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Ballmer "Interested" In Open Source Browser Engine
Da Massive writes "'Why is IE still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?,' asked a young developer to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Sydney yesterday. 'That's cheeky, but a good question, but cheeky,' Ballmer said. Then came the startling revelation that Microsoft may also adopt an open source browser engine. 'Open source is interesting,' he said. 'Apple has embraced Webkit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8.'"
Yes, I suppose Microsoft might embrace open source. Of course, our politicians might lower taxes too. But Microsoft, like politicians, have a long history of saying one thing and doing another. That, and I'm pretty sure Balmer knows that if he mentions open source he'll get a free plug on Slashdot and on other media sites where highly technical people frequent. From a marketing standpoint, it makes sense to hint at open source as much as possible. From a legal and business standpoint, it's more likely he'll dance around on the stage in a Gir suit while singing the doom song.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It was never really part of the OS. That was merely MS' poor attempt at an excuse to circumvent the antitrust allegations.
How can MS really adopt anything open source at this point? IE isn't just a part of Windows, IE practically *IS* Windows and having it being open source would make a valuable part of Windows open source which Ballmer hates with a passion. Take away IE and Active X and half the reason to use Windows goes away. And really, why use WebKit? Sure, its a decent rendering engine but no better than Gecko or the other OSS rendering engines. I really fear for WebKit if MS manages to use it, because rather than having WebKit we will have MS WebKit which is a highly modified version of an older release, Google's Bleeding Edge WebKit and Apple's Stable WebKit. And honestly, this is taking us back to Netscape Vs IE....
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Either Ballmer is throwing out a red herring, or future versions of IE (presumably after 8) will finally be decoupled from Windows.
But, what open source browser engines are there other than Gecko and Webkit? Both are developed by MS' sworn mortal enemies. Browsers are complex, time consuming beasts to develop.
In this second great browser wars there are 4 major battles:
Features
Standards compliance
Speed
Security
MS can get features and even standards compliance through proprietary means, on the other hand, security and speed depend on lots of people looking through the code. So in essence, without an open source rendering engine MS can't hope to win. On the other hand, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome have made great leaps because they have all of the above.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Funny how when Microsoft rejects Open Source they get people crawling down their backs. When they suggest they might move in that general direction they get people accusing them of trying to poison Open Source and calling them liars.
Seems whatever happens people just want to hate Microsoft whatever moves the company makes...
The problem is how.
Open source makes this much more difficult.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
---- Now, where did I put that knife.....
You misunderstand. Ballmer said that they would look into a new rendering engine. Which means that IE will still be IE, just with a new codebase under the hood. After all, 95% of their customer base won't understand the difference. All they'll know is that IE is still part of Windows yet works better than ever.
Which Microsoft will then go on to say is an inexorable part of the Operating System. (insert eye roll here)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Your argument has two glaring problems. Firstly, government regulation does not equal less competition. In many cases it results in more competition, especially in the case of monopolies and collusion between companies. Secondly, the mafia cannot legally exist because of laws limiting them, in other words, government regulation. Without the most basic regulation, then any business could (and probably would) become like the mafia. Competition would be limited to companies competing to be the most intimidating, and whoever could intimidate enough people into paying them. In a world with excessive government regulation, even the kind that produces less competition, at least the government would be regulating against such behaviour.
In other words, your argument makes no sense.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
But what he meant was how far gpl/lgpl will spread into the OS depending on which license is used and how integrated it is.
Microsoft will never open-source Trident. It'd be like letting the entire world look at your dirty laundry.
When their beta product is getting 21/100 on the Acid3 test while nobody else's are below 80, I have a hard time believing anybody would be interested.
They're just tired of trying to compete with Mozilla.. if you can't beat 'em.. join 'em. ;)
-Troll, Flamebait, and Offtopic are NOT equivalent to disagreement.
Do you have any reason to believe that the Trident codebase is anything other than a steaming pile of horseshit?
Back in the original browser wars, both the Netscape and Microsoft browsers were evolving very rapidly, with lots of quite fundamental changes. At the end, when the Netscape code was open-sourced, it turned out to be (no surprise) a big mess that took several years to sort into shape. Meanwhile, Microsoft sat on their monopoly and did NOTHING to the browser, until they were forced into evolving again once Firefox started to seriously dent their market-share.
The current state is that the Mozilla code has been substantially rewritten and is now in pretty good shape, but Microsoft are stuck hacking away at the old crud.
They could. But what they would actually do was only include the spyware-laden shit-browser that someone paid them to include.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
It even complies with Unix' "Do one thing, and do it well"
I'm not insane! My mother had me tested.
Or d) Joe Sixpack is just a condescending fiction, and as the general population becomes increasingly internet savvy the average user will actually begin to care about things like which browser they use.
30 years ago, Joe Sixpack didn't want a computer in his house at all... how on earth can you justify the belief that average users will never want things they don't currently want?
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
90% of people also think a computer without drivers is as broken and unacceptable as a TV without a remote, yet they use an OS that does not ship with drivers for their hardware. But this isn't a problem since 90% of computer users don't install their own OS. They let an OEM do it for them, along with the drivers. Why would a browser be any different?
"The GPL is viral, and this prevents many commercial companies from adopting and using GPL code, crippling the movement."
Umm, how exactly does the GPL "cripple the movement"?
"If TCP/IP had been GPL, the Internet would be a different place today."
See, this is where you demonstrate your astounding lack of comprehension on this issue.
TCP/IP is a standardised protocol not a software product. There are closed source implementations of TCP/IP, GPL implementations and even completely free implementations today. The licence they are issued under makes no practical difference to anyone.
OTOH, if the TCP/IP standard was "owned" (ie patented) by a commercial company there would be NO internet today.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
People say what you're saying every time a new Microsoft browser/OS system appears on the horizon.
Yes, any team could be on the ball. What possible business motive would they have, though? Re-factoring is always way down the list of any set of code. Way down. Way, way, way down. Indeed, notoriously Vista is the result of a junked re-factoring.
I see no evidence anywhere that anything different is happening this time. Indeed, with only one WinHec for Windows 7, I think it could be substantially worse.
How a post consisting of wishful thinking be marked interesting, I'm not sure.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
>Many companies refuse to use GPL code because of its viral nature.
They dont refuse to _use_ the GPL code, but to _work_ on GPL code, since the GPL prevents them from closing it up. But since the only goal of such companies would anyways be to close the code up, the GPL ecosystem loses nothing. They don't lose pure users (which don't care if a app is free or unfree) and they don't lose free software developers. All they lose are proprietary/unfree extensions of their works.
Would you care to elaborate what a free software developer would actually _gain_ if a proprietary company took his code, closed it up, and started copyright lawsuits against his users who dare to copy it like they got used when it still was free? If one of his goals when developing his code was freedom, how would somebody closing up the code and launching lawsuits contribute to this stated goal of the original developer?
>That cripples adoption of GPL software.
It only cripples embracement and extinguishment of GPL software, but considering that crippling that has from the beginning been GPL's goal, it works fully as intended.
So please explain: How does encouraging non-free software through non-GPL licensing encourage the deveopment of free software?
>I know TCP/IP is a standardized protocol, which was my point.
>If it had been GPL software, it would have gone nowhere because companies wouldn't have adopted it in the early
>days of the Internet.
The GPL on a reference implamentation wouldn't actually have stopped anybody to implement such standardized protocol independently and chose any licence they want for their own implementation.
exactly. the best example for that is russia of nineties. it was a real libertarian paradize with laissez-faire capitalism and the rest of the life.
most buisnesses were undistinguishable from thugs and the rest paid protection money.
even the law enforcement was the same.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
"Many companies refuse to use GPL code because of its viral nature."
This would explain why BSD is so much more popular than Linux then.
"I know TCP/IP is a standardized protocol"
OK
"which was my point."
No, you compared a protocol to code.
"If it had been GPL software . . "
See you did it again.
Just to put a finer point on it, please let me rephrase your comment.
Many companies refuse to use other peoples proprietary code (in their own projects) because of the legal ramifications. That cripples adoption of proprietary software.
GPL is not about promoting "software adoption", it is about promoting collaborative development.
Lots of people currently enjoy that collaborative development model, as can bee seen by the rising popularity of many open source projects.
Anyway, I'm not sure what alternative licence you are promoting. Proprietary? Fully free as in BSD? Some other fantasy licence that nobody has heard of outside of your febrile imagination?
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Government control is a normalising force, designed to keep the system working and the interests of the people first and foremost on the agenda.
Well, that's a nice theory. However, you must have been living on Mars. In reality, it morphed into this decades ago: Government control is a force working to keep the Big Corp system working and the interests of the their sponsors - the filthy rich - first and foremost on the agenda.
>I know TCP/IP is a standardized protocol, which was my point. If it had been GPL software, it would have gone nowhere because companies wouldn't have adopted it in the early days of the Internet.
But TCP/IP is a protocol, it can never be GPL. GPL covers software. So this comparision is somewhat wrongfooted.
There are protocols that were first implemented in GPLed software, but here we have a strong point pro GPL (and in this case other open source licenses): You can easily code your own software according to the protocol, and use the GPLed implementation to test your implementation. And you can sell your implementation with whatever license you want. You can even distribute one part of your system with GPLed software (lets say, the server), and distribute your part (the client) with another license. Because they are separate programs connected via a welldocumented protocol, the GPL actually encourages this (see the GNU FAQ for details.)
The most famous example of an operating system that wrote its own TCP/IP stack from scratch would be Linux, but it is not the only one. You're not going to argue that Linux doesn't count because it is irrelevant these days, are you?
If it's so secret, then how come I've never heard of it?
This would explain why BSD is so much more popular than Linux then.
BSD is for people who love Unix. Linux is for people who hate Windows.
Yes, lots of people hate Windows. ;)
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
So your fine if your car only passes 20/100 safety tests because most of those cases don't happen that often in the real world?
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