First off, some of what this guy is saying is totally false. Opera IS cross platform. Opera IS ALREADY embedded in more devices than Mozilla.
Also, who is the "they" in the statement, "they compare rewriting the rendering engine to writing Mozilla"? What I read in the article was that, "Tetzchner resisted comparisons to Netscape..."
Of course the other side of the "Mozilla created a platform" argument if they spent less time creating a platform and more time creating a browser... Don't get me wrong, I think what they did is great and very useful (as Komodo proves), but it wasn't absolutely necessary to create a platform to create the browser and the time they spent out of the race benefitted IE greatly. If Mozilla 1.0 had come out 18 months after they started, the browser market would probably be a lot different than it is today.
I would agree that CSS support is decent. I have tested it on CSS test pages and it did well. One of their head guys is on the W3C CSS committee, so go figure. They actually had decent CSS1 support before MS or Netscape supported CSS1 at all, as I recall.
I run across pages that don't render corectly from time to time which may be due to DOM problems, so I'm not saying the old engine was as good as Mozilla is now, but for the majority of my browsing, it has worked well enough.
As to being faster, it certainly loads faster than Mozilla. As other have said here, on older machines where you can really tell the difference, it does run faster than IE or Mozilla. Sorry it annoys you...
I'm not sure what the "Mozilla and IE can do far more than Opera" refers to. Relevant examples? Like I said, I've run into some pages that don't work (usually badly designed shopping cart pages), but most things work fine.
As for the last statement in your post, all I can say is that conjecture based on nothing doesn't really contribute anything meaningful to the discussion.
Windows and Mac versions of the viewer/plug-in,
free Windows compressors, and high-end commercial compressors and OCR engines are available from LizardTech Inc..
I don't see any "free compressors" for Windows on the LizardTech page.
Guess I'll be sticking with Ghostscript. Free on all platforms I deal with...
I live in Boucher's home town and his congressional district. I have had DSL via our local CLEC ISP for four years now. The ILEC (Sprint) is just now getting around to rolling DSL out (4 years too late and more expensive!). The local cable monopoly (Comcast) is also just starting to roll out their broadband solution.
Whatever Boucher is doing with the telephone industry, it seems to be a good thing as far as I am concerned!
This article is really good... I've read a little bit about.net, but this article is the first one I've seen that lays out how this is different than what Java has done from a big picture / theoretical perspective.
I thought the sections about the object model, like this statement:
"At the center of the dot-NET framework is an object model, called the Virtual Object System (VOS), and at center of the object model is a type system. This already sets dot-NET apart from the other available component models, which are organized around a programming language (Java), an application interconnection model (CORBA) and a wiring model (COM)."
I wouldn't be so quick to peg that as his motivation...
Boucher is my congressman, so I know a litle bit about him. He is very progressive and pro-technology. This kind of law is not out of character for him. He seems to "get it" more than other congressmen when it comes to technology.
Locally, he's done a lot to lay down a technology infrastructure in our region. He's very interested in technology issues.
No, you are wrong. If you search a little harder, it looks like it has passed in BOTH the house and senate as of today. They just gave the bills new names.
He argues that just taking away the API isn't enough and concludes that the "only workable solution he can think of" would be to make it illegal for Microsoft to produce Windows at all and give it to a non-profit standards committee which would maintain it.
While he doesn't specifically mention releasing the source to the general public, I think that unless you're going to GPL it or force them to re-release it with each GA release of Windows, Microsoft (already having a development staff familiar with the umpteen million lines of Windows code (95/98/NT/CE/2K)) would probably find some way to gain the upper hand again or at least change the code often enough to keep people one step behind. It would take at least a couple of months or longer for people to be able to figure out all of the Windows source code and Microsoft could use that time to its advantage.
Some things they might do:
Release the source after running it through an obfuscator, with no make/project files, all the files renamed so you can't tell what type it is by the name, and all files in one directory (technically, they did release it, but it is less than usable).
If they only have to release the current code and not updates, they'd put a ton of people on doing updates and after a couple of years, the released code wouldn't have all of the new features and most people (and OEMs) might migrate to the newer proprietary platform, because they'd code all their apps and development tools to take advantage of the new features. Initially the playing field would be leveled, but with MS's massive resources, they'd be hard to keep up with (when properly motivated they can move relatively quickly (eg. IE)).
Similarly, they could code a new OS that is "Windows compatible" but call it "Screen Door" and then roll all new development onto "Screen Door" until Windows is obsolete. They'd have to release updates to the Windows code (or not), but not to the new code.
Whatever they do, it's going to have to be very carefully worded so that MS's lawyer squad doesn't find a loophole.
Slashdot Mirror
Score 4?
First off, some of what this guy is saying is totally false. Opera IS cross platform. Opera IS ALREADY embedded in more devices than Mozilla.
Also, who is the "they" in the statement, "they compare rewriting the rendering engine to writing Mozilla"? What I read in the article was that, "Tetzchner resisted comparisons to Netscape..."
Of course the other side of the "Mozilla created a platform" argument if they spent less time creating a platform and more time creating a browser... Don't get me wrong, I think what they did is great and very useful (as Komodo proves), but it wasn't absolutely necessary to create a platform to create the browser and the time they spent out of the race benefitted IE greatly. If Mozilla 1.0 had come out 18 months after they started, the browser market would probably be a lot different than it is today.
I would agree that CSS support is decent. I have tested it on CSS test pages and it did well. One of their head guys is on the W3C CSS committee, so go figure. They actually had decent CSS1 support before MS or Netscape supported CSS1 at all, as I recall.
I run across pages that don't render corectly from time to time which may be due to DOM problems, so I'm not saying the old engine was as good as Mozilla is now, but for the majority of my browsing, it has worked well enough.
As to being faster, it certainly loads faster than Mozilla. As other have said here, on older machines where you can really tell the difference, it does run faster than IE or Mozilla. Sorry it annoys you...
I'm not sure what the "Mozilla and IE can do far more than Opera" refers to. Relevant examples? Like I said, I've run into some pages that don't work (usually badly designed shopping cart pages), but most things work fine.
As for the last statement in your post, all I can say is that conjecture based on nothing doesn't really contribute anything meaningful to the discussion.
From the DjVu Libre site :
I don't see any "free compressors" for Windows on the LizardTech page.
Guess I'll be sticking with Ghostscript. Free on all platforms I deal with...
I opened that site and Opera spewed about 15 "illegal cookie" dialogs at me!
Well designed indeed...
Not to be funny, but if there was a book on it, more people might use it...
I would definitely buy at least :
Linux for Windows programmers
and
Cross-platform programming using wxWindows
if they were good...
Better yet, you could even stretch it out and make more focused titles like:
Linux Application Development for Windows Programmers using C++ and wxWindows
Linux Application Development for Windows Programmers using C++ for Gnome
Linux Application Development for Windows Programmers using C++ for KDE
Search Slashdot on his name... He is working on getting support in the Congress to modify DMCA!
I live in Boucher's home town and his congressional district. I have had DSL via our local CLEC ISP for four years now. The ILEC (Sprint) is just now getting around to rolling DSL out (4 years too late and more expensive!). The local cable monopoly (Comcast) is also just starting to roll out their broadband solution.
Whatever Boucher is doing with the telephone industry, it seems to be a good thing as far as I am concerned!
How can you say "So, there are not any serious alternative I'm afraid." if you have not investigated ALL alternatives?
Have you looked at 602 PC Suite?
It has Word and Excel clones, claims excellent file compatibility, is free (as in beer) for commercial use, and gets rave reviews everywhere I look.
If you want more features, the plus version is $20 or you can get a site license for $200.
Much more affordable than MS Office.
Another free (as in beer) office product for Windows is Software 602. People who I know that have tried it have really liked it.
There was a recent Gartner article that recommended abandoning IIS that you could use as justification for that part...
Just run ZoneAlarm and don't allow network access to Media Player. Problem Solved.
This article is really good... I've read a little bit about .net, but this article is the first one I've seen that lays out how this is different than what Java has done from a big picture / theoretical perspective.
I thought the sections about the object model, like this statement:
"At the center of the dot-NET framework is an object model, called the Virtual Object System (VOS), and at center of the object model is a type system. This already sets dot-NET apart from the other available component models, which are organized around a programming language (Java), an application interconnection model (CORBA) and a wiring model (COM)."
were particularly interesting.
I wouldn't be so quick to peg that as his motivation...
Boucher is my congressman, so I know a litle bit about him. He is very progressive and pro-technology. This kind of law is not out of character for him. He seems to "get it" more than other congressmen when it comes to technology.
Locally, he's done a lot to lay down a technology infrastructure in our region. He's very interested in technology issues.
No, you are wrong. If you search a little harder, it looks like it has passed in BOTH the house and senate as of today. They just gave the bills new names.
Look at:
HB499
and
SB372
It makes me sick to be a Virginian because it is in such stark contrast to our history (Patrick Henry et. al.).
According to these pages the house passed it on 2/10/2000 and the senate passed it on 2/15/2000 (today).
There goes my Guinness = cold fusion theory...
Damn...
I think Petreley has an interesting suggestion in his Nov 15th InfoWorld column.
He argues that just taking away the API isn't enough and concludes that the "only workable solution he can think of" would be to make it illegal for Microsoft to produce Windows at all and give it to a non-profit standards committee which would maintain it.
While he doesn't specifically mention releasing the source to the general public, I think that unless you're going to GPL it or force them to re-release it with each GA release of Windows, Microsoft (already having a development staff familiar with the umpteen million lines of Windows code (95/98/NT/CE/2K)) would probably find some way to gain the upper hand again or at least change the code often enough to keep people one step behind. It would take at least a couple of months or longer for people to be able to figure out all of the Windows source code and Microsoft could use that time to its advantage.
Some things they might do:
Release the source after running it through an obfuscator, with no make/project files, all the files renamed so you can't tell what type it is by the name, and all files in one directory (technically, they did release it, but it is less than usable).
If they only have to release the current code and not updates, they'd put a ton of people on doing updates and after a couple of years, the released code wouldn't have all of the new features and most people (and OEMs) might migrate to the newer proprietary platform, because they'd code all their apps and development tools to take advantage of the new features. Initially the playing field would be leveled, but with MS's massive resources, they'd be hard to keep up with (when properly motivated they can move relatively quickly (eg. IE)).
Similarly, they could code a new OS that is "Windows compatible" but call it "Screen Door" and then roll all new development onto "Screen Door" until Windows is obsolete. They'd have to release updates to the Windows code (or not), but not to the new code.
Whatever they do, it's going to have to be very carefully worded so that MS's lawyer squad doesn't find a loophole.
Sulu and Checkov in the wrong chairs! Sulu was always on the right and Checkov always on the left!