Microsoft Wants To Participate In SVG Development

rossendryv writes "After many years of fighting against the standard, Microsoft announced they are joining the WC3's SVG working group to help with the development of SVG. 'We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next-generation Web platform,' said Patrick Dengler, senior program manager on Microsoft's Internet Explorer team in a blog post."

Comments

LOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Funny, funny.

Oh thank you so very much.... NOT

[sconeu]

I'm sure their help will be just like that they gave to the development of OpenGL.

Re:Oh thank you so very much.... NOT

[MiniMike]

Step 1: Embrace
Status: In Progress <laughter type="maniacal" />

Step 2: Extend
Status: Inevitable

This Should Be Interesting

[eldavojohn]

So basically you tried to shove your own proprietary format (XAML?) down our throats but that didn't work. So you thought you'd wait it out and see who had the biggest cajones in this game of chicken where people had to pick? But then Google and Adobe just made plugins for IE that made SVG work which kind of let the air out of your tires. And now, before you've even implemented the SVG Tiny spec in Internet Explorer you are saying things like 'We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next-generation Web platform'? So where would that leave IE since it has not implemented said important component of next-generation web platforms?

So you basically want a say in which direction the spec takes from now on without having proven to anyone that you are truly committed to this?

Or is this some hilarious attempt to sidle in at the last moment and hope everyone forgets about your blatant disregard for SVG and make it seem like SVG had always been in your plans but you're only now just getting around to it?

I mean, you're looking mighty foolish now no matter which route you take.

All that angst and animosity aside, I applaud this action. Get it implemented in IE right now so I can start writing crap that utilizes basic graphics without having to post an unnecessarily large image for a flow chart and we can start to carve down the Flash usage out there.

Re:This Should Be Interesting

[Jason Earl]

Dengler didn't commit to add SVG to IE, and the company declined to comment about that possibility when asked.

Until Microsoft commits to supporting SVG in IE it is hard to see Microsoft's supposed support of the standard as anything but disingenuous. As you point out, Microsoft's position at this point is ridiculous. Not only has Microsoft been actively promoting an SVG competitor, but the primary reason why SVG isn't ubiquitous is the fact that SVG is not supported in Internet Explorer.

Re:This Should Be Interesting

[WindBourne]

what's the big deal about rendering SVG?
Absolutely none. They just do not want to since it does not align with their business need of a monopoly. Typically, if they embrace a competing item, it is because it is catching on, and they are losing ground.

Fixed

[hduff]

We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next generation Web platform. As evidenced by our ongoing involvement in W3C working groups, we are committed to participating in the standards process to subvert those standards to our benefit. Our involvement with the SVG working group builds on that commitment.

Fixed that for you.

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[bcmm]

Title says it all. We've seen this before, folks.

Translation:

[FooAtWFU]

Silverlight didn't work, and we still want to kill Flash.

Re:Translation:

[RobertM1968]

Your point is well taken. But don't count Silverlight out yet. The sole fact that Netflix uses it for their streaming service is reason enough.

-Peter

Which is the sole reason I dont use NetFlix. Or watch videos on Microsoft's site.

Re:Translation:

[pete-classic]

While I can identify with your position, if boycotts by the technologically conscious were by any means effective, Internet Explorer would have shriveled and died in the '90s.

-Peter

Re:Translation:

[davester666]

So, we'll implement something we'll call SVG, but only once the spec is changed to support Microsoft-only technologies.

Like, say, that it must be implemented as an ActiveX control...

Re:Translation:

[FlyingBishop]

It's certainly a nice thought (for them), but it won't work. As goes YouTube, so goes the Internet. Nothing Microsoft can do about that. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if IE9 at a bare minimum supports <video> and <audio> It's such a simple thing to hack into the engine that even they should be able to pull it off without any fuss.

SVG, that's a bit trickier, but they do have that VML renderer lying around.

Re:Translation:

[icebraining]

From an architectural / security standpoint, Silverlight runs in a Sandbox, among other things, which greatly improve security (this most certainly isn't another Active X).

You know what improves security and performance? Streaming a damn MPEG file and let us decode it with our plugin of choice. Flash and Silverlight are a terrible choice for videos.

Re:Translation:

[BuckaBooBob]

Its likely that they will work and being the defaco SVG viewer for the windows platform and initally do some good work thus making it pointless for anyone else to continue to develop a svg viewer for the windows platform.. once they have established themselves.. they will undoubtedly start to add "Features" to svg that require MS API's... Much like they did with java..

Re:Translation:

[neokushan]

Personally, I can't see a single problem with Silverlight that doesn't exist within flash, including "OtherOS" support. We all know what Adobe is like when it comes to supporting 64bit Linux.
Then again, I honestly haven't had much use for flash over the last couple of years other than watching videos, something I'm hoping that will accomplish just as well. The only times I've needed flash other than this were when certain websites have, quite literally, forced me to use it, usually as part of some rediculous sign up process.
Silverlight is in much the same boat, albeit with a much smaller usage so I don't really see why people dislike it so much. It's no better or worse than flash, but at least it's a competitor, which one day might help the situation.

Re:Translation:

[geminidomino]

I do hope they don't join just to ruin the standard or offer halfassed support for it.

Why else *would* they join?

Resist! its just OOXML all over again

[phonewebcam]

Here we go again: http://noooxml.wikidot.com

"Committee stuffing is a standard practice for Microsoft. Microsoft raped ISO with their office file formats, leaving the organization in limbo. The whole campaign against the format have raised an army of people, which are furious about the dirty tactics used by Microsoft to get the broken standard through ISO. This anger won't go away, and I wish good luck to Microsoft to get it adopted by governments. The reputation of Microsoft went down below zero with this process."

Executable code, here we come

[Animats]

You just know that Microsoft will try to stick in some way to embed executable code, so SVG files can invoke "platform specific services".

Besides, without that, it won't be useful for viruses and trojans.

Re:Executable code, here we come

[Hurricane78]

Well, there already is the ability to add scripts (as in every browser, usually JavaScript) to SVG, just like you would with XHTML, since both are XML-based. So MS could simply expose an API to JS. Oh wait, it already does that! (ActiveX, even partially DirectX.)

There's an old saying about Microsoft..

[mewsenews]

Embrace <-- you are here
Extend
Extinguish

That's nice

[metamatic]

As soon as Microsoft implements the current SVG standards in IE, they should be welcomed into the process of refining the standards further.

Until they implement the current SVG standards, they should be kept away.

[Opinions mine, not IBM's.]

Re:Silverlight is the fastest growing plugin...

[pnewhook]

I never did figure out what Silverlight was for. I went to one site that required it (cant even remember what the site was for), tried to install it but it refused to work.

Never found a need for it since.

Why silverlight is hated

[SmallFurryCreature]

All the browsers except one (go ahead, guess which one) are becoming capable enough to do a lot of animation and tricks that people used to put in flash, themselves.

Flash itself is hated because it ruins the web, it locks up data in an executable that can't be indexed.

And then, MS comes along and rather then improve its browser to support standards, it adds a flash copy. Who needs it? Do we REALLY want to go back to the days of the web bubble where you had a dozen plugins begging to be installed? Bad enough that flash survived, we don't need a new one.

It also ruins the browser experience for those who have trouble with sight. The rest of the web can be spoken or enlarged or contrast changed (not IE) but that doesn't work for plugins.

The only use I seen for silverlight is to embed video. Why introduce yet another closed source player when it would have been trivial for MS to just support the video tag.

Make no mistake, silverlight is nothing more then activex 2.0. Yet another attempt by MS to turn the browser into a windows only experience.

mmmhmm

[pak9rabid]

We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next-generation Web platform.

Translation: Since the overwhelming majority of vendors is on board with it, we don't want to be left out in the cold

Here's Why

[weston]

Do you hate Silverlight because it's Microsoft

It's reason enough.

After observing a few decades anticompetitive behavior, punctuated with six years during which they utterly and completely neglected Internet Explorer -- the world's primary window to the web -- two things seem pretty apparent to me:

1) Despite all their talk about developers, developers, developers, when they can get away with it, they care about developers not one bit. If they did, some minimal effort towards fixing some of the more egregious problems with IE might have been made, instead of pushing the problems out onto the backs of hundreds of thousands of web authors who had to figure out how to circumvent bugs and irregularities.

2) It's quite likely they'd like pull an embrace-extend-extinguish with the web as whole if they can pull it off. And if they get critical mass for RIAs with Silverlight, they might even be able to pull it off. I don't care how good Silverlight is -- and I've been impressed with some things -- I'm not at all interested in that future.