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Time For Microsoft To Open Source Internet Explorer?
An anonymous reader writes: Ars Technica's Peter Bright argues that it's time for Microsoft to make Internet Explorer open source. He points out that IE's major competitors are all either fully open source (Firefox), or partially open source (Chrome, Safari, and Opera), and this puts Microsoft at a huge disadvantage. Bright says, "It's time for Microsoft to fit in with the rest of the browser industry and open up Trident. One might argue that this argument could be made of any software, and that Microsoft should by this logic open source everything. But I think that the browser is special. The community that exists around Web standards does not exist in the same way around, say, desktop software development, or file system drivers, or user interfaces. Development in the open is integral to the Web in an almost unique way. ... Although Microsoft has endeavored to be more open about how it's developing its browser, and which features it is prioritizing, that development nonetheless takes place in private. Developing in the open, with a public bug tracker, source code repositories, and public discussion of the browser's future direction is the next logical step."
Not as long as it remains integral to the Explorer shell...
If they do that, we will get several months of extreme security problems due to all the issues hidden in there. AFAIK they have a whole new thing in development, and they should open-source that instead.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Isn't Microsoft announcing a new web browser intended to replace Internet Explorer today? Maybe it'll be open source. Maybe it'll even be based on Webkit.
I don't know how much licensed code is in IE that Microsoft would have to untangle the rights to before open-sourcing it, and given the fact that we've mostly figured out how to work around IE's problems at this point, I'm not sure if it'd be worth the effort to do so.
It'd probably be best to just retire IE, let developers continue struggling through the known-workarounds they've been using until its market-share vanishes, and look forward instead of back. The time spent trying to figure out IE's source could be better spent developing/using a better platform.
Regardless, I think every web browser should be open source, since they work on (theoretically) open standards, run cross platform, and are the defacto presentation layer for an increasing number of applications. Developers need to be able to understand the internals of the browser to assure the best quality of their own work. Really hoping that's what happens with whatever MS announces today with Spartan. (I just don't think IE is worth the effort to open source at this point)
Anything that retards the move to 'web base applications' is a good thing.
The whole Personal Computer revolution was based in the notion that everybody got their own computer, and a room full of IT drones in white codes couldn't hold their data hostage anymore.
Basing people's access to computing power on their connection to the Internet is a bad idea. Let the Net be a domain for information exchange, not a program loader.
The problem isn't Microsoft or old versions of Windows. Old versions of Windows run Firefox and Chrome just fine. The blame for the problems lies solely on the users and corporations/organizations that refuse to use a current browser. If you need a certain version of IE for some old intranet application, then go ahead and use it specifically for that app. But there's no reason why websites available to the general public should be required to support old browsers.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.