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Opera Tells EU That Microsoft's IE Hurts the Web
kastababy writes "In yet another instance of up-and-coming browser developers fighting back against the Microsoft behemoth, the makers of Opera have filed a complaint with the European Union against Microsoft. In their complaint, they allege that IE's 77% market share abuses its dominant position by tying IE to Windows and its refusal to accept Web standards, causing significant interoperability issues. The complaint also requests that the EU's Antitrust Division force Microsoft to separate IE from Windows and accept several different standards, thereby resolving major interoperability issues and providing consumers more choice in the browser market." Update: 12/14 19:47 GMT by Z : We also discussed this yesterday.
No Kill IE!
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em
Didn't we see this yesterday here???
This is just sad.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Remind me why we care what Europe thinks about the internet again?
EU seems to show signs of hard of hearing or is Zonk having hard of seeing?
...Fire burns and water is wet.
My humor is probably your flamebait
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/13/1524233
Microsoft is the one company that comes up with new standards, most of them poor. However, they are also the ones who are the worst at following well established standards, as well as adapting to new commonly accepted ones. For example, when do you think IE will support SVG without any 3rd party plugins?
Pure awesomenes
And it will be my last using Opera.
\u262D = \u5350
Opera's developers need to admit that their "standards" are nothing but the constructs of the companies who failed to challenge IE so they took their ball and went home. "I'm going to invent my own internet. That'll show those meanies"
I think it would be great if IE at least tried to follow web standards, but forcing them to adopt them is hard to enforce, as no current browser (that I'm aware of) follows the standards 100%.
But in IE's case, it seems almost to be a complete disregard for the standards.
we are reading yesterday's news.
1's and 0's should be free.
Up and coming since 1994? How far and how slowly do they have to climb? No offense, but Opera's chief mission in life seems to be making it slightly more complicated to write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for cross-browser performance.
would make it kind of irritating to get any browser. You can't really tell them they have to provide a browser written by a competitor, so how would people go to websites to download the browser they want?
yet, most of US appear to not know, or care?
/.) continues to attempt to shed some light on yOUR foibles;
some memories we'll dream of forgetting;
for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it?
we're intending for the nazis to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather'.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying [google.com]
meanwhile, the life0cidal philistines continues on their path of death, debt, & disruption for most of US;
gov. bush denies health care for the little ones
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/bush.veto/index.html [cnn.com]
whilst demanding/extorting billions to paint more targets on the bigger kids
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/12/bush.war.funding/index.html [cnn.com]
all is not lost/forgotten/forgiven
whilst (yOUR elected) president al gore (deciding not to wait for the much anticipated 'lonesome al answers yOUR questions' interview here on
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3046116.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
still making his views known worldwide, whilst many of US keep yOUR heads firmly lodged up yOUR infactdead.asp(s) hoping (against overwhelming information to the contrary) that the party LIEn scriptdead pr ?firm? fairytail hypenosys scenario will never end.
for each of the creators' innocents harmed in any way, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available after the big flash occurs.
'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi glowbull warmongering execrable.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?
whois it that said that trolls cannot evolve?
There are more Internet users in Europe than in the USA.
That is why.... Simple isn't it.
The EU ( not all European Counties are members, Norway, Switzerland, Serbia etc) has a bigger population that the US + Canada.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
I think it's more a case of Opera being pissed that it's not funded with Google money like Mozilla Firefox is. Up-and-coming? I think Opera's time has long passed.
What, wasn't their mommy available to cry to?
If "developers" are going to "fight", how about developing something the market cares about instead, eh?
Only at slashdot would the first post be marked as redundant! Mods, be aware that I'm usually invited to metamoderate several times a day. The above post wasn't "redundant" it was "offtopic".
Mod this post offtopic as well or I shall taunt you again, silly moderators!
-mcgrew
Ok, silly sketch police here this is just getting silly now, you're all under arrest for... oh bloody 'ell
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
There should be regulations stating that whenever a computer is sold with a pre-installed operating system, at least two different systems must be installed, such that the user can easily choose one or the other at power-up.
Exceptions might be made for very low-cost machines.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
I've always been under the opinion that the largest companies in an industry create the standards? I understand that IE isn't a particularly 'safe' browser, but isn't that more because it makes more sense for hackers and whatnot to go after IE users because they account for a larger portion of the market share?
The EU should find them for releasing such a crappy piece of software.
Or at the very least, for wasting their time pretending to be of some importance.
Newsflash: people can download other browsers. Stop crying about MS you pansies.
This is the third time this comment has been posted. Oddly this one is offtopic while the first one was modded "redundant" *head asplodes*
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Really, it all starts with getting rid of the damned thing in the first place--End 6!
I actually gave opera a try yesterday because of this articles first round on the /. mainpage. nothing to do with the politics, just wanted to try it out because its free [as in beer] and cross platform. the browser itself seemed pretty solid compared to other browsers out of the box capabilities. it was fast and lightweight and the phonebook is kinda cool. however I found "content blocker" to be an annoyance now that I am used to adblock plus keeping its list up to date for me. the ability to control scripts on a domain by domain basis like noscript allows seemed not very intuitive if its even possible. the ability to transparently force all gmail links to use https is nonexistant. for those 3 reasons I am back to firefox after only an hour or so. if you are using IE or no plugins in firefox its much better. I however am addicted to noscript, adblock plus, and customize google and couldn't find a way to mimic the features in those plugins that I use regularly.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
It doesn't mean not ship with a browser. It means the ability to un-install/get rid of IE without breaking windows so an OEM can for example do a deal with Opera to have their browser as default instead of IE.
It looks like Opera sees an opportunity to make some money. Forcing Microsoft to adhere to standards is a good idea, but removing IE from Windows will leave users without the ability to browse the web without using command line FTP to first obtain a browser. Opera wants users to either buy a copy of Opera or force Microsoft to licence their web browser as a replacement.
Sig is for Signature, so you don't have to manually sign every post.
I think Zonk himself is moderating over this article.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm actually stupider for having read it.
Jesus H Christ, do you people listen to yourselves sometimes?
Read radical news here
So when is Apple going to open up and let people run OS X on whatever hardware platform they choose? Why is it OK to tell Microsoft they can't include their own browser in their OS and yet Apple can tell you you must by their hardware to run their OS? Windows and OS X are both very restrictive.
Operatic. I hope this brings about an Operatic deneument to the internet exploder...
(and, to dupes on Slashdot...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
1- Their aweful move of making it adware..., I mean... like we don't have enough ads on the sites...
2- Their aweful interface... first it was some kind of MDI abomination... Now they have a poor attempt to use tabs
3- Theit poor support for plug ins.
In the same article they kind of blame IE for their lack of success. They should rather look are Firefozz to see how to success by own merits and not by criying....
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
What everybody seems to misunderstand is that as a world wide monopoly, Microsoft is supposed to act in a responsible way so as not to inhibit the growth of competition. Unfortunately, that is exactly what Microsoft does at every turn.
By denying access to it's communication protocols, Microsoft inhibits competition for network services.
By creating media formats that are secret and proprietary it inhibits competition for media creation and playback.
By creating a browser that is non-standard it skews the entire browser market and online experience.
By creating document formats that are proprietary with unpublished protocols Microsoft effectively locks customers into a continuous cycle of purchases once again locking out competition.
That is why Microsoft was found guilty of being an aggressive predatory monopoly. The only reason Microsoft didn't have to face any consequences is because the Bush administration was flush with Microsoft dollars when they came to power.
Microsoft must be held to a higher standard of conduct because of it's monopoly market condition. Unfortunately, Microsoft uses it's vast wealth and power to stifle competition at every turn. Whether it's a children's learning tool in Nigeria or gaming a world standard or a groundswell of support for Linux in China, Microsoft attempts to suppress competition with bribes and corruption.
I sincerely hope the EU takes their head off because we sure can't rely on the Americans to do the right thing.
Ed
No, seriously--this is great! This looks interesting but I'm mainly interested in the discussion here. (I've got my ideas; I'm curious how other people see it.) It just so happens I was pretty busy yesterday and didn't catch this story. Now I don't have to wait an hour for there to be a good number of +5 comments--I can just check out yesterday's! Thanks, Slashdot!
:-)
Dupes: they're not a bug, they're a feature!
My opinion, in case anyone cares: I dislike MS and IE as much as anyone else here, but I think Opera is full of shit on this one.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I agree with improving the browser and following the standards, but why ask to untie Windows and IE?, what about MacOS X and Linux? Linux and MacOS X are slowly getting market share from Windows and seems like this isn't going to stop, so why should Microsoft sell an OS without a web browser, why punish a company out to extinction? Is just because it isn't European? I understand Opera asking to make IE standards complaint, but what business do they have with the OS?
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That's the kind of things that can happen when you're your own main competitor.
It's perfectly plausible that Microsoft got fed up with Microsoft and joined the W3C as a consequence.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Out of curiosity, how do you do that in Firefox?
I replaced it with a Firefox build...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Now internet tell the nice man where Microsoft touched you... Its ok he will be locked away for a long long time and wont be able to hurt you anymore. Just point it out on this doll.
Opera is doomed in its mission of a lawsuit. However, it's the best of the three browsers out there.
As I explain in detail here, the issue is more complicated than most people see.
Most of us don't fit into these two sides:
1. We hate the big guy side -- Firefox is God, Linux is God, they can do no wrong, the world will be saved if we go to Linux/FF.
2. We distrust the little guy side -- Firefox is funded by Google, Firefox is a revenge project against MSFT, you get uneven results in open source, the world will be doomed if we leave browsing up to volunteers.
But enough loud people do that the truth is as usual obscured. Firefox/Linux fanboys are the Amiga fanboys of the 00s!
technical writing / development
...on the head?
Opera's gripe may superficially appear to be the coupling of current web content with Internet Explorer, but really their complaint is the coupling of the web with computers. I mean, come on! Who wants to fork out for a PC just to browse the web and send emails? But right now, that's what you've got to do, because the threads of the web aren't as closely tied if you're not on Windows..
While webpages are written for a non-compliant PC-based browser, instead of to the agreed standards, the internet is trapped on PCs. If the web wasn't for the huge number of IE-only pages, your average PVR would probably now have an ethernet socket and a copy of Opera installed for use on your shiny new HD TV, and more people would be browsing on their mobiles.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
.. some odds, but much beauty
;)
I run Opera 9.24 (int) and Firefox 2.0.0.1 (de)
Opera_int (6.3 MB)
Firefox_de (5.7 MB)
1.) ODD
- Opera is very slow handling
ebay.de/.com
reichelt.de (radioshackalike)
pages, for these pages I use Firefox.
- not OpenSource
2.) Beauty
- win32/bsd/linux
- Email Client (IMAP/POP3)
- Addressbook
- lightweight
- can close all tabs (beautifull and slick)
- restores sessions faster than firefox
- Wand (Password manager) == awesome
- speeddial
- Bookmarkmanager, it's a mighty tool in contrast to FF
- abook/bookmark/mail export/import function == very good
- Widgets (addons)
- uses Mozilla Pluggins
These features are built in, and must not be installed manually,
like you would do with Plugginfox.
Well and as you can think this post was written within Opera/win2k
here comes my advise
Just try it out, and judge.
Not necessarily. End users don't pick their browsers for standards compliance. They do pick them by questions like, "Does this browser work with my bank's website?"
If the most-used browser (IE or otherwise) is fully standards-compliant, that lowers the bar for developers to build sites that work with multiple browsers: target standards and you get something that works in IE8, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc., instead of targeting IE6, tweaking for IE7, tweaking for Firefox, and deciding anyone running another browser is just SOL.
End result: More websites are compatible across the board, so when people try Opera, fewer of them will run it for 2 days and say, "Well, I sorta like it, but the POS browser can't handle my favorite website. I'm going back to IE."
... she has been putting on weight and all ...
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
I wonder what all the high performance browsers built on the IE engine think about this?
Built in spyware. The only browser that comes with more ads than the superbowl. It's a bit rich for them to criticize MS.
As an anti-trust measure, Windows source code is subpoenaed, to ensure that IE is not getting preferential API's in the OS, a hidden home-team advantage.
Since Windows is now Open Source, and a way exists for Open Source to periodically call Closed Source's cards, the nature of the playing field will be changed.
Windows is called before the court, source, build process, build, statistical analyses surrounding the build.
-- Subvert the dominant paradigm. Repeat as desired. http://ownlifeful.com/
It's a part of the CustomizeGoogle extension for Firefox, though not enabled by default if I remember correctly.
huh? Oprah?
I thought the US congress covered this already. Though they may have dealt with the two issues separately.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I've been a web designer for 8 years now. The last few years i've been building to css and standards. All I can say is:- I would enjoy my job much much more, if 50% of my time wasn't fixing IE bugs and having to include seperate styles for every version of IE. I hate Microsoft for doing this to me. They had a chance to make it better with IE7, but they just fucked it up...again!!! And to all you I.T folks out there. Get IE7 on all your machines, I'm fed up coding for the 30% of users in their offices still on IE6!!! Pleeaaasseee!!!!
I keep an installation file of Internet Explorer 3.0 available on a floppy disk for emergencies.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
- People who browse the Web from the break room at work, from a public library, or from any other computer that they can use but not install programs on.
- People who try to download Firefox Setup 2.0.0.11.exe, but they are too inexperienced with Windows to save to the desktop or to correlate the location in a Save As dialog boxes with the location in Windows Explorer.
- People who prefer not to install software that they didn't hear about in a TV ad, thinking that little-known software is more likely to be malware.
- People who manage to install Firefox, but because the icons look different from those of Internet Explorer, they cannot find their way around.
Do you know of any special techniques that a web site maintainer can use to handle these cases? but I have to keep a copy of IE around because my bank's website only works with IE. I don't know whether there's a Chase branch near you, but Chase.com works fine for me in Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 Beta 1. Which bank do you use, so that other Slashdot users can consider transferring their balances away from this bank?Here's a shocker for you: Europe is not the US!
I'm sick of hearing the "if they fix IE, thousands of sites will break" excuse.
Let's face it, those sites are broken too, in ways that apologize for and accommodate the broken state of that browser.
If gcc had similarly poor c support and all programmers were forced to write workarounds in their software to get past the bugs, would it be as widely used as it is? Even if it did, would demands that gcc be fixed be met with cries of "But our programs will break?" I think not, because in that case everyone will already know what broken really means.
If MS fixes IE (really fixes it, not the laughable token effort that was IE7), then those lazy developers will be forced to learn what the standards really are, and the whining cacophony from them will be much louder than when MS pushed the pathetic "Getting Sites Ready for IE7" rhetoric.
That IE still has pitiful standards support is a statement of how incapable the W3C is at enforcing their standards.
Opera's claim makes no more sense today than it did yesterday.
I suppose next the EU is going to decide that, just like with Teh Lunix, there needs to be a robust assortment of text editors for Windows, so they are going to force MS to make a version of Windows with Notepad unbundled.
Also, they want to stop Windows from using MSPaint, and any kind of file search is going to have to be unbundled so as to provide a market for Google Desktop.
There is, according to the EU, nothing MS can possibly have on Windows which should not be unbundled. Eventually, the EU will seek to force MS to become a Lunix distro. Then the entire world can know the kind of Lunix-based failure which the City of Munich currently knows (unless you think having every "linux desktop" running a VM of Windows to be "successfully migrating from Windows").
who read the headline as 'Oprah tells EU...'?
1b) ODD
*Your slashdot posts come out in a monospaced font.
So is Opera gonna be happy if MS puts Firefox in new Windows machines?
I just lost a ton of respect for Opera. Instead of improving their product and marketing better to increase marketing share they have resorted to using government force to compete with Microsoft. Opera is attempting to limit people's rights through the court system. They want to take away the rights of Microsoft's owners to make mutually agreed upon trades with their customers. There is simply no excuse for using government force in such a manner. If Opera wants my business they should offer me a better trade than Microsoft. Shame on you Opera...
Creative Demolition
I prefer monospaced fonts, it's a matter choice ;)
Now I've tried alot of browsers in my day. Mostly trying to alleviate the need for ever increasing processor and memory requirements, as I was using a Pentium 3 1Ghz coppermine up until very recently... During that time, I fell in love with Firefox, sure, out of the top three (IE, Firefox, Opera) it used to the most memory. With Opera coming in 2nd and IE6 1st. But it was also the most down to earth and straight forward of the three... I just fail to see any appeal in regard to Opera. But then again, at 24 years of age. I'm pretty old and set in my ways... So yeah, let 'em bitch to the EU. It's an issue that should of been addressed years ago. But for the love of god don't try and tell me Opera is a superior browser, or for that matter even a 'good' browser. Because it just isn't...
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Disclaimer: I use Opera as my primary browser, although I keep an up-to-date copy of Firefox 2.x around with a number of plugins.
One of my biggest UI concerns with Opera is that there is no option to put a button for the per-domain settings on the toolbar. I can put all my global options on a toolbar, but not the per-domain ones. >:/
The per-domain settings are accessed through the menus: Tools -> Quick Preferences (F12) -> Edit site preferences..., or by right-clicking on a blank spot and choosing Edit site preferences...
Personally, I tolerate ads and only block the ones that really annoy me. Thus, the content blocker works fairly well for me. Particularly combined with the site preferences pane, which allows me to disable/enable things on a per-site basis, such as Plugins (read: Flash).
As for the google thing, I can't help you there.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Here's a shocker for you, it was a joke, based on "ms damaging the internet", the congressional tubes remark, the ms bloat concept... oh, never mind.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
First the rallies for Obama, now complaints about IE. When will she stop being so political?
Otherwise you would know that Steve Jobs is God.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I agree with the view that IE should be removed from windows... but this doesn't hurt Microsoft enough.
Basically a lot of people are not able to change platforms due to one piece of software which has been in windows since windows 98... Nearly all games currently available need directx to run, which is deeply embedded in windows. If microsoft is forced to distribute directx separately from windows and charge for it per installation (per seat), I think a lot of game developers will choose a different api, thereby allowing games to be ported easier to other platforms.
Another thing: Microsoft should be stopped from tampering with the hardware market. As it stands most "cheap" motherboards and laptops have trouble running anything other then windows due to a severely foobar'ed acpi (for which we can thank the severely broken microsoft acpi compiler).
Change *your* user.css to force *your* browser to render your posts in monospace and quit fucking with how *I* choose to view Slashdot posts by wrapping them all in unnecessary <tt> tags.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I like prolly every other person on here sees that IE's lack of standards compliance regarding the web browser is an issue for all, but my concerns are the following: The Windows OS is the property and work of Microsoft, as such why should Microsoft not be able to include a browser or any other product they have Second lets say there is no browser included with Microsoft OS how do except a home user to download any browser....sounds like more headaches than anything Also, since this is Microsoft's OS and product they should be able to include any of their products they see fit, by including the browser they are not stopping anyone from installing firefox, opera, etc. If opera is so much better why doesnt it have the 77% market share. Instead of having the EU fight Microsoft for you man up and put out a product that people can't deny is not only better but is more useful than IE. For most IE works just fine so why would they switch. Market your product better. Dont get mad get better.
1. Give the customer the choice of XP or Vista (or a blank machine) when he wants to buy a PC.
2. If the customer wants (say) XP, give him a machine with ONLY the OS installed. No IE, no Paint, Calculator, Solitaire... NO applications at all. Just Windows Explorer.
3. Offer the customer a CD for $10 that contains above mentioned products from MS. Also offer the customer a CD with above mentioned products from company X, Y or Z for $X, $Y or $Z. Independent software companies can push their own basic software pack.
Fair and easy. We all know that most people would simply take the MS offering; but this sorts out for once and for all all this bundling crap.... AND finally gets the message across to Joe Sixpack that IE, Paint etc. are all just applications, and that their are alternatives out there. Also opens up the market.
I was at an MSDN developers' conference some years back, and BG appeared on a datalink to explain his long-term strategy for the internet. The internet, he said, only had a few years left in it. People wouldn't put up with the continuing anarchy and unreliability for much longer. They and their families wanted proper safe, reliable, certified content, produced by proper media companies. A few years from now, Bill told us, we wouldn't need to worry about this internet thing, because by then everyone would have migrated over to Microsoft Network. MSN was The Future that we should all be planning for.
I guess it was a straightforward calculation: if you can get everyone to use a proprietary system that you own and control, then you can do deals with big corporations like Disney and Time Warner to distribute their branded content direct to customers. You own the market, and make a buck every time someone wants to go online. On the other hand, if an open system catches on and becomes popular, then even if customers are happier, you've lost control, and its more difficult to get the money flowing in your direction.
So MS decided that the road they were going down was proprietary closed software, and they didn't go out of their way to get standardised HTML working on their systems. They'd always wanted businesses to use proprietary formats like MSWord rather than RTF or HTML, and whenever an open format started becoming popular, they'd try to step in to "Microsoft-ify" it.
This isn't an Evil Plan as such, its simply a business calculation.
If MS had realised what was actually going on, and had had a chance to stop it, then the internet as we currently know it might not have happened. They might have tried to find some way to head it off, like lobbying for people not to be allowed to own websites unless they had an expensive license, or for web content to be brought under the regulatory remit of the FCC.
Luckily, the early betas of MSN were so laughably, absurdly, ludicrously bad, that MS didn't have a serious alternative to offer, and they had to content themselves with trying to wrestle control of HTML standardisation instead.
Incomplete support means that the standards committees never manage to get quite as much credit (and power and control) as they'd otherwise have, and that perceived weakness prevents them from being able to publicly dictate to MS how products like IE have to behave. If compliance was considered necessary and the W3C could demand that IE supports the standards (under penalty of having to stop representing IE as a "fully-functional" internet browser), then MS loses the ability to use its control over IE to support any future MS business scheme.
One of the key strategies for maintaining a monopoly is to have control over several different independent sectors (e.g. applications, tools, distribution, content, formats), and whenever one of those areas encounters serious competition, to leverage your control of all the others to see off the threat, in ways that your single-sector competition can't respond to. If a company makes a better browser than yours, and you can't compete, then you eliminate their market and their cashflow by giving yours away with your popular operating system. If your OS is weak, you bundle applications with it, or you ensure that a popular application is only available for that OS. If applications are weak but tools are strong, then you reengineer the tools to work preferentially with the applications' formats, or to encourage third-party designers to write applications that require the office suite to be installed on the end-user's system. It's a constant juggling operation, playing off strengths and weaknesses between different market sectors, but if you get it right, nobody can compete with you. The downside is that you never get to release a truly great product, because the "strong
Eric Baird
Clever signature text goes here.
I think it's in the numbers.
Too many people together form dogma, because most of them don't understand the vision of their leaders. If they don't have leaders, it's even worse.
I like Opera, but it was made by a small team with actual vision. Firefox is basically an IE clone at this point, with some "added features" of dubious value to most users. But it's a trend and it makes people feel happy to be part of it.
Still, Firefox is a buggy piece of junk compared to Opera. I don't think open source is anything more than volunteer corporations, unless there's someone with some real vision involved, and that person has power.
Otherwise, I agree somewhat with your comments and would mod them up. Cheerio
technical writing / development