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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.'"
"We will continue to build extensions". That definitely deserves a whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag.
Hasn't IE been a fully integrated part of Windows since, what, all the way back to Windows 98? If they start using some open-source code for their browser, will the architecture of the OS still have IE as such an integral part, or will it become a separate application again? Also, is it really such a good thing to have Micro$oft active in the open-source community? Forgive me, but talk like this makes me a little nervous.
Microsoft won the Browser Wars but failed to achieve its objectives in victory. The war against Netscape was to insure that all apps either network based or not needed Microsoft Windows with IE to run the apps. With such failures such as Active X which never really made it past the Intranet and Extranet application. What happened was web developers for the most part designed as much using open standards (or at least plugins that were more universally compatible) and then were able to make apps that run well on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD or whatever just as long as you have a fairly modern browser. What was probably really surpassing to Microsoft most of this. Even decided to give the apps a step back in functionality (just recently for the last couple of year the AJAX method with DHTML became fully functional, or at least 85% there) just to keep compatibility.
What killed Microsoft objective more then anything was the insecurity of Active X and the general habit for people when asked a question is to answer yes and get it done. So now Microsoft is spending millions of dollars in IE development without really getting any major competitive advantage out of the deal. Sure you may have 90% of the market but only 5% of that market actually doing IE Only things you are just wasting your money.
Going to an open source rendering system just seems a way to keep up with the time. By joining the Jones you don't need to keep up with them. Just like with Safari or Chrome all the company needs to do is maintain the browser in features and UI (stuff that closed source companies have seem to shown they have an advantage over open source) and use someone else's Open Source rendering engine (Following specs and making things like rendering engines are what Open Source Developers are good at) So what Microsoft accomplish is a new objective. People will want to stick with Windows because they Like IE over the others.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I know, but some of the people who are determined to hate Linux or OS X say that their bank, work, school, grandma won't work without Active X or that their bank, work, school, grandma won't render correctly with Firefox/Safari/Chrome.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Ballmer pretty much confirmed (was there yesterday) that was the strategy later on in his answer - to beat the standards bodies to new features. The entire strategy they presented was building a new Microsoft-only Web stack built on .Net, and then trying to lock people in with IE8+.
to H. G. Wells...
The browser war between Open and Closed, which is now in its three hundredth and twenty-sixth year has at last come to an end. There are no standards compliant websites left to view and few standards compliant browsers left to view with. The Internet has become so polluted with deadly viruses and proprietary code that it can no longer be viewed. There is no place on the Internet that is immune. The last surviving programmers for the manufacture of standards compliant code have been destroyed. Codebase improvements are rapidly diminishing and when they are gone, we must die...
Sig this!
There is no reason at all that they couldn't integrate an OSS web rendering engine into Windows just as tightly as they have done so with IE.
As a web designer, the nightmare of my day is having to check my code against IE, Firefox, Safari, etc. Most of all was IE. That crap [IE] could really screw with you. The fact that a complex page design almost always couldn't accommodate both W3C standards and IE has made many days almost unbearable. Now I understand, "Well then don't program for it," and trust me I would love to live that idea, but the truth is company execs don't give a rat's ass. A lot of people use IE, and you're page has to work accordingly.
Anyway, my point is that IE8 beta 3 has shown some great improvements with CSS, XHTML, JavaScript support. Finally there will (should be) support for the pseudo :hover, etc. I've already seem some great improvements in complying with W3C standards. Though not up to par with its competitors, Microsoft has actually put some effort into this one that I haven't seen before.
It looks like someone working there ran across this page, or one like it, and thought it was finally time to make a change.
Apple were evil because they claimed they owned fundamental GUI concepts through copyright. They threatened to sue the entire industry to prevent any other computer from having a "WIMP" (windows icons mouse pointer) interface.
Microsoft didn't break the agreement. In fact, the courts found that Apple signed away certain IP rights to Microsoft in return for what turned out to be killer apps for the Mac Platform (Word & Excel). Therefore Microsoft won the case -- with some minor exceptions like the Trash Can.
Later on another court case (Lotus v Borland) ruled that "Look and Feel" couldn't be copyrighted, making the whole Apple legal effort irrelevant, and opening the way for other companies to make Mac-like GUI interfaces.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Let's assume they contribute patches back and you are the project leader. Would you accept their patches?
In other words, exactly how IE4 eliminated Netscape in the first browser war. By burying them in the W3C.
I think what people overlook is that the standards process favors the "big guy" over the "little guy" -- assuming the big guy is paying attention. It will take some time for Microsoft to catch up, but it's a real possibility that they could they could pull ahead of Mozilla/Webkit/Opera within a couple years.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
If TCP/IP had been proprietary, there would be no Internet at all.
(or there would be, but it wouldn't use TCP/IP.)