Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:42:01 +0100 (CET) From: Nils Holland <nils@tisys.org> To: Paul Robinson <paul@akita.co.uk> Cc: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG>, <advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: NatWest? no thanks Message-ID: <20011102132845.J1890-100000@jodie.ncptiddische.net> In-Reply-To: <20011102104858.A47349@jake.akitanet.co.uk>
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On Fri, 2 Nov 2001, Paul Robinson wrote: > Nobody is talking about moving to an entirely point-and-click interface. OK, > you are, but nobody else is. I'm talking about making a situation where I > have a copy of Mozilla on my laptop that renders sites designed for IE just > like IE would. Where Shockwave and Javascript all behaves the way I would > expect it to in IE. Where IE-only tags get parsed and the output rendered > correctly. Your argument seems to be that we shouldn't do any of that, and > we should just tell people that 'our way' is better. I herewith announce that I may now stop to be active in this thread, but one last response seems neccessary: There *are* open standards that our software (say Mozilla and Konqueror) have adopted. However, it's pretty obvious to me that Microsoft tries to mess up these standards in order for us being unable to catch up (if that is the right word). After all, Microsoft is not implementing things to make the user experience better, but to make users use their products. Assuming that our browsers would be able to do things *exactly* 100% as MSIE does today, then Microsoft would see a threat: "Uhh, the open software folks can do the same as we can, let's cause 'em some trouble!". And tomorrow, Microsoft would mess something new up, probably patent it in order for us to be unable to use it. Next step: MS would tell web programmers that their new technology is *absolutely required*. Our way is indeed better in a sense that I have never seen us blocking out anyone intentionally. If I were involved in Mozilla design, I could implemet a few things that only can be displayed in Mozilla, and then I could make my website use these things. That would create a bad experience for MSIE users. However, I'm not doing that, and the whole open software world doesn't seem to do it. Microsoft does, however, do it all of the time, and that's the point and the explanation why our way is obviously better. If you read about Microsoft's history, then it's impossible to fail to see that they are *not* trying to create a better experience for their users, but that they are trying to block any competitors out. Can we change that? Well, if Microsoft creates and impelemts a new *patented* technology called ActiveCrap, then we could under now circumstances implement it in Mozilla due to licensing problems (well, if we'd pay Microsoft a few million dollars, we could possibly use ActiveCrap). What we can do, however, is offer something similar in an open manner, if it makes sense (releasing an open counterpart to ActiveCrap, called "OpenCrap" is probably a bad idea). More and more people have realized the way Microsoft works, and they are no longer willing to take it. Soon, Microsoft will have two choices: Act like any other responsible company our project, or die. Looking at the past decisions at MS, they will probably choose the second thing... Greetings Nils Nils Holland Ti Systems - FreeBSD in Tiddische, Germany http://www.tisys.org * nils@tisys.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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