US Copyright Office Considering MSIE-only website

wikinerd writes "The United States Copyright Office asks whether you would have any problem if you were required to use Microsoft Internet Explorer in order to pre-register a work via their website. The Norwegian government recently said no to proprietary formats, but it seems that the US government sites should be informed about the existence of non-Microsoft Web browsers, such as Firefox, Konqueror, Opera, and Safari. I have written a letter about this issue, which is posted on my blog for everyone to copy and base on it their own response. If they see how many people use alternative browsers, they'll probably reconsider and stay within the W3C standards."

Comments

Interesting

[Sierpinski]

I find it extremely interesting that the government in the past has brought an anti-trust suit against Microsoft for being a monopoly, however they themselves would help to propagate this by using their software. Not to mention allowing ONLY their software, they are ensuring that any user who wants to visit their site also must "pay" Microsoft, thus even further contributing to the "monopoly".

I would have thought that if the government was under the impression that Microsoft was a monopoly (true or not), they would have taken steps to help prevent adding to that situation, and support a different browser for their site, or *gasp* don't require *ANY* browser, but rather just design it to be functionally usable by any W3C compliant browser. Add in the 508 compliance for web accessbility, and you can't go wrong.

Government, make up your mind.

Re:Interesting

[jwhitener]

It really baffles me that designers/coders actually feel like it is some sort of huge challenge to make a site work with all browsers.

If you do a bit of homework (or google it) you'll see a pretty stable set of common code that works with all browsers.

The next step is designing a site only using that code. It really isn't rocket science.

Do you sacrifice some cutting edge features? Of course. But unless your purpose is to wow your audience with cutting edge stuff, there should never be a reason to use those cutting edge features.

One of the sites I'm working with now has over 12,000 pages, and is controlled by 3 style sheets. It is clean, compliant code, that has only THREE browser based changes to the stylesheet (in order to make IE work on a couple newer featurs).

The site has forms, online bill pay, dynamic content, flash, rollovers, and is comprised entirely of divs and css.

Sites that say "IE Only", or "Requires standards compliant browser", or any other variation of saying, in essence,

"Please be inconvienced because of my limitations as a designer"

Need to hire a new web team.

It is quite literally zero extra work to make a complex site work with all browsers if you know what you are doing.

And before someone posts 32 specific code examples showing how its impossible, ask yourself, How could I have done that differently? Why did I need to use that code? I will guarantee that there is another way that will work with both browsers, and if not, that you didn't need to implement that in your site.

Stop. Supporting. Browsers.

[91degrees]

Browsers should support HTML. Websites should be written in HTML.

These are not fundamentally architecturally different pieces of equipment. If you can't create a website that works adeqautely with all browsers, then you don't deserve to be employed as a web designer.

Re:RFTA

[1u3hr]

they will be writing stuff to allow these browsers at a later date.

Without a deadline, it can easily get pushed back and back, until they can say it's working fine with IE only; why bother?

Re:Swings and Roundabouts

[aisaac]

Here is a possible letter body that is less tendentious than that linked in the article.

--

Dear Copyright Office:

I am responding to your August 4 notice on Preregistration of Certain Unpublished Copyright Claims (37 CFR Part 202 [Docket No. RM 2005-9]), in which you ask whether potential preregistrants will unable or unwilling to use Internet Explorer 5.1 or higher with the new electronic form. I am one of an estimated 20% of browser users who does not use Internet Explorer.

I understand that the problem is that you will not be able to upgrade to Siebel 7.8 in time for the October 24 launch, and that Siebel 7.7 offers inadequate guarantees of multiple browser support. I understand that you plan to offer multiple browser support "in the future".

I commend your for developing an electronic form and allowing preregistration. However your announcement of this implementation limitation is worrisome for three reasons.

- You do not identify the source of the limitation. If the electronic form will be compliant with modern web standards (http://www.w3.org/) but will not have been fully tested with other browsers, that is a minor concern. In this case there is high likelihood that all modern browsers will work with the site. If on the other hand the electronic form will actively block other browsers or will contain IE specific code in violation of web standards, this is a larger concern.
- You do not explicitly address section 508 compliance, which as I understand it is a legal requirement upon the Copyright Office. http://www.section508.gov/ It is hard to understand how section 508 compliant website would be unusable with essentially any modern browser.
- You do not identify a time frame for removal of this limitation. If you will fix things in a few weeks, fewer users will be affected than if you will take a couple years.