IE And Mozz Collaborate On RSS Icon

sylverboss writes "The Microsoft Team RSS blog is reporting that IE7 is adopting the RSS icon used in Firefox. They all agreed that it's in the user's best interest to have one common icon to represent RSS and RSS-related features in a browser. The increasing collaborative efforts between the browser vendors in the last few weeks is an honest attempt to create a standard Web interface for everyone, no matter what browser is used."

Comments

Re:Good

[vishbar]

Collaberating on a 32x32 (if that) bitmap? Call me a cynic, but I don't give a flying fudge. IE needs to actually adopt features that matter. You know, proper CSS implementation comes to mind... This seems like an instance for Microsoft to say "Hey look, we cooperate! I mean goddamn...that's a nice icon!"

Don't get me wrong, I think it's good that they're collaberating, but call me when they cooperate on something functional.

Could they would they...

[squoozer]

I wonder if MS is considering opening IE or possibly even giving up on development of it. While you might fall over laughing at that and think "Oh, just another OSS fan boy" here's my reasoning. There is nothing left to fight for in the browser war. MS used the browser to get Windows on every desktop. They have done that now. They won, so why maintain their weapon (IE). In fact just look at the situation they have got themselves into. They didn't want to maintain IE so for x (7 IIRC) years they have just not really touched it. If FF hadn't come along I doubt they would have ever touched it again. After all, it didn't directly make them any money. What good it did to their bottom line had already been done. Personally, I think this update to IE is an egg on face stopper rather than a real update. Once they have done this update they then have a good two or three years to announce that they will no longer be updating IE. The great thing about that from MS's point of view is that they can abandon IE without loosing face.

What would be great is if they stopped development of IE and put some effort into FF. After all they are likely to be playing catch up for ever against FF simply because of the way it is developed and released. The only thing that would stop MS from doing this is pride. They won't admit that OSS can actually produce decent software.

Re:Could they would they...

[Bogtha]

What would be great is if they stopped development of IE and put some effort into FF. After all they are likely to be playing catch up for ever against FF simply because of the way it is developed and released. The only thing that would stop MS from doing this is pride.

Microsoft have positioned Internet Explorer as a way of writing in-house applications for years. They support all kinds of quirks and non-standard behaviour like HTAs etc that Gecko, KHTML, etc don't have to.

It's more than pride stopping Microsoft from switching to Gecko; all their big customers who've bought into their marketing and built in-house applications that require this stuff would scream bloody murder if the rug was pulled out from under them.

In order to let Internet Explorer die, they'd have to transition these customers to something else. The two main contenders are XAML and XUL. XAML isn't quite ready yet, and Microsoft won't undermine it by switching their customers to XUL, will they?

You have to understand that Longhorn was supposed to be done by now. These customers should already be switching in mass numbers. But Longhorn has been delayed for so long that Microsoft's strategy has hit a roadblock because Internet Explorer isn't cutting the mustard any more, and people are looking at alternatives like XUL.

Re:Could they would they...

[birge]

Perhaps you should think about who it is that is stuck in 'obsession'.

Woah. I love tabs. I just don't like them blank.

Was it a firefox issue? Did you test the same sites with firefox on other machines?

Of course it's a Firefox issue. That's self evident if you drop your defensive knee-jerking for a minute. If you install software and it doesn't work, it is, by definition, that software that is the problem. Perhaps it's understandable that FF has problems given the sorry nature of Windows networking, but that doesn't change the fact that I, and others, have had problems with Firefox on machines where IE works fine. Part of writing software is working around problems with the OS you're targeting. Everybody knows that but OSS people, who regularly project their faults on the OS in lieu of QC. The bottom line is IE works on every machine I have, but FF has occasional problems on most every machine I use, from linux to windows.

It seems like you have a nasty habit of externalizing your own character flaws into the outside world.

Damn. You're either the world's greatest psychologist or the worst hypocrite. You may be projecting the projecting, chief. I just uninstalled it. You're psychoanalysing it. Which one of us has the issue? I don't care that FF sucked for me. I have nothing invested in OSS or commericial software. I was just telling what happened to me. However, I do appreciate it every time somebody from /. decides to read my fortune from one paragraph I write about a fucking html browser. Listen: not everybody has their identity caught up in the software they choose to use. So when I insult the guys who spend countless hours developing FF without compensation and only manage to produce something of comparable bloatness and bugginess to IE, I mention this fact with a detachment that is probably hard for some people here to understand. Don't mistake the extremity of my position for passion about the cause. I really don't care if FF fails or succeeds. I do, however, find mild amusement in calling BS when I see it. And the idea that FF is god's answer to the browser is wrong both in premise and in fact.

I suggested the FF guys were arrogant not because I'm sure I'm right, but because they didn't even bother to find out either way. No respectable company would act that way. There were more than a few of us who were submitting bugs about pages not loading, and we were all dismissed out of hand since there are, evidently, millions of downloads without problems. Intellectually honest developers would at least be curious about the issue. The FF guys were almost reactionary with their dismissal. I thought I was helping them with their project, but I was treated like a guy taking a shit in the middle of a party. It was pretty enlightening to me about their mindset, and I thought it would be interesting for people here. Or at least the ones with some objectivity left.

Anyway, this only makes me arrogant if I'm wrong. And it only makes me obsessed if I think about this for more than a minute after hitting "submit." And believe me, I don't. I argue about software for the same reason most people argue about sports. It fun to do when there's nothing else to do.

Re:Um...Safari?

[ceejayoz]

A blue "RSS" is only clear to the user if they know what RSS means, and probably 95%+ of Internet users don't.

The orange has become something of a de-facto standard, and the icon Firefox and IE are going to use has the advantage of working just fine for non-english users and no flamewar between the "XML", "RSS", and "FEED" camps.

Collaborate or adopt?

[digitaldc]

You decide.

It's cool but...

[Xenious]

It looks like a singnal strength indicator. In fact (besides being orange) it looks like the icon my weather radio alarm clock thing uses to show atmoic time sync singal. Wtf does the icon have to do with an RSS feed?

This is nuts

[Displaced Cajun]

You know, I wish when I story was rejected, you could see who was the person who rejected it.
2005-12-15 16:29:46 Standarized RSS Icon For Mozilla and IE 7 (Developers,Mozilla) (rejected)

Re:Good

[IAmTheDave]

What sort of thing? Stuff like...

I think that Microsoft is starting to realize that karma actually counts towards something. You've got Firefox and the team basically getting MS level advertising for free. Google's mantra of "do no evil" has helped rocket them to a huge stock price.

Microsoft is starting to realize that sometimes, making things work for the user, the way the user wants (not the way MS wants) is enough to give you a better image.

Heck, I applaud MS for all the things listed in the parent post, as should just about everyone. Years of letting IE slide suck, but if they've admitted (in actions) that they needed to get up to snuff and have taken steps to do so, well, give 'em just a little love - whether they improve things out of love for the customer or fear of losing them doesn't really matter much.

Re:Good

[slashrogue]

Obviously you've never had to do the trick of using IE's icon for the Firefox shortcut on someone else's computer because they just don't understand web pages without clicking on that big blue e.

Re:Good

[vishbar]

Firstly, when I replied to that comment, it hadn't been moderated. My response WAS on-topic: the parent (of the original post) mentioned cooperating with other browsers, and I proposed that the adoption of Firefox's RSS icon wasn't a great change in policy. I apologize if I wasn't clear enough in my original post.

You raise a good point in the second post though, something that I obviously didn't think about. By adopting Firefox's icon, they do lend Firefox a sense of credibility. Hopefully, they'll take the same attitude toward, as you said, web standards.

Your third point may be true as well. According to TFA:

I'm excited to announce that we're adopting the icon used in Firefox. John and Chris were very enthusiastic about allowing us (and anyone in the community) to use their icon. This isn't the first time that we've worked with the Mozilla team to exchange ideas and encourage consistency between browsers, and we're sure it won't be the last.

One thing I'd really like to see RSS-wise in IE-7 is the Live Bookmark feaure from Firefox.

Honestly, I've got high hopes for IE7. As much as it pains me to say it, it looks to be shaping up to be a damn nice browser. Now if they'd just stick Acid2 complience in there....

Re:Good

[lpangelrob]

You know, I wonder what the browser world will look like 10 months after IE 7 comes out... eventually.

I thought about this earlier, and I'm pretty sure I'm not being pessimisstic — we know that Microsoft has (though doesn't always take advantage of) some of the best talent in the world. Has it been considered that there may be features in IE7 that will obsolete Firefox 1.0/1.5/2.0?

If so (and at this point I have to imagine that in spite of the organizational problems inherent to company, development on IE 7 is going at a rapid pace...), does that mean Firefox's purpose would be fulfilled?

In the broader scheme of things, I wonder what development process works better -- somewhat disorganized by design (having read the flamewars about GNOME vs. KDE, this has been part of the backdrop of that whole debate), or PHB's and private corporations? Does the development process have anything to do with the finished product?

Anyways, those have just been a few thoughts of mine in the past week. Feel free to critique.

Re:Good

[drinkypoo]

Does anyone else remember when Apple had all of the best UI designers?

No, but I do remember when Apple only supported a 1 button mouse and you couldn't use the finder (or anything else) from the keyboard except for accepting default choices. Is that relevant?

Re:Good

[Aqua OS X]

As a graphic and interface designer, I think that icon blows. Visually, it doesn't speak to RSS at all. It looks like something that should be associated with wireless or audio.

However, I HIGHLY doubt those MS folks flew all the way down to California to simply discuss the adoption of one icon.