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Microsoft Picks Another Web Standards Fight

Posted by Soulskill on from the dem's-fightin'-woids dept.

mikejuk writes "WebRTC is a way to allow browsers to get in touch with one another using audio or video data without the help of a server. Google has been something of a pioneer in this area, and submitted a suggested technology for the standard. Mozilla has gone along with it, making it all look good. Microsoft, on the other hand, just seemed to be standing on the sidelines, watching what was happening. However, Microsoft now has a product that needs something like WebRTC; namely, Skype. It has been working on a web-based version of Skype and this has focused the collective mind on the problems of browser-to-browser communication. It now agrees that a standard is needed, just not the one Google and Mozilla are behind. Microsoft has submitted its own proposals for CU-RTC-Web or Customizable, Ubiquitous Real Time Communication over the Web, to the W3C. It may well be that Microsoft's alternative has features that make it superior, but a single standard is preferable to a better non-standard. Given Microsoft's need to make Skype work in the browser, it seems likely that, should its proposal not be accepted as the standard, it will press on regardless, thus splitting the development environment. Both Google and Mozilla have already put a lot of work into WebRTC, and there are partial implementations in Firefox, Chrome and Opera."

6 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Here's a thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    You must be new here. This is slashdot and Microsoft has never contributed anything positive to the world.

  2. Re:That summary is awful by Nerdfest · · Score: 1, Troll

    They only give a damn about 'Metro' because they get a cut of every program sold for it.

  3. Nothing new here... by aklinux · · Score: 0, Troll

    Microsoft has a long history of this kind of behavior.

    In the 90s, nobody would be using the web because we would all be signing on to MSN Network (or whatever they called it)

    They didn't seem to like Sun's Java and had to create their own giving rise to ActiveX, which we love so much.

    They didn't like the Javascript every one else was using and created their own.

    Then of course there was jscript, vertical text, obfuscated script, & embedded fonts.

  4. Re:Microsoft is correct by hkmwbz · · Score: 1, Troll

    Microsoft's proposal is more flexible, stateless, simpler to implement, and is more "web-ish"

    Oh really?

    Sounds a bit like you've bought into Microsoft's claims a little too soon.

    --
    Clever signature text goes here.
  5. Microsoft and standards by Arancaytar · · Score: 0, Troll

    After what MS has done to pervert the standards process, any proposal with its name on it needs to be filed, unopened, in the bin. They have proven that every meaningful interaction they have with a standards body is intended solely to subvert, manipulate or destroy it.

  6. No it isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    1. They don't identify patents.
    2. They have a history of perverting standards, even their own.
    3. The have a LONG history of misbehavior against any standards body.

    So no, it isn't better.