From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Nov 1 10:40: 4 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lists.blarg.net (lists.blarg.net [206.124.128.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 63C3837B401 for ; Thu, 1 Nov 2001 10:39:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from thig.blarg.net (thig.blarg.net [206.124.128.18]) by lists.blarg.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 00F2ABCFC; Thu, 1 Nov 2001 10:39:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([206.124.139.115]) by thig.blarg.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA29241; Thu, 1 Nov 2001 10:39:58 -0800 Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.11.6/8.11.3) id fA1IcPk53397; Thu, 1 Nov 2001 10:38:25 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from swear@blarg.net) To: Paul Robinson Cc: Craig Harding , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Supporting MS IE (was Re: NatWest? no thanks) References: <15328.13403.591620.246277@hyde.lpds.sublink.org> <20011031210224.A710-100000@howie.ncptiddische.net> <20011101095903.B43740@jake.akitanet.co.uk> <3BE126AF.F555A4E0@outpost.co.nz> <20011101112107.F43740@jake.akitanet.co.uk> From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 01 Nov 2001 10:38:24 -0800 In-Reply-To: <20011101112107.F43740@jake.akitanet.co.uk> Message-ID: Lines: 18 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Paul Robinson writes: > Standards are a Good Thing. They are usually better than no standards, but what people should be crying out for is Open Standards. Sure, trying to be compatible with closed standards like IE, is a desirable thing to do for practical reasons, but it has a short future since M$ will be able to leverage such standards into an eventual requirement that any use of information technology is a requirement to use only M$ software (and with current laws, no possibility of developing compatible software), with this result limited only by new laws or court actions. If we could get banks and such to see the light and at least insist that their M$ software use open standards for information exchange, then they may be able to have some price-competition in the source of the software they (and their customers) must purchace. Can no one think more than a few months into the future? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message