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Opera Files EU Complaint Against Microsoft
A number of readers have sent word about Opera Software ASA's antitrust complaint against Microsoft filed with the EU. Here is Opera's press release on the filing. The company wants the EU to "obligate Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and/or carry alternative browsers pre-installed on the desktop" and to "require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities." The latter request makes this a case to watch. Will the Commissioner take the Acid2 test using IE7?
They might want to specify that Microsoft should be compelled to follow published w3c standards, not just accepted standards. The "standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities" today are pretty much "Code everything for IE6. If there's free time after that's done and the pub isn't open yet, test in Firefox"...
0 1 - just my two bits
People forget quickly. Yes, most OSs bundle a web browser but they don't hold a desktop monopoly. My guess is Opera wants to revisit that story in Europe.
[alk]
And that's why this unbundling crap is so retarded and has been since the American antitrust case. OEMs will go right ahead and install the full suite of MS freebies anyway, even if they install others as well.
The good news is someone's finally getting it: they finally want to force MS into standards compliance. That's all that really matters. I don't see the browser application itself (or media player, for that matter) as a monopoly abuse - it's the content that's the abuse. IE/WMP both play proprietary content, using Windows as the vehicle.
Sabotaging Windows' built-in media capabilities only harms consumers. Preventing MS from leveraging those capabilities to push their own proprietary, non-interoperable formats helps them and everyone else.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
You are right. The part that might surprise you is that I think Opera is counting on that. I am currently doing some web development work. The biggest problem we run in to is the weird crazy shit that IE does. I run our pages on IE, FireFox, Safari, and Opera. By far IE is the BIGGEST pain in the ass. Why? It does not follow the standards at all. It just laughs at you. "oh you want that over there. Haha that's funny. Keep dreaming." It flat out ignores some HTML. Your code can be fucking perfect according to the W3C standards but IE just does not care. So what happens? People have started to code to IE and just IE. I know for a fact that I am the only person here who even tried to use Safari and Opera on our pages. The result is that our code ONLY works right in IE. This is why FireFox dominates the alternate browser market. It's slower, bigger and just not as cool as Opera but it can work like IE to the point where finding a page that it does not render correctly is a rare thing. The problem with IE's browser dominance is not that other browsers want to get shipped with Windows but that they get thrown to the side for doing the right thing.