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Opera Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft with EU Commission - Updated
Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 11:07 AM EST

It's about browsers. It's about unbundling Internet Exporer. And it's about web standards.

First, here's the announcement from Opera that they have filed an antitrust complaint with the EU Commission asking for the following two remedies:

First, it requests the Commission to obligate Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and/or carry alternative browsers pre-installed on the desktop. Second, it asks the European Commission to require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities. The complaint calls on Microsoft to adhere to its own public pronouncements to support these standards, instead of stifling them with its notorious "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" strategy. Microsoft's unilateral control over standards in some markets creates a de facto standard that is more costly to support, harder to maintain, and technologically inferior and that can even expose users to security risks.

Amen. I hope ISO is paying attention. Because this is about standards, there is already a statement from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) in support of Opera's complaint.

Here's what ECIS says, in part:

"By tying its Internet Explorer product to its monopoly Windows operating system and refusing to faithfully implement industry accepted open standards. Microsoft deprives consumers of a real choice in internet browsers. Browsers are the gateway to the Internet. Microsoft seeks to control this gateway," says Thomas Vinje, ECIS Spokesman and Legal Counsel....

The Opera complaint also targets Microsoft's corruption of web standards, referring to a practice where Microsoft either fails to implement industry accepted open standards or implements them in a manner that is not faithful to the standard by adding undisclosed proprietary extensions. These practices when undertaken by a dominant company like Microsoft can eliminate competition which amounts to unlawful exclusionary behaviour infringing Article 82 of the EC Treaty. The complaint asks the Commission to require Microsoft to support open standards in Internet Explorer so that web developers can readily create web content and applications which are accessible consistently on all open standard compliant browsers. Today, Microsoft imposes its de facto, proprietary implementation on the developer community and consumers.

We'll see how the EU Commission views it in due time, but I hope ISO is able to extrapolate. That is precisely how I would describe what Microsoft is doing with MSOOXML, Microsoft's very own proprietary de facto standard which it wishes to impose despite there already being an accepted ISO standard for document formats, ODF, with which Microsoft's is not fully interoperable. Ecma allows MSOOXML to have undisclosed proprietary extensions. In fact, any number of comments were presented by countries concerned about those very issues. Hopefully, their comments will now no longer be viewed as "out of order" at the February ballot resolution meeting. I'd say they just entered the main tent. Surely, no "standard" should be approved that may be in violation of the EU antitrust law.

Here's a statement from Microsoft reported by Reuters:

A Microsoft spokesman said Internet Explorer had been part of Windows for more than 10 years and supported many Web standards.

"We will of course cooperate with any inquiries into these issues, but we believe the inclusion of the browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers already are free to choose any browsers they wish," the spokesman said.

Supporting many web standards isn't the same as supporting them all, as you can discern from this Groklaw article on Microsoft and standards. IDG's James Niccolai explains why web standards matter:

The issue of standards is seen as important because if all Web browsers do not use the same standards, Web site developers are likely to design their Web sites to work with the most widely-used browser, which is Internet Explorer. That gives people a disincentive to use other browsers.

If you use any browser but Microsoft's you already know all about the problems you encounter.

Nor is this an Opera theoretical. Remember this story from 2001, where Opera was allegedly directly targetted by Microsoft, locked out of Microsoft's MSN portal? Then again in 2003? After you read all that, next read these boldly inaccurate excuses Microsoft first tried to peddle about HTML standards and why Opera didn't work. Well, now the chickens have come home to roost.

For further hilarity, read Microsoft's own description of HTML character sets and how IE renders them in its own special way:

HTML Character Sets

Character sets determine how the bytes that represent the text of your HTML document are translated to readable characters. Microsoft Internet Explorer interprets the bytes in your document according to the applied character set translations. It interprets numeric or hex character references ("〹" or "ሴ") as ISO10646 code points, consistent with the Unicode Standard, version 2.0, and independent of the chosen character set. Named entities ("&") are displayed independently of the chosen character set as well. The display of an arbitrary numeric character reference requires the existence of a font that is able to display that particular character on the user's system. Accordingly, the content in the first column of the following tables may not render as expected on all systems.

People actually have to write programs to deal with Microsoft's version of HTML, so that web pages don't break and folks who use other browsers than IE can access successfully. Here's one for example, the demoroniser, so named because it will "Correct Moronic Microsoft HTML":

This page describes, in Unix manual page style, a Perl program available for downloading from this site which corrects numerous errors and incompatibilities in HTML generated by, or edited with, Microsoft applications. The demoroniser keeps you from looking dumber than a bag of dirt when your Web page is viewed by a user on a non-Microsoft platform.

To show you a bit of what the problems are and how some try to cope, here's a screenshot of one of the choices you have in the browser for the Mac called iCab:

One workaround iCab gives you is that it lets you "pretend" to be a different browser, which sometimes tricks a web page into rendering correctly for you even if you are using an alternative to IE. As you can see, you can tell web pages that you are using Internet Explorer on Windows even if you are using iCab on a Mac:

This is exactly what no one would have to go through if everyone used open standards. And no, it doesn't always work.

Update: Reaction from the EU Commission, as reported by EurActiv:

"It is early to make any intelligent comment on this case. We have seen the complaint and we are going to study it carefully", Jonathan Todd, spokesperson for Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, said yesterday during the daily Commission press briefing.

And Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as often is the case, has the most interesting details:

Although this is Opera's first antitrust challenge to Microsoft, the Norwegian company's board chairman, Bill Raduchel, has experience in such matters. He was Sun Microsystems' chief strategy officer when it was embroiled in its own antitrust battles with Microsoft.

In the 1999 book, "High Noon," about Sun Microsystems, Raduchel was quoted likening Bill Gates and Microsoft to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Both had the sense that "they have a God-given right to this power and it's for the good of the world," the book quotes Raduchel as saying, calling it important for Sun to stand up against that.

On his blog, Bishop has collected reactions, including this further reaction from Jonathan Todd and a link to the video, if you wish to watch the press briefing (click on time stamp 18:07:51 in the EC Press Briefing section, where you see Opera mentioned):

"I can confirm that we have received a complaint from Opera. We are going to study this complaint carefully, and particularly in light of the case law established by the Court of First Instance in its ruling of the 17th of September this year."


  


Opera Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft with EU Commission - Updated | 305 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Opera Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft with EU Commission
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 11:25 AM EST
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but I worry about imposing limits on what you can and
cannot do in a web browser. It's one thing when we're talking about forcing MS
to include something in IE. What if this kind of thinking is used as a club
against Firefox or Opera? ie (if you'll forgive the pun) what happens if a
standard includes something like activex in the future, would firefox and opera
be forced to include it?

The substantial market shares of Firefox and Mac will ensure that sites will
cater to these needs.

I have no sympathy for Opera, they're a closed-source proprietary platform, and
are utterly irrelevant to the market, whether that be Windows, Mac, or Linux
desktops.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections here
Authored by: Erwan on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 11:27 AM EST
If any

---
Erwan

[ Reply to This | # ]

News Picks Discussions here.
Authored by: Erwan on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 11:45 AM EST
Article name in comment title please.

---
Erwan

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT, the Off topic thread
Authored by: Erwan on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 11:52 AM EST
As usual. Don't forget the preview button if using any of the allowed HTML Tags.

---
Erwan

[ Reply to This | # ]

Standards are open to interpretation. Divergence is the result.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 12:05 PM EST
There are at least three reasons to produce software which does not comply with
standards.

Firstly - browser manufacturers, like any other software developers, like any
other product manufacturers face a problem of differentiating their software.

In this race there is the classical problem of proprietary vs. standardised.
Standards encourage commodity items. This is to the advantage of consumers. It's
to the disadvantage of manufacturers in that it make is hard to differentiate.
It also makes it hard produce innovations: you don't see that many innovations
in electrical plug design despite there being better ways to make plugs. This is
to the disadvantage of consumers. So with any software there is a balance to be
struck between implementing a standard, extending a standard or ignoring in
order to differentiate your product. This partially accounts for the problem.

Secondly, many standard, and particularly software standards, are not fully
specified. It's a developing area - we learn from our mistakes. We see this
again and again: different Javascript interpreters do different things under the
same circumstances, despite there being a standard that most claim to follow.
(And anyway, standards are not Laws to be absolutely followed in the absence of
test packs for compliance.) This partially accounts for divergence between
browsers.

Thirdly, the desire to capture customers using the network effect partially
accounts for the problem. And this may be illegal for monopolies under
anti-monopoly law.

The problem is to differentiate between these forces - since they all produce
the same outcomes.

We believe that MS deliberately introduces problems. Certainly, if I was a
product manager with a leading product, I'd think about using this strategy. But
there are no smoking guns. And until there are, MS and anyone else playing this
game can point to the other forces and introduce reasonable doubt this way.

JeffV

[ Reply to This | # ]

Unwitting Collusion from Web Maintainers
Authored by: mcinsand on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 12:19 PM EST
A week or so ago, Boycottnovell had an article that had my blood boiling. A lot
of people that maintain web pages are frustrated with the hoops that they are
jumping through to maintain IE compatibility as a result of MS' noncompliance to
web standards. Why, why, why would they do anything to patch over IE's
broken-ness? Why not have a posting to the effect of "this site was
constructed in compliance with xxxxx web standards. If your browser is having
trouble with this page, then you may freely obtain one of the following browsers
that were produced with full internet standards compliance."

Until public backlash further erodes IE's numbers, this practice will only
continue. The public needs to know that IE is less-capable, which is only going
to become apparent when they have to (freely) download/install a browser that
was designed by a competent organization. By modding the websites to accomodate
IE's quirks, the maintainers are only helping IE prop up an illusion of
acceptability.

[ Reply to This | # ]

HTML Character Sets
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 12:24 PM EST
Actually, this is the way it's supposed to work. If a page's author wrote
&#00a7; or & then he should get a section mark or an ampersand,
because that's what he asked for. Those are real rules, not MS rules.

What the DeMoronizer seems to be for is repairing a handful of characters which
are incorrectly encoded by some MS products other than IE. They could have
used the correct code points -- they do exist -- but didn't for some reason.
Apparently IE has special-case code to detect these mistakes and paper over
them, so even some MS divisions suffer unnecessary extra work caused by other MS
divisions.

Maybe all that's needed, in this instance, is a copy of the Unicode standard for
every MS employee, with a sticky note: "not just a good idea; it's THE LAW
-- Bill" They *can* get it right when they have reason to care.

[ Reply to This | # ]

MS applies wrong test
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 12:33 PM EST
I know I can install a good browser. The real question is: can I UNinstall IE?
The answer is "no", because pieces of it have sunk their hooks into
dozens of other programs that come with Windows. Lots of surprising, seemingly
unrelated things would break if you tried.

Imagine being required to buy a Chevrolet before you could buy the Ford you
actually wanted, and *you cannot sell the Chevy*. You must make space for it,
and maintain title to it, and insure it, forever. If someone steals it and
takes it out joyriding and causes trouble, the cops come looking for YOU.
Because of a car you never wanted and don't use and wouldn't have bought if you
had a choice. Is it a wonder tha people are *angry*?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Opera Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft with EU Commission
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 12:49 PM EST
Look people! Each day these people are called "Small" and
"Soft". This might put a chip on anyone's shoulder, but Bill and Steve
are getting closer to the ED age. So I expect them to never work with the world
on anything.

Just be glad that they don't have a city planning division!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Opera Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft with EU Commission
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 01:13 PM EST
There's plenty of room to differentiate a product while allowing a page/site to
be defined according to widely accepted standards.

Automobiles in the US exist in many different sizes and shapes. However, they
are all required to meet certain standards, such as location of taillights,
implemented emergency brakes, and seat belts. They can drive on different
roads, of different widths and material composition, but again there are certain
minimum specifications. And in some cases (low bridge!) certain motor vehicles
(tall semi-trailers) are prohibited or won't fit, and warning signs are
(usually) posted. Not against, say, a truck made by Mack, or against
non-Michelin tires, but rather against vehicles over 10 feet 6 inches tall. Or
whatever.

So, as I said, there are plenty of ways to meet standards while having room to
differentiate your product, as long as everyone agrees on the standards.

[ Reply to This | # ]

darn too quick pj :)
Authored by: designerfx on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 01:14 PM EST
You're too quick today PJ :) I was going to mail ya about this one but I see you
are way ahead of the game. I have an interesting politician response from
Obama's camp about the Grokster case if you want to read. Basically says that
he's not going to take a stance at all in regards to inducement.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Just to be clear
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 01:25 PM EST
Opera has as much of self-interest as Microsoft. While O rules a sizeable
portion of mobile browsing market due to embedded versions of browsers, their
desktop share is quite small, and easiest way to get noticed is to attack
Microsoft.
Opera itself is _not_ fully standard compliant. While they may be better than
others, they have their own quirks. It's just web developers can
"safely" ignore Opera quirks versus Fire Fox or IE's, due to the size
of audience using it.
Frankly the fewer of web browsers are out there, the easier life is for web
masters and web developers. Yes, ideally 100% compliance with standards is nice.
No, there can be problems with that too, as sometimes standard simply doesn't
say anything about how _exactly_ things should behave. At that point browser
authors start to deviate, then someone will begin using this "feature"
and here we go again.

[ Reply to This | # ]

No real choice?
Authored by: cmc on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 01:28 PM EST
"By tying its Internet Explorer product to its monopoly Windows operating
system and refusing to faithfully implement industry accepted open standards.
Microsoft deprives consumers of a real choice in internet browsers."

What a load of pooh. I'm typing this on Mozilla Firefox, running on Microsoft
Windows. How can that be if I was "deprive[d]... of a real choice in
internet browsers"?

The bundling of Internet Explorer may be a bane to web designers and users
alike. And due to its integration into the core Windows code, it may leave
users vulnerable to unnecessary security issues. But it does not deprive
consumers of a real choice in internet browsers. You are freely available to
download whichever free browser you like, just as I have done.

Does the bundling of Internet Explorer cause a large number of people to think
"I have a browser already, why do I need another one?" Sure it does.
But that's not depriving choice any more than bundling Notepad is depriving
choice of word processors.

[ Reply to This | # ]

This may set some fur flying
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 01:55 PM EST
Let me make it clear. I am no fan of the Microsoft way of doing things or the
need to wrangle IE 6 and below into line. There is nothing like the frustration
of trying to get something, that should be straightforward, to work on a web
page.

IE does have one useful feature and that is the conditional comments. that makes
allowing for its peculiarities easier (I didn't say simple!). Opera, on the
other hand, has its own peculiarities. I have found that many dot versions
handle different bits of mark up differently and can break pages because of
this. You cannot claim adherence to web standards while you cannot make up your
mind what that means. They also claim that there is no need for anything like
conditional comments since they are so 'standard compliant'. I have reached the
point that is a version of Opera breaks something then that is too bad.

The OS/browser link needs to be broken and the user needs to have a choice of
how they wish to break web pages but the system and application reliance on IE
is a problem. Leave IE in the system but not make it available for browsing. Use
a separate browser, IEbrowse, Opera, Firefox, lynx or whatever.

As for standards, I would ban all talk of CSS3 and above or HTML5 until W3C,
Microsoft, Opera, Mozilla and a few others are locked in a room and not allowed
out until they come up with a series of browsers that all render CSS2 and
HTML4.1 the same and in agreement with W3C.

Tufty

[ Reply to This | # ]

Uh...
Authored by: DarkPhoenix on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 02:08 PM EST
Wow, are the shills out again or something? More than half the current comments
are shots at Opera for various errors, missing the point entirely!

At any rate, by now I suspect everyone knows the side-effects of the IE
bundling, and Microsoft can scream until they're blue in the face that having IE
directly in Windows somehow confers some kind of advantage, but saying so
doesn't make it true. And as a web designer, I'm glad SOMEONE is finally
speaking up about this disaster; Microsoft's stalling on IE8 is just reminding
everyone that they're not really interested in web standards at all. What
they're hoping for is to have Silverlight and XAML replace the current structure
of the Web...

---
Please note that sections in quotes are NOT copied verbatim from articles, but
are my interpretations of the articles.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Opera Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft with EU Commission
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 03:02 PM EST
As I recall in the federal anti-trust trial of 1995, M$ was found guilty (if you
will) of *illegally* bundling the IE browser into the operating system.

To date M$ has continued to flaunt the federal court and, as we all know, has
*refused* to unbundle IE from the OS.

Of course, when the U.S. Department of Just-Us has been bought by M$, well, that
doesn't hurt either.

krp

[ Reply to This | # ]

If you want the story on MS and web standards the best place to start is MS's IE developer blog
Authored by: warner on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 04:07 PM EST
In this installment they joke around with some possible names for IE8 and ask
that developers "please don’t mistake silence for inaction".

As one of the 534 comments reply "Nor will we mistake action for
progress"

Seriously, I have read all 534 comments and Opera should attach a copy to their
complaint.

The overwhelming theme through those comments _from a very MS centric slice of
the web developer base_ is MAKE IT STANDARDS COMPLIANT.


""I think half the people going on about standards probably have no
idea what they are talking about and just want to jump on the "I hate
MS" band wagon"

@Kris Do you even know what standards are? Let me explain what standards do for
you just in case you really don't know. They cut down development time, allow
users a choice on browser client. I like my sites to be viewable by as many
users as possible, even those not running Windows/IE.

At my work, I am the cross-browser expert so I have to write the majority the
JS, and my day usually consists of spending 20 minutes writing something that
works in standards browsers (FF, Opera, and sometimes even Safari) and the rest
of my day making the same functionality work in IE. I'm not a MS hater, but I
dislike their attitude towards the developer community and abiding by standards.
Next time Kris, try getting your facts straight before embarrassing yourself
with your ignorance."

"Lenny wrote, "Is it possible that you could abandon the IE platform
altogether and start supporting Firefox?"

Can I get an "AMEN!"

Dear Dean, Stop fighting with the marketing department and focus on getting the
basics right once-and-for-all (CSS & HMTL)."

"I don't want IE8 to ever come out. I am a professional web developer and
there is a huge productivity bottleneck when it comes to debugging sites for TWO
broken versions of a browser that all my clients use. A third one would probably
cripple my work process, since it would be at least a year until IE7 and IE8
leveled out in users (and there will of course be a significant percentage still
using IE6 I bet). Can anyone imagine having to debug for 3 versions of broken
IE?..."

"it costs our nonprofit 30% of its budget for web development to make the
site work with ie7 (trying to set the name property on an input element via
javascript was the last thing). please just make it work like everybody else's
browser."

"I'd like to file a bug report.

With your parents...."

"This is the only blog I can think of whose commenters regularly slam the
posters. Funny."

"Don't worry, I usually equate your silence with incompetence."

"Will IE8 be W3C compliant? The web developers community is shouting
it!"

"...That's a pretty sad state of affairs if you ask me. Effectively over
50% of my code involves/requires IE workarounds... that's why we are so
frustrated with IE, and the IE Team..."
"Haha good joke! just like your standards support track record! Keep'em
going IE Team."

"In all honesty, I just don't care any more. Do want you want, ya will
anyway ..."

"Fully Standards Compliant. That's all I ask please. The cost to me and my
company, and my clients, in terms of time, frustration, and customization is
staggering."

"I have to vote with the crowd, here.

Get standards-compliant. Is there anything else to say, really?"

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/05/internet-explorer-8.aspx#6680692

---
free software, for free minds and a free world.

[ Reply to This | # ]

SADI alert - not off the chart, but very high
Authored by: cjk fossman on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 04:40 PM EST
SADI = Shill and Astroturfer Density Index

Not as high as some of the GPL articles, but still well up there.

[ Reply to This | # ]

X2
Authored by: sproggit on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 05:40 PM EST
In 1984 MIT introduced the world to the X Windowing System (which was based, of
course, on W). The current version, X11, was introduced in 1987. Today we take
this technology for granted, but at the time it was revolutionary, bringing as
it did the flexibility of network access to the world of graphical interfaces.

If you think back to the capabilities of networks in the same time period
(1984-1987), then we were still seeing lots of "Thick" and
"Thin" Ethernet, with network speeds around the 10Mb/s mark.
Segmentation was largely bridges... and routers were large, expensive, and not
widely used outside of very large corporations and/or network providers.

Despite these limits, 10Mb/s was sufficient to create an entire new world of
possibilities for systems management, ease of use and flexibility.

Now fast forward 20 years.

Microsoft are forging ahead with a range of "new technologies" - and
doubtless they are trying to patent them all - that seem to be designed to
leverage the sophistication of a modern WIMP(Windows, Icons, Mouse and
Pointer)/Widgets environment and then using the internet as the connection
medium.

Rather than simply implement X11 (which of course would allow other companies to
compete with them via an open standard, Microsoft seem to have chosen to design
their own, proprietary standard, which we could call "Web MS2" or
"X2" if we wanted to acknowledge that they are merely copying the
original ideas from MIT.





Internet speeds are already such that we can perform basic office activities in
a thin client model over the internet. Google Apps is there.

Microsoft seem to be taking this one stage further. They are using successive
generations of the IE browser (and look how much simpler IE7's interface desktop
is) as mere portals that reach out to back end technology hosted by MS and their
"Ecosystem" stooges. We're seeing extensions and enhancements to
network protocols, ostensibly additions to HTML/CSS/etc, that will in fact be
used to further lock clients into the Microsoft way of doing things.

The "value proposition" or whatever Microsoft might like to call the
incentive or driver to have people use this approach, will be the fact that
because this re-invented paradigm allows for a much, much more sophisticated
level of control over the client rendering process, so MS-backed applications
and SoftwareAsAService solutions can be made to look quite a lot more
sophisticated than anything that can be achieved by the open standards that
exist today.

In other words, Microsoft are actually betting on and hoping for the idea that
the existing W3C standards-setting process gets slowed down, bogged in wrangling
and detail. It will give them more time to produce their alternative solution.



The reason for this increase in activity from Microsoft, after years of
inaction, is, in a word, FireFox. Faced with the very real threat of losing
their monopoly on browsers, Microsoft seem to have decided that the best way to
respond is to leverage their remaining monopoly (and this is a guess but I have
a suspicion that polls would show IE having something like 80% of the browser
market share) to push the deployment of MSWEB 2.0.

If Microsoft can persuade enough people to move to IE7 or IE8 or later and
through those upgrades leverage users onto a new protocol stack, then they can
effectively move the web portion of internet traffic away from HTML and on to
"MSHTML" or whatever they want to call it. Don't forget how easy it
would be for Microsoft to introduce tweaks that break the rendering of any
possibly competing browers thanks to "Windows Update".


What's amazing to me is to see just how many of the required software components
are already out there and in use today. IE, obviously, is the delivery platform
at the client end. Then we have MediaPlayer for content. There's .Net and
successive generations of this development environment. Windows Server would be
the platform of choice to host the back end. Now all we need is the new
interconnect paradigm to tie all this together with a protocol that others can't
implement or that MS can break as they choose. No, wait. That's Silverlight,
isn't it?


As PJ has said, quite eloquently and in several posts here already, is that if
MS were even remotely interested in the promotion of standards, then they would
spend some development effort in fixing the rendering flaws and abnormal
behavior of their software.

That they consistently refuse to do this and instead choose to implement more
and more "replacement" technologies should serve as indication of
their true intent.



Here's the shameful thing. Whatever we might think of MS and their ethics in
terms of the strategies they are adopting with the web, ODF and other key
interoperability topics, we cannot deny that their software developers and
designers are proving to be fiendishly clever at peverting, polluting,
distorting and breaking international standards that the rest of us would like
to use. Just imagine what would be possible if they had a leader who was brave
enough to produce interoperable software and then let it compete on it's merits
and it's "value proposition" to their customers.

It will never happen, of course.




I think that it will be interesting to see how we, as a community, can handle a
strategy of this kind.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • just a niggle - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 07:40 PM EST
  • X2 - Authored by: DarkPhoenix on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 11:43 PM EST
    • X2 - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 14 2007 @ 01:55 AM EST
  • X2 - Authored by: n7lyg on Friday, December 14 2007 @ 10:46 AM EST
    • X2 - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 14 2007 @ 11:04 AM EST
Different versions of standards
Authored by: E-man on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 05:55 PM EST
PJ: "One workaround iCab gives you is that it lets you "pretend" to be a different browser, which sometimes tricks a web page into rendering correctly for you even if you are using an alternative to IE. As you can see, you can tell web pages that you are using Internet Explorer on Windows even if you are using iCab on a Mac:"

I'd say that that is as least as much due to changes to the standards as not following them. (As I understand it, HTML 4.1 and CSS2 are the current official standards.) Older browsers can't be expected to comply with standards that didn't exist at the time. Websites often assume that the pages have to be rendered with older, simpler features if the browser isn't one of the newer versions of IE or Firefox.

In case anyone is curious, Wikipedia has a compa rison of the different layout engine's compatibilty with the various CSS standards (up to CSS3, which is being developed). I'd say at first glance that Konqueror's engine did the best for CSS2, with Opera getting a jump start on CSS3.

A similar comparison for HTML 4 and XHTML 1 and another for XHT ML 1.1 are also available.

(If you see extra spaces in the the middle of words in the text of the links, that's not me putting them there.)

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Removed Opera from this PC
Authored by: zr on Thursday, December 13 2007 @ 08:05 PM EST

I'm afraid a hearty dislike for lawyerish shennanigans outweighs any merit of the Opera complaint in my mind.

I have multiple browsers - Firefox, Safari, and IE7 on my Windows XP system and like to switch around rather than stick to one. I also used Opera but no more, uninstalled immediately on reading of this legal action. I hope others do the same. The good will Opera earned with me over the years for their standards compliance has vanished as if it had never been.

---
Don't follow leaders, watch the parkin' meters.

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VIVA Opera
Authored by: briosky on Friday, December 14 2007 @ 02:58 AM EST
Instead of waiting for MS to screw the standards, I lead my small battle versus
MS.
I write [my humble home amateur website] in Industry Standard (HTML 4.01 and CSS
2.0 validated), so whoever uses MSIExploder, will have, on some pages, few
problems.
Then I have set a warning about why, plus few links to download Firefox, Opera,
Netscape, or Avant.
So it's up to the user to stay stuck with the crap, or use more modern
browsers.
I know, it's just a drop in the ocean, but MS will not have me alive.
Not to mention I am porting everything under BSD (2 servers done, 2 more to
go).
So God bless Opera and whoever fights MS and their malpractice.

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Re: "the problems you encounter" with other browsers
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 14 2007 @ 05:07 AM EST
If you use any browser but Microsoft's you already know all about the problems you encounter.
I do not encounter any significant extra problems when using Firefox to browse the Web. I use both Firefox and IE equally and only notice issues with Microsoft-owned sites and with our intranet which uses MS SiteServer (not my choice). So I disagree that there are real problems for users.

Where there are significant problems is for developers, but it's not just Microsoft to blame. IE has CSS-layout bugs and DOM idiocies for example. However these are less than the arbitrary variations in standards-support by Web-mail clients. IMHO, GoogleMail/GMail is the worst at supporting standards, yet Google never seems to get criticized or sued - giafly.

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Opera Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft with EU Commission - Updated
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 14 2007 @ 05:30 AM EST
The biggest problem here isn't that IE is preinstalled, it's that other MS
programs either depends on it, or completely ignore that you wish it to open
links in another browser.

An example: I installed Firefox on my wife's computer, setting it to be the
preferred browser. A short while after, I realised that she was browsing more
with IE than with Firefox!

I asked her why, and found out that Windows Live Messenger opens ALL links in
IE, no matter what the preference is.

(No, I will NOT get her off either Windows or Messenger)

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Access to governmental website and services.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 14 2007 @ 12:31 PM EST
Dental Board of California http://www.dbc.ca.gov and Click on Link "On Line Renewal" and then "Click here to get started".

Mozilla Firefox running on Linux is rejected as well any other modern browser which adheres to official Internet standards. The website does not allows for renewal of a License from any other browser then Microsoft IE or particular version of Mac browser. There is no any technical reason to exclude a group of taxpayers just because they are using different computer system or modern browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Konqueror and/or others browser. Not only there is no any technical reason for creating such discriminatory access to governmental website but it is plainly wrong.

In my opinion a governmental website should not actively promote one corporation products in expense of its competitors and taxpayers. Any government website should be equally accessible to any one with a computer and browser no matter if it is Microsoft product Mac or Linux or BSD or Solaris or any other capable computer system running modern browser.

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Gates has a dream [he claimed]
Authored by: grouch on Saturday, December 15 2007 @ 12:48 PM EST
Once upon a time...

Gates: [...] I worry more about whether our general dream will be fulfilled.

SPIEGEL: What is that dream?

Gates: That we can globally communicate with one another without mistrust and can do it more creatively.

-- Spiegel Interview with Bill Gates , "The Bad Boys are also Terribly Clever", 2005-01-31

[The context for the above was in regards to computer security].

That "general dream" of global communication can only be realized through the use of standards. The World Wide Web has such standards. They are the common language of the globe. We can't communicate so long as Microsoft refuses to speak the language of the Web. Just as Microsoft deliberately chooses to ignore other international standards , it has, for a very long time, deliberately chosen to ignore W3C standards. From this, it is easy to conclude that the real dream is to eliminate all who do not speak as Microsoft.

That kind of dream matches the standard of a nightmare.

---
-- grouch

"People aren't as dumb as Microsoft needs them to be."
--PJ, May 2007

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Superb
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 15 2007 @ 09:10 PM EST
Opera has been supporting the standards since the dim dark days of the web.
Bravo to them for bringing this issue to the EU commission.

Hooray I say!

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