Slashdot Mirror
Netscape 6 Fails To Support Web Standards
Steve Chapel writes: "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide author David Flanagan has posted
an article
and a petition requesting that the final release of the
Netscape 6 browser
based on the
Mozilla open-source project
be delayed until it fixes the
problems
with support for current Web standards." It seems clear to me that Netscape cares a lot more about shopping tabs and similar deadwood - things that bring immediate profit to the Netscape Corporation but absolutely no value to the user - than they do about putting out a decent browser. Personally, I'd recommend beta-testing IE 6, since IE not only has won the browser wars, it's clearly a better browser - and will remain so.
It's a horrible article because it's got it's head up it's ass. If you're going to write an article about standards compliance, the natural thing to do would be to do a comparison. Obviously we can't link to Microsoft's internal bug repository, but makes a straw man argument that somehow, there are no bugs in IE which cause under certain rare circumstances, for IE to violate official web standards.
It's funny to see that some people are willing to pull a stunt like this, in an attempt to get the bugs they care about fixed. Anybody who has been following Mozilla development (like for instance me, this being posted from a version of Mozilla built from CVS earlier today) is aware that some known bugs will be left in NS6 and fixed in NS6.01 or whatever simply because right now they need to ship product. If there's a bug which causes seven pages on the Internet to display slightly incorrectly, they really don't give a shit, and that's GOOD.
No I'm not smoking crack, it really is a good thing. What good will a perfect, bug-free browser do if it's delivered at the same time as emacs 27 and Linux 2.6? If we get a damned good browser out there, it forces a larger portion of the web to make sure they work with IE, and Mozilla. If nothing is shipped, then IE becomes the standard, and there's no chance of preserving a standards based web.
I have nothing against IE, I think it's a great browser, and IE 5 for Mac is, in my opinion, the best browser I've used. The idea that we should abandon mozilla, stop reporting bugs, and hope that IE6 saves the world is even more ignorant than the slashdroids who think that Linux is the only decent operating system in the world.
Congratulations Michael, you and the trolls were having a short dick contest, and it looks like you won.
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"Don't trolls get tired?"
Yes, you read that correctly. Netscape won the browser war. Netscape's goal was to turn the web into a platform. They succeeded in that goal. We now live in a world where many applications are web-based instead of Windows-based. Microsoft didn't want that. Netscape did. Netscape won.
It was a Pyhrric victory, of course, since Netscape's market share got decimated by Microsoft. But they succeeded in turning the web into a platform.
By the way, I don't fault AOL/Netscape in putting money-making devices in the browser. They have to make money somehow, and they don't have OS or office suite cash cows to support the browser as a loss leader, so they have to recognize some revenue somehow. At least they've continued to support the open source Mozilla project, allowing you to re-build it differently if you so choose. AOL has been more than gracious in keeping the dream of a non-MSproprietary Web alive; they do not deserve our scorn.
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Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
This is a load of utter misinformation. Yes, Internet Explorer is loaded as a part of the Windows Explorer shell when Windows loads. However, if you configure Windows not to load the Explorer shell on startup, or to use a different shell, you can then start Internet Explorer separately (from a commandline, for example), and the load time is exactly the same. The simple fact is, IE is far less bloated than Netscape, far more compliant, and just plain faster.
I'm really tired of these stupid flamefest articles on slashdot about Netscape/Mozilla/MSIE. One minute it's /. saying how wonderful mozilla is, keep up the great work, blah blah blah. Then it's michael coming off looking like a class-A idiot.
The only people who come off looking like idiots are people who either ignore the facts or twist them to fit their own opinions. michael has done neither -- he has in fact presented a very valid and well-informed opinion, backed by factual information. You, on the other hand, have not. Between you and michael, I'd say you come off looking like the idiot, my friend.
It might help if the editors would just post the news instead of their opinions.
michael posted the news first, and then gave his opinion. This is what Slashdot has been all about since the very beginning. This is what Chips n' Dip was about back when CmdrTaco was running it from college, even before Slashdot. The fusing of news with opinions is what makes Slashdot different from other bland news sites. Open your eyes.
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I'm know I'll get mod'd down for saying this, but...
Whoever posted this must have been having and extremely bad day. Let's review the post (posters notes, not quotations from the article):
Hrm... perhaps someone ("michael") was:
Personally I think that slashdot is having serious quality problems. Crap is getting posted all too often, and good stuff is getting refused. Articles like this don't even deserve the bytes they are printed on (err, what a sec here...
I remember a slashdot that was run by a single person, and that person ran a quality site. Back then the quality of the site was directly tied to his reputation... now however, things are seeming different.
-Chris
Set Konqy to masquerade as IE from the Control Center (UserAgent). www.zdnet.com is not shown correctly because buggy scripts in the page identify us as Netscape. Also complain to their webmaster.
IE isn't availible on all platforms so how do you expect me to change to it?
-Compenguin
A Slashdot story advocating the use of a Microsoft product??? Maybe one of those dooms-day asteroids is going to hit us after all. Surely this must be one of the seven signs???
Full HTML4.0 compliance
Full ECMAscript 262 support (Javascript)
Java applets
Full CSS1 and partial CSS2 compliance
Full SSL support (with openSSL)
This is definitely the browser to use if you're on a unix system. It's great for those that want an open source browser that is lightweight (no email/news clients, as there are other KDE apps for that).
-Justin
"Clearly, IE is a better browser" /.- think before you post. I still like you guys, and you'll last a lot longer if you don't alienate your readership by allowing trolls to pose as employees.
Eh. Clearly, you haven't been using Mozilla regularly. It isn't yet as good as (say) IE 5.5 for Mac, but it is vastly better than Netscape 4.x and getting better all the time.
"and will stay that way."
How exactly do you justify that? Oh, wait, I forgot- this is slashdot, not actual journalism.
Seriously, if this article were a comment, it would get modded into the ground as flamebait, because Michael is making claims that are not only tenously grounded in reality, but which he completely fails to back up at all. Furthermore, it completely ignores most of us who are not willing to run products that aren't free, Windows first and foremost among them.
Please, please
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
I've been reading Slashdot for a long, long time and I resent your claim that supporting IE is "ridiculous".
Historically, Microsoft made some pretty crappy software. Things are changing, however, and they don't deserve the flaming that they get on this site. Yes, they're closed-source. Hell, RedHat makes closed-source software. **MOST** companies make closed-source software. But in terms of stability and quality, Win2k and IE 5.01 are awesome products.
Before you get your panties in a knot, let me tell you that I ran Linux from early 1994 until 1998, when I switched to FreeBSD. My job title is "Senior UNIX Administrator" and I've spent more than my share of time at a bash prompt. I've played with nearly every OS out there, both open and closed-source. I stand by my opinion that IE and Win2k are excellent products.
And for your statement that "IE will never compete with Mozilla", well, you're just plain wrong. IE's user base is growing daily. IE came farther along in a matter of a year than Mozilla has done in its lifetime. Like it or not, most of the world uses (and will continue to use) Microsoft Windows.
On top of all that's been said; about OS embedding to gain performance and entangle IE in the OS; about the IE lack of standards compliance; the customizability of Mozilla and the like; I'd like to add THIS.
It's exactly the sort of blind regurgitation of opinions, as skillfully demonstrated by the troll message I'm responding to, that has gotten us where we are now.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
The majority of the support code used by IE has been transferred into dynamic libraries that are loaded to perform other basic functions of the operating system. They merged most of IE into DLLs that are automatically loaded as part of the standard functions of Windows (with or without Explorer). This was demonstrated in some of the prosecution's expert testimony during the trial. If it's still on-line, re-read Rich Gray's coverage of the trial in the San Jose Mercury News.
It's part of the reason why every successive version of IE has significantly slowed down the machine it runs on. Try running applications on a 16 MB Windows 95 box, vs. the same machine after IE 5 is installed. Tell me the latter doesn't run slower and start swapping sooner, even if you start up with cmd.exe instead of explorer.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Not all of us run Windows, so we can't beta-test IE 6 unless MS suddenly decides to start supporting platforms outside of Windows and Macintosh. In any event, Mozilla nightlies are just as good by now; that the Mozilla crew has developed a cross-platform, standards-compliant, feature-filled, modern web browser in about 2.5 years from the ground up is just amazing. That Netscape/AOL is pissing in it doesn't surprise me, but then, I use Mozilla nightlies, not NS6.
Mozilla != Netscape, but Netscape is being built on Mozilla.
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Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Now, do you mean just NS or Mozilla too? The problem that I face with the arguement that IE is better than NS, is that IE doesn't exist so far as I'm concerned. It's not available on any of the platforms that I choose to use, so... The battle is between mozilla, NS6, other Gecko based browsers, Opera, Konquerer, etc.
Of course the correct response to this is: Its Free Software - don't whine - patch! If Netscape management is more worried about shipping than fixing some bugs then fork for god's sake! I would rather them ship a 90% compliant browser than ship nothing and leave us with NS4 on UNIX.
I can't believe you got modded up as insightful. The article gives props to Mozilla which is the Open Source project not Netscape. The problem is that Netscape is ignoring all the fruits of the Open Source nature of Mozilla by refusing patches and the like to standards compliance problems.
I agree that for a site that pushes Open Source micheal should have pushed Mozilla instead of IE but it seems you are under the mistaken assumption that Mozilla and Netscape 6 are the same project which is untrue.
Mozilla is NOT Netscape
Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
the article is about how Netscape's people aren't implementing Mozilla's patches.
That's the story in a nutshell. Don't hold your breath to apt-get MSIE 6.0... Mozilla is working on these problems, and they're not worried about release dates
Again from the article: There's a link about signing the petition, and some very egregious examples of Netscape (despite railings by Mozilla) not implementing pre-existing fixes.
There's still hope... for those of us who wait for Mozilla.
__
alt.geek
One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
What is this guy complaining about? Netscape has decided to put a feature freeze on Netscape v6.0, and is being very selective about what makes it into the codebase. Finally, Netscape wants to realease a browser, instead of releasing press releases.
Unfortunately, this is going to mean that some documented "misbehaviours" will not be fixed for Netscape 6. They'll be fixed in Mozilla, and fixed in later releases of Netscape, but they won't be fixed in this one. Oh well - sometimes, that happens. If it this matters to you, use Mozilla instead of Netscape. Or, use Internet Explorer.
But Netscape has to realease something. That fetid pile of refuse they've been limping along on for the last few years is simply horrible -- it doesn't even pretend to support any of standards proposed by w3 in the last four years. The CSS1 support is a cruel, hideous joke. The CSS positional content crap makes my hair turn grey. The DOM is entirely non-standard, and provides almost no scriptable elements -- essentially, Netscape v4 allows you to swap images, hide and show layers, and manipulate form elements. Thats it. Its hardly more than Netscape 2 provided. Some incredible effects have been created using these paltry tools, but I shudder to think how much hair someone lost trying to create them. Internet Explorer is much, much easier to develop for -- it supports the w3 proposed standards much, much better than Netscape v4 ever did. In some cases, it supports them as well as Netscape v6 plans to.
Unfortunately, there is only one widely used standards compliant browser -- Internet Explorer. More and more websites will abandon Netscape in the coming years. I am certain of this. If a credible standards compliant competitor to IE emerges, then I believe most developers will develop to those specifications. Unfortanately, if no competitor implementing CSS or the DOM emerges, then developers will continue developing to IE's implementation of those specifications, along with all the other non-stadard extensions IE introduces.
Frankly, the abandonment of Netscape is happening today, and the problem is going to accelerate. Unless some browser gets a toe hold in now, soon the web will be full of IE specific pages -- pages which follow no published standard, but instead are written to whatever implementation those guys at Redmond decides to give us. We need a second standards compliant browser available for most platforms, so that people have a reason to use the standards. A standard is only useful in the face of competition.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
You see, by releasing it as a 6.0 (not beta, but just as a version), people will download it, and not download anything for a while (people don't like downloading new stuff -- it tends to be slower and clunkier). As a result, developers will have to start (learning) how to develop for 6.0 -- programming for its quirks ON TOP of what they already have to do right now (we have to separate IE/NS, then by major version number, and if we're doing really funky stuff, by minor version number).
That's a WHOLE LOT OF CRAP. The article makes some good points.
I guess it comes down to: is it better for NS to release a buggy browser that people are pissed off about? Or is it better that they not release another (yet again) for a while and risk losing even MORE market share.
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Some of [the standards] are too vague on what the different elements should look like...
If you're talking about HTML (as opposed to CSS), that's deliberate! The Web was not designed to be WYSIWYG. HTML is for content markup, not visual markup. If you need absolute control over the look of a page (why?), use Flash or some other plug-in.
Nobody won the browser wars, damnit! We all lost! The browser wars set us back 10 years, to the time before the web. The Web was invented so that anybody could view anything on anything, the browser wars destroyed that. Instead, we got two sucky browsers that look the same, feel the same, renders pages almost identical. One is perhaps more bloated than the other, but they both suck badly. Instead, we should have had a great diversity in browsers, each with different features, leaving the layout of the page and the control of the page largely in the hands of the users. Very little of the web's potential is realized, all it does is put food on the table for a few overpaid graphics designers, while web pages are still linear or hierarchal. Arrrrggggh!
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
I tell ya.. Slashdot says something Pro-Microsoft, the Internet will crash tomorrow at election day, and the US Government gives it's employees a raise.. Oh, did I mention that pigs have flown?
Now all we need is for the Transmeta IPO
Information is the catalyst for revolution