Coded into a Corner...

[Scott C]

I believe people in this country (US) have lost sight of some things. This
ESPECIALLY applies not only to the author of this piece, but to many of the
companies out there, and even more of the developers (and ESPECIALLY the
DOJ). Let me see if I can put it clearly a susinctly...

I think that Standards Organizations (like W3C) are a good thing, but what
they (and the rest of the list that I mentioned) need to realize is that
they can only offer suggestions to the companies that they deal with. This
is a free market, and that means that Microsoft gets to decide what Microsoft
puts into its products. As citizens, we cherish our freedom (I have never
seen a positive article about Uncle Sam being allowed to eavesdrop on your
web surfing, etc... we call that an invasion of privacy), and so do Microsoft
and many other businesses. When we give that up, we loose sight of what
the country was founded on. This ties in with this story, becuase the W3C
doesn't understand that Microsoft has EVERY RIGHT to not support the standards
that it sees fit to not support. I have seen numerous articles about this
in the past week, and every one of them really riles me up.

The W3C seems to feel that it is the governing body of what is best for the
web, and that is an inherently flawed belief. Developers, and to a much
greater extent users are the ones in control of the web. That's the beauty
of the web. It's the closest we have actually gotten to that ideal. If
Microsoft wants to support standards, great. If not, then so be it, the
users will let them know if it was the best move. If you feel it is necessary
to make Microsoft change its ways, then start buying stock.... and lots of
it...

[Rover]

I would like to second Scott's view. If you have a good look at the Standard
Bodies, be it w3c or any other, they contain a long list of so called conflicting
Standards - some gets obsolete before seeing the daylights. Just look at
the list of standard bodies for XML - XMLT, XML, XPATH, XML-Schema, XML-Query,
etc. (so many soon they will run out of alphabets to use). All these often
are half baked and contradictory. Many are simply useless. If they are all
embraced by any company, the products would need a few CDs just to deploy
them and a cray computer to run it.

Many of these so-called Standard pushers forget that MS has to fight against
competitor in the REAL world. It cannot sit there waiting for these Standard
boffins to make up their mind who are totally oblivious to the need to maintain
compatibility with the past due to one's large installed base and to get
to the market to beat the competitors. These boffins live in a ideal world
where communal sharing is the order of the day and money will drop from the
sky.

Often the decision MS made is based on commerical reality and not pure technical
merits.

It seems to me that these standard bodies should be made to earn their keeps
instead of biting the hands that feed them.

Grow up W3C or standard pushers and get a REAL job for a change. If MS is
so ignorant of the standards, why do the American tax payers have to throw
money away by hounding the REAL asset of your country. The market would have
eliminated MSFT.

If Glenn Davis is so convicted in producing a 100% standard conforming browser
and all the people will flock to his door step, why waste your breathe and
build one - GNU's compiler and tool kit are free. Do that and you can save
US tax payers.

Can I expect a Glen Davis browser before IE5.5 being released?

Put up or Shut up. Show us how as you think that it is so easy to do that!

Rover.

[mike brittain]

>Many of these so-called Standard pushers forget that MS has to fight against
>competitor in the REAL world. It cannot sit there waiting for these Standard
>boffins to make up their mind who are totally oblivious to the need to maintain
>compatibility with the past due to one's large installed base and to get
>to the market to beat the competitors.

What I don't understand here is why can't Microsoft focus on a browser that
will comply
to standards first, and THEN push into new sectors of *innovation*? This
might allow
developers to built sites and web apps according to standards that can be
published
ONCE and run on any browser (theoretically). But it would also allow for
MS-centric
developers to extend where microsoft has laid new grounds.

There was mention of too many standards related to XML ... yeah, there ARE
a lot, but
how many of these are actully at recommendation phase? CSS1 made it to that
phase
4 years ago, yet how many browsers can claim to have implemented these specs?
Really, what is the point of confusing developers who believe that your browser
conforms
to a spec, but in reality, provides shoddy results at best? How many hours
are lost to
reading through the myriads of technical docs at the Netscape and MS sites
to find out
what works and what doesn't -- and then trying to cross-reference to find
out what works
for BOTH????

The thing that worries me here is that Microsoft has taken a technology that
was open,
developed according to it, and now that they have such a massive consumer
base, are
splitting with the open standards that they once embraced because they virtually
OWN
the techology now.