform innovation. We cannot rest until we’ve brought fair and equitable options to consumers worldwide.”

And reminded the world that Opera is not just a drama set to music, but an unpopular Web browser, as well.

Opera asks that the EC’s competition division force Microsoft to unbundle IE from Windows and require the company to follow fundamental and open Web standards, which is an interesting twist on the old antitrust classic. And one that may have some legs, given IE’s inability to pass the Web Standards Project Acid2 test. “Microsoft often participates and even promises to support these standards, but we find it often isn’t the case,” Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie told ZDNet. “We find bugs and programmers have to code around (Microsoft).”