Slashdot Mirror
Give Mac Explorer to the People?
An anonymous reader writes "In an article on the BBC News site, Bill Thompson suggests that Microsoft release the source for IE:Mac to the world so that others can continue to develop the product. While this may be a pleasant fiction, Microsoft does seem to be making an effort to change their image. Could we see more OSS interaction from the software giant in the near future?"
How about we just let Mac IE die and keep gathering support for Firefox?
As if IE doesn't have enough exploits right now.
The opposite of progress is congress
Surely the reason why microsoft would never do that is the fact that not in a million years would that product stay on Mac. I would give it two weeks before it was given enhancements, ported to windows, and released as a compatible alternative to IE 7, eating away at ever more market share.
I thought Firefox was better than IE anyway and code-reviewed by millions of users worldwide. Why do you want the IE source?
Or are there not enough OSS browser choices already?
The real question is why? The Mac already has both a more modern Apple-produced browser (Safari) that MS themselves recommend, along with a true open-source alternative (Firefox), not to mention all the usual suspects if you're not a fan of either of those (Opera, etc.).
While it may be a nice pseudo-political irony to have IE Mac go open-source, it is an old, outdated browser that was rendered unnecessary long ago in every sense of the word.
I'm not that interested in the browser but some of the middleware code to emulate windows calls on the Mac might be interesting to play with...
------- Code to try when you're bored: qsort( 0, UINT_MAX, sizeof( int* ), IntCompare );
If they aren't going to do any more development on it, others might be inclined to do so if it were released.
There are plenty of good browsers available for the Mac anyway, such as Safari, Mozilla/Firefox, Opera, Omniweb and iCab, so it's no great loss if Microsoft doesn't release the code.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Not gonna happen. Not in my lifetime anyway.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Then they can help us destroy software and business method patents.
After all from what I understand, Microsoft is looking at exploiting the open source model of development for getting free developers. I very much doubt they would go down a path where they transfer the entire copyright of the codebase to a non-profit organization (like Netscape/AOL and Mozilla Foundation).
Then again, with Safari working very decently - who needs IE on Mac ?
I can almost picture Steve Ballmer - "developersQuidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Never heard of Darwin, have we?
Long Answer : They probably have (or should have) a "core" which is identical to any system, only the system dependant api, or itnerraction of that core renderer with the system, would change from IE mac to IE Win (read file, allocate memory, render window, call external program etc...). There is no way they would open their "IP" (the core) to the world.
Now it might be that the core is compeltly different from a system to the next. Then I will probably be the first to yell "what the hell were they thinking ???".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Let it die, let it die already!
Yes, Mac IE was fairly advanced for its time, but the quicker it disappears from the face of the planet, the better! All the techniques on which modern web design rely that work reliably in all the major browsers have major issues in Mac IE. Floats and clear in particular - these just require such awful hackery when Mac IE specifically needs to be supported... it's worse than IE 5 and Netscape 4 combined! (Okay, so that might be a slight hyperbole.) ;P
Yes, it's very understandable that the behaviours of these properties weren't well defined back then, and compared to the Win IE of its time, Tantek and team did a superb job with this browser... but that was years ago. It's dead now, and needs to be forgotten as quickly as possible!
I'm no techical wizard, but the article really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it? As far as I know, the rendering engine is totally different from Mac to Windows. It isn't as though they're using the MSHTML dll. Hell, doesn't Safari use WebCore for display and WebKit for their plugin architecture? (again, I'm not really up on this, so feel free to correct)
IE5 for OS9 was a fairly nice piece of software, but the OSX version was always ghastly. If the rendering engine is passé too, then ... why release the code? I'd suggest the effort is better spent getting Microsoft to release a standards-compliant "browser" with be done with this particular era in the history of the internet.
Microsoft is looking at exploiting the open source model of development for getting free developers.
Who isn't?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yes, they do seem to be making that effort, and it does appear to be working on the surface. However, beneath the surface, the same Microsoft is still in business.
Unless Gates and Ballmer relinquish the throne, the real Microsoft (not the Microsoft that the image-makers paint for us) will not, and can not, change.
Microsoft does seem to be making an effort to change their image.
And that's about all; Microsoft is all about marketing. They can change their image by putting millions of dollars into ad campaigns, without having to change the way they run their monopoly. It is very expensive from a marketing perspective to change the opinion of anyone that has caught on to what they are really doing behind the scenes with all their OEM contracts and extending of protocols -- so they are only interested in beguiling ignorant people and management-types.
Statements like this that put an arguably misplaced faith in giant multinational monopolies are nothing short of propaganda and free marketing for Microsoft.
Microsoft could open-source some of the code - what they wrote themselves - but there's still code in there from Mosaic, which MS licensed from Spyglass. Not sure if Spyglass owns the rights or has just licensed them, but the ownership seems a little murky to me. Does UIUC own it? NCSA? The citizens of the USA, who paid for much of its development?
I dunno, but I'm betting that MS couldn't easily release IE as OSS even if they were so inclined.
Mudge
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they're not.
I'm not that interested in the browser but some of the middleware code to emulate windows calls on the Mac might be interesting to play with...
There are none. IE for the Mac was built from scratch not using a single line of IE Windows code by a different team of developers who most likley didn't have any formal communication with the IE for windows team.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Microsoft still makes MSN Explorer for the Mac and that is wher I think Microsfot wants its existing IE users to migrate off to. By opening the code for IE up they creating competition for MSN Explorer as well as risking people improving IE for Mac and then porting it over to run on Windows.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
I've never understood why people would want to use any MS product on a Mac. Whether it be IE, Office, or whatever - surely one of the points of using a Mac is that it's an alternative to using MS products. Would you consider running IE on Linux? Probably not, theres no point.
http://www.mongoosesystems.co.uk
HP had the bright idea to implement their scanning software with IE. I had to manually fix it to get it to work with my installation of IE.
A weird hack.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Damn, it's like right when they just give out the foot in mouth awards we get a gem like this.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
MS has NOT acquired Opera, as the parent states.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
This can't and will never happen. Internet Explorer, until 5.5 was mostly written in C++ with MFC (Microsoft Foundation Class Library). With MFC you could, in theory, write your code on one platform and run it on almost any platform. If they release the Mac version to the public Microsoft would release at least half, if not more, of its IE source (even from current development branches.)
A lot of that technology is either licensed from other sources, regional and is under local governmental control, or is closed source because it is under court order because of past law suits. In other words much of Internet Explorer isn't a Microsoft product; it would a nightmare for Microsoft to make it such.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
I know a lot of people have already stated this here, but it needs to be reiterated ad infitum, since so many of you can't seem to get it into your heads. The only thing that IE for Mac has in common with IE for Windows is the name! That's it. It's not a common codebase. It's not the same developers. They both just happened to be made by the same company and given the same name. Got it?
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Oh, this sounds like a fantastic idea. Microsoft is going to encourage slashdotters contribute to their code. With all the good-will that Microsoft has generated within the opensource community, success is ensured.
Other Suggestions:
China should withdraw from Tibet and allow the Tibetans to construct a Disneyland in Lhasa, since Tibet is already becoming little more than a tourist trap.
Bush should withdraw from Iraq and let the war be carried out by our powerful allies from Togo and Lithuania.
The Road Runner should let the Coyote have him for dinner.
They should develop a snow ball in hell that would survive for an extended period of time.
Etc.
There're no Windows call emulation code in Mac IE. Like Office for Mac, it's written from the scratch for (the old) Mac OS.
That's like ten students in Tehran calling for real, free elections.
The difference is that the BBC writer gets to live.
Admittedly, I can see why someone would want IE on the Mac; there tend to be way more "legacy" pre-OSX Macs than Windows PCs out there that can't run the latest and greatest. Lots of Mac installations tend to be task-based (running a piece of scientific equipment, desktop-publishing the same publication month after month, etc.) or they're simply in non-profit organizations that can't afford to replace them every three years.
However, without that exception I can't see why anyone would want IE on OS X. Maybe for compatibility with a web application that only works with IE?? I installed IE on my Mac when I got it a year ago, and I don't think I've ever opened it. Firefox is capable of handing most sites now. Even "IE Only" sites at least render OK.
Seriously. IE for Windows has hella security holes as it is. Releasing the source code for Mac IE, which is also widely used, would only open up more security holes than already exist in public knowledge.
Besides, it would take months for any initiative to start and release a "patch" to fix said new holes.
I certainly hope Microsoft will never release that smelly old pile of crock as open source. isn't it bad enough that they insist on installing it on Windows machines? Internet Explorer was a lousy, pitiful web browser, and now, at long last, it has died. Please don't raise the dead.
They haven't updated it in forever, so IE mac is really so old as to be useless. If you use a Mac, you're probably using Firefox, Opera, or Safari, and much happier anyway.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
First, as many have pointed out, Microsoft doesn't have the right to open up all the code.
.).
Second, the code isn't really worth anything at this point. The rendering engine in Mac IE has nothing to do with the rendering engine in Win IE and it's easily the slowest rendering engine out there (well, it's definitely a ton slower than Moz, IE Win, KHTML. .
Third, the author says that his reason for wanting Mac IE is for some random website that will require it in the future. Unfortunately, while a website may require IE, it won't work with IE Mac. IE Mac has nothing to do with IE Win. It can't run ActiveX. It doesn't render things similarly. If a website requires IE, Mac IE users are out of luck.
Fourth, I don't think anyone would be impressed by releasing the source for an application that is so dead. Releasing the source for Win IE would be amazing - the community could clean up security holes, improve standards compliance, etc. and make IE a better browser. Mac IE, on the other hand, is long gone. It's just too hopeless to salvage anything useful. It would be like Microsoft open-sourcing Internet Explorer 1.0 - just too old to make anyone care at this point.
Mac IE is dead. It's old. There's nothing useful there and open-sourcing it wouldn't help the Mac community or the open-source community. It wouldn't give any insight into the things that make websites IE-only since IE-only websites don't work with Mac IE. This article is just bad.
It's either intentionally making a joke or is trying to see if people with mod points are bored.
Either way, the Informative mod is wrong.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
Yes.
No way is this going to happen. Not a chance in hell. What has MS ever opened up after it's become obsolete or unsupported? It's not going to happen.
Next.Yes - right after the FAA give type approval for flying pigs.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
1) MS Releases IE for Mac as Open Source...
2) Project goes no where, produces no new code, no bug fixes, because the code is open, hackers find holes and hack IE Mac...
3) MS Starts FUD campaign about how open source is less secure, doesn't produce bug fixes fast, and doesn't add new features!
The fox wants to play with the chickens! That's so cute! How come we never let the cute fuzzy fox in the henhouse to play with them, Daddy? How come?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
Regular slashdot readers woule be aware that the 'red box' dream of rhapsody is to some degree being realised in the form of Darwine, itself based on wine
Don't hold your breath relying on Microsoft to be a good Mac community member and open sourcing this 'legacy' browser. If true IE compatibility is required then at least in theory it is possible to run the real thing under wine in OS X.
The advantage of this strategy is that by contributing to wine's completeness, other Windows applications will be runnable within OS X. :)
Sure you'll be running a Windows app, but you'll be able to browse all the IE-dependant intranet webapps your Windows XP colleagues use, from the sanctity of your Mac environment.
I've heard that some aspects of the rendering engine, particularly the CSS support, is ahead of the Window s version of IE. Of course, I would still encourage people to work on Firefox, especially given the license people would likely be operating under if MS released it.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
In other words, one who has no idea what he's asking for, and why nobody else would ask for it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Greeeat, yeah im sure the OSS community wants a browser that hasn't been updated in years. Lets all drop our nice up to date firefox browsers for an inferior piece of software that needs years of catch up work.
Lets not forget the fact that this probably has old Windows IE code inside it and there is not a chance in hell of it happening.
It's a nice idea but it's wishful thinking, surely. The IE stuff sounds too core and too controversional for Microsoft to play around with it.
OTOH, it's possible that Micrisoft might start to become a little more open. They might decide to do so by making the best of what they regard as a bad job, for example opening up their server protocols with a song and dance about open saucery because they are in heavy trouble with the EU over the matter anyway. Or they might decide to make their browser a little more flexible, along the lines of Firefox extensions, etc.
But it is easy to overlook that opening up anything could be fairly traumatic for Microsoft. It's not just the money, it's the whole philosophy of the company that would feel threatened. Microsoft is built on the notion that every single thing, right down to the precise shade of the last pixel, must be absolutely determined and controlled, and then parcelled out dollar by dollar. Only this, the theory must go, guarantees an acceptable "user experience" that can be replicated 100 per cent on any desktop anywhere in the world.
Perhaps there are 500 business-school tomes which back up the idea. If so, they are history now. In many ways, a bold move Bill Gates could make in 2006 would be to accept that the philsosphy which built Microsoft may be becoming incapable of sustaining it, step back and let someone else take a crack. And that could really wrong-foot Google et al, too.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
There's a deal between Apple and Microsoft. Part of the deal is that Internet Explorer for Mac should cease development. I presume the flip side of that deal is that Apple should stop developing/bundling Appleworks and promote Office:mac.
There's an upside to this deal for both companies, Microsoft gets to maintain a cross-platform Office Document format and product without worrying about a competing product in a niche market (though the cross platform part seems to fall flat all the time), and Apple gets to make people design web pages to work better on their system which is also an API for developers on OS X.
The side effect is axing two dated carbon apps.
To unkill/resurect the product would be to break the deal, whatever the other terms of the deal may be, they're good enough to microsoft that they probably wouldn't want to do that.
-Daniel
Microsoft can keep Internet Explorer, let it die. Its bloated, its slow, its so full of holes and exploits that no one should be running it in the first place. There is Firefox and Safari for Mac OS X, and Mac OS 9 users can always go back to Netscape or Mozilla (early release). I don't know what all the fuss is about, it (IE) was a badly written; late to market; bloatware browser in the first place.
I doubt that, why would they build an entirely _different_ rendering engine from the ground up with a goal of rendering exactly like the windows version without any collaboration whatsoever? Maybe you could get me to subscribe to the idea that the majority of the code is not shared, but I wouldn't say they don't share _any_ code without some hard data backing it up.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
The rendering engine is outdated, the program is riddled with bugs and shares only its name with its Windows counterpart.
Who in their right mind would bother working on it?
why would anyone in the right mind would want to develop IE5 for Mac? it's outdated, slow, supports the oldest of web standards, and has a minimal feature set. Developing on IE5 would be like writing a modern web brower from scratch ... while trying to learn the strange coding methodologies that Microsoft uses internally and intentionally to cripple the Mac version in order to make Windows look like a star.
with Firefox/Mozilla, Safari, and Opera, to name a few, how many more web browers do we need?
No.
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
If it is MS and your serious about working in that area then seeing thier code could at a later stage contaminate any chance of doing serious coding elsewhere.
The reason why some aren't too keen on thier shared source license.
Ahhhhhhhhh, Microsoft. I tell ya. If I were a tech columnist, I would have a whole backlog of MS-related stories that I could pull out at a moment's notice. Think about it. Editor wants column that gets people talking. Microsoft is a lightning rod. Take anything that Microsoft does and add a little commentary about Open Source -- PRESTO! Instant Column. And I didn't even have to interrupt my end-of-year vacation.
So, for all you folks that keeping asking, "Why?" There is no Why.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Why would even an open-source developer community want to start with a browser that is so far behind the state of the art -- one that breaks more modern Web pages than it renders well, that is slower than any other browser in common use on Mac OS X and, as already stated, is completely unrelated to the IE/Windows family so does nothing for cross-platform compatibility? Sheesh, other than that, it's great! ;-)
-- Jay Small | Small Initiatives | Sensible Internet Design | smallinitiatives.com
Why do we need an outdated inferior browser when we already have a great open source browser and open source WebKit? IE doesn't do anything firefox or safari doesn't do.
Emphasis on the was part. IE5/Mac was a great browser when all you had was Netscape 4. Then again, Netscape 4 makes poop look like gold, so that's not that much to start with. At the time, IE5/Mac had rendering qualities and CSS support that outdid it's equivalent on Windows. Meanwhile, newer versions came out of pretty much everything (Mozilla grew up, Safari started up, IE/Win grew into IE6) - and the IE5/Mac team didn't do diddly-squat. That is why, in this age of Ajax and good clean CSS - IE5/Mac is now a stinker. It's unstable, unpredictable... obsolete. Let. it. die.
This was a stupid article by an ignorant fool, and I wish Slashdot didn't post a story giving this man more attention than he deserves.
They didn't, and it doesn't. IE for Mac was a completely different team, and it does not render the same as IE for Windows. It does not support ActiveX, either. It is a different browser in all but name. Unlike some other unfortunate ports to Mac, MS did not implement a hacked up Windows API compatibility layer for IE.
Go look at the project history, developer statements, or thousands of different web design sites that talk about this. The two browsers render quite differently, in that IE for Mac tended to be much more standards compliant, and did not implement the IE for Windows specific behaviors.
Who is this guy and why is he making such a ridiculous suggestion? He should be supporting the death of IE across the board, not trying to resurrect it.
dont waste your free time on outdated software. ie5? gimme a break!
Day 1: Bill opens the source to Mac IE. People download and build and are happy.
Day 2: Bill "embraces and extends" IIS with a mandatory patch that that is not backwards compatible with Mac IE.
Day 3: All the IE-only sites no longer work on Mac IE.
Day 4: Back to normal.
If IE for the Mac were reliably compatible with sites that "require IE" this would be interesting.
And at the time IE for the Mac came out, it was interesting. I, for one, found it to be much better than Netscape in numerous ways. And at the time, the Mac business unit was trumpeting how compatible it was with Web standards.
Unfortunately, it was. And therefore is not particularly "bug-compatible" with IE for Windows.
I'm very pragmatic about browsers. I don't care about purity, I just want to get my web purchases processed. Safari is very good. In fact, my experience so far is that it is very, very rare to find sites that a) do not work with Safari that b) do work with IE for the Mac. Specifically:
a) If a site claims specifically that it "requires IE 5 or higher," it usually does not work with IE 5.2 for the Mac.
b) If a site claims to require a specific browsers and any browser other than IE is on the list, it usually will work with Safari.
c) If a site, for whatever reason, does not work with Safari, it is more likely to work with Firefox for the Mac than it is to work with IE 5.2 for the Mac.
So... unfortunately... I think this is a non-issue.
If IE for the Mac were a high-fidelity reproduction of vintage-2000 IE for Windows, it would be nice if someone had the source and tried to maintain it. As it is, I don't think there's any good reason to care.
By the way: I found out the hard way that although IE for the Mac and for Windows both have a very useful "web archive" feature, the archive files themselves are in utterly different and incompatible formats, with no known conversion tool between them.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
So is this Bill Thompson critter the UK equivalent of Dvorak?? (all mouth, no brain)
A year ago a exploit was found in Excel that would allow remote code execution on a Mac, it stretched back even to many earlier versions.
i es/132034.html
u rity/SymantecAdvisories.html
Now we have a exploit on Norton Anti-Virus that will allow takeover and privilege elevation on a Mac.
http://www.zdnetindia.com/insight/commentary/stor
Here are some other exports of their products from their own mouths.
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/sec
There is no sane reason to use OfficeMac on a Mac, Appleworks will read and write Excel and Word files, it's only the weak untrained sick puppies that are scared of their jobs who use OfficeMac. Anyone with a brain can achieve the same result with much safer software.
I remember when IE mac came out. It was just a hacked version of Mosaic. Yes, they were able to do a lot with that bit of vintage code, but it would just take too much work to bring it up to date.
When Apple abandoned development of its first web browser, Cyberdog, there was a plug-in to get it to use mac IE's rendering engine.
Oh, how times have changed!
If the people would continue to develop IE, eventually it would become web standards compliant such as Safari, Opera and Firefox but then it wouldn't work any more! Ha!
Then again, IE-Mac hasn't been worked on for a while and is now riddled with security holes.
Pick the lesser of the two evils.
Yes, let microsoft release the source, then we might be able to fork it :)
Well, not such that involves anyone at Apple, anyway. There certainly is no conspiracy between Apple and Microsoft to kill MSIE on the Mac. It's dead already. It was killed by Microsoft shortly after it shipped. (In the interest of Faux Fairness and Balance I note that IE on Windows was apparently killed shortly thereafter.)
IE fell flat on its back the moment I got 'im 'ome.
'IE's not pinin' for the fjords! 'IE's passed on!
This browser is no more! 'IE has ceased to be!
'IE's expired and gone to meet 'is maker!
'IE's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'ie rests in peace!
If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'ie'd be pushing up the daisies!
'IE's metabolic processes are now 'istory!
'IE's off the twig!
'IE's kicked the bucket, 'ie's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!!
THIS IS AN EX-BROWSER!
Well, I guess we had better replace it, then.
Development on IE for Mac ceased a few months after it shipped, and is unlikely to be the "Microsoft does something that Apple wants," part of any conspiracy theory. (Rumors of IE's demise were not greatly exaggerated.)
Likewise, AppleWorks isn't considered by anyone to be competition to Microsoft Office, and is less likely to be the "Apple does something that Microsoft wants" part of the conspiracy theory. In a scene reminiscent of Weekend at Bernie's, Microsoft is probably delighted to be able to prop up the AppleWorks corpse as an example of healthy competition before various judges now and then.
Furthermore, Apple's promotion of AppleWorks for years has approached zero arbitrarily close. If you have noticed a decline in Apple's promotion activities with respect to AppleWorks, your vision is sharper than mine (certainly possible). AppleWorks still looks like an old school classic Mac OS program, and not even a particularly charming example of that art form. It's a glorified clip art and font library for first time computer users. Although people have been expecting Apple to kill AppleWorks for years, largely because it's an embarassment to the platform, it's possible that it actually occupies a niche that may allow it to survive a while longer. (Perhaps: "Market research indicates that there exist customers who want an office package, but are scared of one that actually does anything useful... oddly, they are willing to pay the same price, $79.00, that we charge for the professional package, and may be willing to buy the Pro version later anyway, after they get their feet wet with the non-threatening glorified clip art and font library first." After the iWork suite is complete, perhaps a more modern "iDabble" subset will be created to replace AppleWorks, filling a more reasonable entry level niche, like Garage Band does beside Logic Pro.)
So far as the upside you mention is concerned, don't forget that Apple are steadily working to reduce their dependence upon Microsoft. Safari was the first big step, and was a response to *years* of neglect of MSIE on the Mac (and arguably the poor state of open source browsers on the Mac at the time as well). The iWork suite (thus far Keynote and Pages) offers serious capability in the professional office software arena and other applications in that space are probably under development.
There is no conspiracy to see here, move along.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
.. deploying a web application with anything more than a floated sidebar becomes a pain because of all the inconsistencies between browsers. Just let it die and concentrate on those that are worth contributing to (camino/safari).
Oh man, this should be under "Funny" rather than "Microsoft". The next story should be: "Public wants DRM, says Microsoft".
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
The developers of FreeBSD (it's dead, I heard) are believed to suffer from a different mutation, as yet unidentified but statistically linked to repressed necrophelia.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I thought one of the main reasons for IE's demise was that it would take too much to port it to Intel? I don't see developers putting that much effort into porting Internet Explorer.
Actually, he knows what he wants and has asked for exactly what the EU anti-trust commission wants. The want M$ to publish useful documentation for interacting with their garbage. If they won't, fine they will pay millions of dollars a day. All this commentator wants is for his Mac to be able to work. For some reason, he thinks M$ will help him and others make that happen.
M$ is going to sink in their greedy shit. More people are understanding that a "standard" that changes all the time and does not interoperate, even with older versions of itself, is no standard worth having. There are alternatives and people are using them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
My bad.
/me rubs my old failing braincase.
A long time ago a Microsoft developer visited the company I worked with at the time. He was taLking to us about how Microsoft did cross-platform development. One of the things he mentioned was all of the work they put into the middleware layer in the Mac version of IE and how he wished Microsoft would productize it.
Upon checking my notes and seeing it was 1999 I now realize he must have been talking about the MacOS 9 version. I forgot that they redid the whole thing when they carbonized the thing.
------- Code to try when you're bored: qsort( 0, UINT_MAX, sizeof( int* ), IntCompare );
What if the "people" don't want it?
The smartest man in the whole, wide world really don't know that much. - Mose Allison
There is no conspiracy to see here, move along.
Agreed. It's not a conspiracy, nor a secret deal. Its an agreement to allow Apple to gain user and web-developer support for Safari as fast as possible.
In respect to the main topic, Apple doesn't want any resurection of IE for Mac, no sane user would either, and Microsoft is often inclined to respect Apple's wishes in regards to it's niche platform when those wishes don't cost or actually save money. Which aparently comes as a surprise to some people (not you).
Its obvious that Apple wished to reduce dependance on Microsoft, it is also obvious that they needed an HTML/XML/CSS capable SDK to help their developers (which microsoft was in no position to do, if they even wanted to, which they don't).
Having overlooked iWork, the qualified statement of a possible offer from Apple regarding Appleworks is also obviously wrong, unless Microsoft at one time believed that Appleworks had a future and that that future scared MS (unlikely).
Just to be clear, the agreement [secret deal, conspiracy, or just a meeting] is not being supposed to have happened recently with the discontinuation of support, it's being said to have occured a little after netscape died for good (it became clear that mozilla would take a while with netscape 6), and after a relatively short period of IE for mac seeming unmaintained. After said meeting the team/division for IE for mac was reduced to support only, which meant bug fixes, which were not agressively pushed out anyway. The end of support notice was expected from that day forward. From that day there was not yet a Safari browser, and since it was going to be a surprise announcement no big deal was made about IE being scheduled for end of life.
Who comes up with this irrelevant clap-trap?
IE is not a great browser on any platform, and if there is some good intended to come from improving its weakest, oldest living incarnation, perhaps that requires an explanation at the outset.
tone
tone
he assumed you rtfa and were talking about it. he should know better by now.
Besides making IE 5 for mac opensource would be very little interesting (it's old, it's buggy, it's ugly, there are lots of better things around), I think this is totally impossible. everybody knows that IE isn't all microsoft stuff... What I mean is that it includes code bought from other developers and companies, such as NCSA (Mosaic). So I think that even if they would (and this is not the case) the couldn't.
I think I can speak for 99% of other users and say: No thanks.........
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
I'd rather see Firefox ported to Mac OS 8/9 so I can use it rather than having to use Mozilla 1.3.1. Despite having tabs and working fairly decently, Mozilla 1.3.1 for Mac OS classic is getting a little long in the tooth. If I didn't suck at programming, I'd do it.
Otherwise, how would you be able to install the latest and greatest tool from Microsoft?
Just you try and "Check My PC for Infection" using FireFox...
It doesn't matter that no one would want to use a new Mac MSIE. Every time any proprietary application is orphaned or goes too long without maintainence, it sends a message to the world that it is foolish to allow oneself to become dependent on proprietary software. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
And of all proprietary apps, that it would happen to a Microsoft application in particular, sends a doubly-sinister message: What MS app will be the next to be orphaned? They say no one ever got fired for choosing Microsoft, but this development is another nail in that platitude's coffin. MS should do whatever they can to keep away the perception of rot, whether that means opening their code, or spending millions of dollars on maintainence. Whatever the cost, it's worth it for them to try to make deployment of their products look credibly "safe."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The VERY LAST THING I want is for IE for the Mac to continue to live.
Web development for sites with Mac visitors is dramatically hindered by this crappy browser. 80% of the hacks required are due to failings in IE 5 for Mac, the other 20% are for IE 6 for Windows.
Granted, I use the windows version, but I expect to find something similar on the mac. Select "Help | About" from the menu in IE. You will find:
- Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc.
- Contains security software licensed from RSA Data Security Inc.
- Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
- Multimedia software components, including Indeo(R); video, Indeo(R) audio, and Web Design Effects are provided by Intel Corp.
Much of the code simply cannot be open-sourced, as it is not owned by MS.
-josh
Couldn't the just release the source code to the big blue e? Wouldn't that be enough to garner them front page news stories all across the internet? Just imagine the press releases: "Microsoft works with open source community on icon!!!!"
-Mikey P
Thanks, but no. They can keep their shitty hungarian-style code to themselves.
Per Aspera Ad Astra.
The single largest reason it will never happen: Microsoft has code in IE that they do not have the rights. This happens all of the time. The chance that they own all of the code is almost zero, and the complications of releasing the source would be way too high to justify.
Several years ago Mac IE 5 was one of the best browsers on any platform. The tazman layout engine was great, and the application had some well executed features. IMHO, Mac IE still has the best download manager out there... even if the OS X version is buggy.
Unfortunately, aside for some security updates, Microsoft more or less stopped development after their half ass OS X port. IE 5 was a GREAT web dev tool when it was good. It significantly limited (not eliminated) my need to run over to a networked PC to check new projects.
It's disappointing to see that MS let this thing rot and die.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Do the astute readers remember what happened to Netscape Communicator once the Mozilla people got ahold of it? For those who don't, the people over at the Mozilla Foundation realized that Netscape was a disaster area. It was so bad that they rewrote it from scratch. Something tells me that IE for Mac would go the same way; its organization probably is incapable of supporting modern features, so it would be rewritten. There's already one rewritten browser; Macs don't need another.
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
I am forced to use IE for Mac for work as the entire California State University system requires professors to interact with database software to check records, enter grades, for scheduling, etc. That software - a closed source program from PeopleSoft I believe; everyone calls it SOLAR - does not work well with any other browser (and even on IE/Mac it is horribly slow) and our technology support staff is powerless to suggest anything other than that the user use IE to access the database. I was thrilled when I heard MS was dropping MacIE support because maybe that will lead to PeopleSoft taking Mac browsers seriously. Open-sourcing IE will help nobody.
It's really not too bad. I see a real future in it. As for IE, who still uses that piece of garbage. Bells and whistles are overrated. I just want it stable, fast, and get good gas mileage. Oh, I think that's my car. I just want my browser fast and stable.
Actually, ActiveX does run just fine on the Mac, and has for a long time. I used it in 1996 to develop a plug-in system for a visual programming language called Bounce, and Mac Common Lisp). Metrowerks actually modified their C++ compiler to support it (adding a _comobject magic class that you can inherit from to get the vtable pointers formatted in the right place so multiple inheritance and QueryInterface worked together properly). Microsoft used it to port IE to the Mac, and paid Metrowerks to make the modifications to support it.
ActiveX/COM is actually quite a cool and useful technology, which is why Firefox uses XPCOM on all platforms, a clone of ActiveX/COM. Mozilla's XPCOM isn't the only clone of COM: before Mozilla developed XPCOM, Macromedia developed their own ActiveX clone called MOA on all platforms. mTropolis mFactory also had its own COM clone called MOM. There are actually lots of COM clones, many of which are incompatible with the real thing and require their own special tool chains to develop plug-ins (which is ironic since the goal of COM was cross language binary compatibility).
And yes, MacIE is a horrible wretched piece of crap, and open sourcing it would be a pointless waste of time. The JavaScript interpreter is uselessly sub-standard, and the DHTML implementation is missing many important features.
Microsoft hired a bunch of excellent Mac programmers to develop it, and they wrote much of their own code base from scratch (using the Metrowerks Powerplant gui toolkit, totally different than the new Aqua [old NeXT Step] libraries), but Microsoft pulled the rug out from under them before they could fix any of the bugs, and wouldn't let them support it, instead diverting them to other projects like WebTV. So it's languished for many years, and even if it were open sourced, it would be an enormous amount of work to bring it up to being compatible with modern web browsers.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
IE is pretty much the native browser to them, and there's more Mac Classic users out there than you think. There's no Firefox, and the last official Mozilla product for classic was 1.2.1; there are some third party hacks to attempt to fix various instability issues on classic, but they're just that...third party hacks.
Since IE for Mac is indeed a totally different beast from the Windows IE product, why not open source it? I'm speaking theoretically of course, because I know Steve Balmer would rather chew off his left testicle than open source anything at Microsoft...
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
As if MS has more and better things to do than support their own product in the marketplace, now we have a spokesperson confusing Gratuitous Sympathy with Open Source!
The whole concept of Open Source is to free the marketplace from unsupportable code, its expensive maintenance contracts and non-extensible feature drift.
Everything Open Source needs exists but the IE compatibility layer. Code up an IE compatibility layer and IE monopoly goes away.
>>Apparently, whoever modded you flamebait never had to use IE for the mac. It is a horrid wretched peice of software that should die like the rotting beast of Golgamathea that it is.
Golgamathea? God damn you Apple geeks are lamer freaks. You can roll your 20-sided die to that.
I thought the moment the transition to Intel processors was announced that Apple should give the mac community OS 9 for free ... much as they did with 7.5.5!
... I'm POSITIVE programmers could make it work. (It already works in Mac On Linux) ... but it could be so much better with a straight forward implementation rather than emulation ontop of an emulation, on top of a shell (OSX).
The new Intel machines will not be able to access Classic at all
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Still using CyberDog??! Now THAT's cool!
Apple has swept under the rug and whitewashed all their old promises about the wonders of component software as delivered by CyberDog and OpenDoc. The old NeXT Step crap they have now simply can't compare to the runtime flexibility of OpenDoc and CyberDog (or even HyperCard, for that matter), which they flushed down the toilet and tried to forget about. Apple is embarassed for anyone to bring it up, since years ago CyberDog did cool stuff that you still can't do today with Safari (and don't hold your breath).
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Please stop spreading the Vulgar Raymondism that the Firefox code is read by millions of users. Have you read it yourself? I'll bet not! Most users and even programmers DO NOT read source code. You only hurt the open source / free software movement when you dump out steaming piles of horse shit like that. There are enough valid reasons to use open source / free software like Firefox, that you don't need to lie about it.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Mac IE and Windows IE are two totally different beasts. IE only sites usually only support Windows IE, not Mac IE.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
... IE for the Mac has a much nicer download manager, and the ui is a hell of a lot snappier than Firefox for OS X. General UI responsiveness is one area Mozilla Project stuff still sucks at on the mac. :P
A few years from now (or more), Microsoft will release a version of IE:Mac "back by popular demand, and now with new features" that curiously and remarkable resembles Safari or Firefox...
As a Mac user: please let the current incarnation of IE:Mac die a slow and painful death.
The GP poster said not to visit sites that don't want you. Easy and straight forward point of view.
Then you whine about your job.
Sorry, irrelevant. If your company is dumb enough to insititute a IE only policy then most likely you are banned to use alternative safe browsers.
If you aren't then you should demand a solution from your IT department. The solution will be to ban the browsers you are tyring to use.
Frankly I don't see what your point is in the context given by the GP posting.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What would be the purpose of IE:Mac ? Certainly not to keep it the way it was. Compared to today's browsers on the Macintosh, it's vastly inferior, as so many have pointed out. However, there seems to be hoping that it could be made more like IE for Windows, thus adding superior compatibility. Yet, even if the latter would happen, it would be rather counter-productive, I think. Certainly, you would gain some compatibility in the short run. On the other hand, there are alternatives, if you absolutely need to use IE specific sites. Probably much more so, with Intel's/Apple's virtualization scheme (vide infra). So, why would it be even counter-productive ? I think a goal for the Internet should be standards compliance. This makes you independent of specific platforms or applications, gives you freedom of choice and facilitates development. The non-IE share is on the rise. The recent success of Firefox, and even the slight market share increase of Macs have already resulted in more sites becoming standards compliant. That momentum must not be lost. So, running after a proprietary solution is exactly the wrong way to go. What matters is the push for standards. IE, no matter on what platform, has no place in that.
P.S. If indeed, it will at some point be possible to use Windows applications under MacOSX without switching systems, the whole issue will be gone anyway.
I spent years of my life making CSS consistent across browsers. Please don't tell me about Java in IE4 to justify your claims about IE's rendering engine.
From http://www.kde.org/announcements/visualguide-3.5.
I think, therefore I am. I think?
Vat is a yongerman like you not in da Yeshiva? And on such a site with little chochma.