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Microsoft Joins OpenAjax Alliance
Kurtz writes "Microsoft has joined The OpenAjax Alliance, which is focused on accelerating the use of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or Ajax, technologies. Microsoft said it agreed to join the alliance to work with other vendors to evolve Ajax."
Well it seems only fitting, since they're the ones who invented Ajax in the first place...
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish!
"to work with other vendors to evolve Ajax."
Hands up, everyone who thinks Ajax is now doomed...
Microsoft said it agreed to join the alliance to work with other vendors to evolve Ajax.
I can't wait for MS to release "Internet: Ajax Evolved".
This guy's the limit!
OpenAjax Alliance.
That said, I have no idea why this alliance is needed, even after reading most of their site. We already have Prototype, MooTools, jQuery and other great libraries. I'd be perfectly happy if Microsoft could just make IE fully support CSS instead of joining this buzzword-masturbating alliance...
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
How could this be bad? It is a good thing that Microsoft is working with an Open Alliance, in that Microsoft will be the better able to contribute to the developments and innovations. That Microsoft money will assist in any Open system. And do it in a way that works the technologies that are already out there, and that the community has already embraced- instead of developing a proprietary system that does things in a Microsoft way, and does not play nice with others. And since it is an Open Alliance, Microsoft cannot steer the technology in a direction that would benefit Microsoft solely.
The news should be that they are joining this existing group so they can subvert it, slow it down, or just plain make sure their stuff doesn't work well on MS Windows.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Thing is, they had a hand in starting the async. xml and javascript story. Another thing is, they don't really have a good record on standards compliance. Add them together, what do you get ? Yep, innovation at it's best: going backwards.
On the other hand, MS just has to be in there, like in everything else, since it;s harder to influence and/or control if you're not inside. That's all. All the rest about great innovations and lotsa tall blondes and free beers is just a bedside story.
to ensure interoperability among tools built by different vendors
Yupp, MS's paradise.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Just look what Microsoft did for Java when they joined the java bandwagon.
AJAX is sure to go on to bigger and better things.
I hope Apple help too, cuz they're cool and Safari is awesome.
Sweet, now I don't have to learn AJAX. I can't wait for AJAX#.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
Embrace. Check
Extend. pending.
Extinguish. soon
profit. forever.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
MS could come out tomorrow and say that they will be donating $100 million dollars a day to the development and enhancement of Ubuntu as a replacement for the failed Windows Vista and everyone would still be filling up the /. comments sections with "on noes" and ??? > profit! all day long. Not that I would not agree and then wrap foil over my unbuntu distro CDs, I'm just saying it is about time MS just give up and embrace their evilness.
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Microsoft only seeks to control that which threatens its bread and butter.
In this case, the concept that AJAX presents is a killer app to the bread and butter business of Productivity Software. With AJAX one can create the software one needs, and there is no restrictions on client OS other than a browser that properly displays AJAX components.
Combine this with the idea from Adobe on sandboxing this in a wrapper for distribution away from Client/Server architecture which is completely platform independant, and you have a huge problem for Microsoft.
They are going to try to tie specific implementations to Proprietary products (Windows, IE etc).
Resistance is Futile.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Microsoft has turned the inherently open XML tech that is the "X" in XML into a battleground of propretary XML dialects to protect their MS Office formats. Just the latest in MS monkeywrenches in open format technologies like HTTP, HTML that force everyone to support the format that's best for MS. MS will surely turn AJAX into yet another "success" story.
--
make install -not war
Is this a repeat of the ODF/OpenXML fiasco!
Well, okay, mostly IE and everyone else. So count this AC in: I question Microsoft's involvement in anything that attempts to erode their hedgemony over any market space. From www.openajax.org:
MS is obviously joining to help ensure that IE isn't written out of the future of web applications - how they accomplish that here, especially when most ajax libs steamroll over all browser inconsistencies anyway, is beyond me.
John Resig, lead developer of the jQuery library, has already written about this alliance. Choice quote:
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
They developed parts of it. That the extension to http. That is it. They did not develop javascript, the browser, the web, etc. They, like others, stood on the shoulders of giants. But to say that they developed ajax it wrong.
Ajax is currently supported on many browsers, even if a more standardized way would be welcome. What is really missing is a way for server to send data to the client, and this is often emulated using hidden iframe's that never load completely. Is there any plan to improve on this?
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
The most important advantage we're hoping to get out of OpenAjax is JavaScript namespacing. Prototype, Dojo and others will all too happily clobber each other's functions and objects, rendering them useless when used together. A consistent naming standard is one of the most immediate tangible benefits of the alliance.
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
Right now AJAX is pretty simple.
Just like XML-RPC was. Then Microsoft made it all complicated and called it SOAP. Now you need a library to use SOAP because its so complicated.
I hope this doesn't happen to AJAX!!
> Microsoft said it agreed to join the alliance to work with other vendors to evolve Ajax.
I believe _this_ is more the case for ID (albeit evil) than evolution.
How long will it be before Microsoft gets cranky, takes their ball, and goes home this time?
I have no tag line
Microsoft wants stuff to only work Better in windows. Notworse. Remember when they "helped" Java. deadkevin
Whatever you do, don't sign up to sys-con.com's mailing lists unless you know for absolutely 100% positively certain that you want to be pestered about Ajax conferences for the rest of your life. They WILL NOT remove you from their mailing lists. TBH I've no idea how I actually got on their lists in the first place.
Microsoft seem to aggressively push their own ideas regardless of technical merit. If this is pressured employees, corporate spite or both I'm not sure. One thing to be sure of; if they don't get their own way then they will sabotage the standard. If it wasn't for the monopoly, it's hard to imagine them being welcome in any standards group.
"Sun's license for Java insists that all implementations be "compatible". This resulted in a legal dispute with Microsoft after Sun claimed that the Microsoft implementation did not support the RMI and JNI interfaces and had added platform-specific features of their own. Sun sued and won both damages (some $20 million) and a court order enforcing the terms of the license from Sun. As a result, Microsoft no longer ships Java with Windows, and in recent versions of Windows, Internet Explorer cannot support Java applets without a third-party plugin." - Wikipedia
Dunno what "100% pure Java apps" are, but MS Java ran better than Sun Java at the time. Sun didn't want to lose control, hence the lawsuit and also Sun's delay in Open-Sourcing Java. Unfortunately some readers are too young to remember these events.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Just the other day, thanks to that graph some Groklawer made of SCO's convoluted claims, I learned about Visgraph.org which was *exactly* the tool I needed to solve a problem at work.
And that's not the first time I've found great new programs and tools (or even old ones I never knew about).