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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
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.
If your abusive spouse buys you flowers, you don't stop planning the escape.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And really, why use WebKit? Sure, its a decent rendering engine but no better than Gecko or the other OSS rendering engines.
One reason for using WebKit over Gecko would be the licensing...I know that for lots of corporations, BSD-licensing is much favored over anything related to GPL...(Gecko is MPL)
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.
"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!"
>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.