WWW Inventor On Microsoft's Browser Tricks

Unipuma writes: "Tim Berners-Lee gives his views in an interview with Silicon Valley about the latests blocking of the MSN website for most other than Internet Explorer browsers. 'I have fought since the beginning of the Web for its openness: that anyone can read Web pages with any software running on any hardware. This is what makes the Web itself. This is the environment into which so many people have invested so much energy and creativity. When I see any Web site claim to be only readable using particular hardware or software, I cringe - they are pining for the bad old days when each piece of information need a different program to access it.'"

Comments

DMCA+Huxterism=Bad Future

[rossjudson]

I resent XP because of its relentless huxterism: Guiding or forcing me to use the sites that it prefers. There is a scary nexus in front of us that nobody seems to be talking about, and its about the freedoms we have with our general computing devices. Microsoft is very interested in guiding/forcing you to use their sites and technologies, to drive their revenue model.

Right now they are able to avoid some criticism because you can reconfigure IE. You don't have to use their search sites, and you don't have to use the home page they so thoughtfully provide for you. But, what if they took the ability to set your own home page away? What if they took away the ability to choose your own search engine? What then? Why, you say, you'd just figure out how to modify the registry or hack the program or something like that. But you can't. You just violated the DMCA by doing that. You tampered with a security system, and you're going to jail.

This isn't paranoia. It's a logical extension of what we're seeing right now. Not only will it be difficult to NOT use Microsoft's chosen service providers, it'll actually be illegal.

Ultimately, it's about freedom. Do I have the right to do as I wish with a general computation device that I own? The DMCA says no. Hollings say s no. Microsoft says no.

I think the industry has done just fine without massive regulation so far. We are entering an age where "the little guy" can do something equally as interesting as a large corporation. Clearly, they can't have that. Campaign contributions are dangerously close to ensuring that "they" succeed.

Who is "they"?

It is the RIAA. It is Microsoft. These companies believe their right to control the ultimate use of their products is more important than YOUR right to live and think in freedom.

Re:Actually, that's the misquote.

[dillon_rinker]

I don't have access to a recording or a transcript, but I'm fairly sure it was "I took the initiative in creating the internet." He didn't provide funding for the creation of HTML or HTTP; nor did he provide funds for httpd or apache development. I would suggest that if he used the phrase "world wide web" then he was being deceptive.

All in all, he would have been better off saying "I took the initiative in funding the internet; without that initiative, we wouldn't have the internet in its current form."