
Opera files complaint - an open letter to the Web community (wants to force MS to support standards) - nickb
http://people.opera.com/howcome/2007/msft/
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Tichy
I actually had more problems with Opera issues than with IE problems. Anyway,
I really don't like that kind of thing - companies should be allowed to do
shape their products the way they want, and no, Microsoft is not a monopoly.

And I am not even an American...

Besides the European Commission whatever is definitely a bigger bane than
Microsoft ever was.

~~~
jamiequint
In most cases I would agree with you, but in this case the free market doesn't
really work that well because the stakeholders in the internet browser
compatibility market are the software developers. Unfortunately internet
software developers make up such a tiny portion of the actual market share of
web browsers that they could all make the move to Firefox or Opera (and most
of them do) and it would still have minimal effect.

The software developer is presented with two choices: 1. Continue to develop
software for IE no matter how annoying and time consuming it is to nail all
those annoying bugs or 2. Refuse to support IE.

Since the general public (read: the bulk of web browser users) are generally
ignorant of the difference between IE/Firefox/Opera/etc these companies are
really left with no choice. Either support Microsoft or die. The stakeholders
are left powerless because they are participants in a market where the
participants in that market don't even understand what they are consuming and
why.

Of course Microsoft is not a monopoly (by the precise definition of the term),
and I tend to lean away from antitrust legislation. However, the externalities
their selfish decisions in this area project on the market sum to millions on
millions of dollars, if this threat incites them to do something about that I
am all for it.

~~~
Tichy
I tend to think that if users really think they need something, they'll find a
way to get it. For example, most people managed to get themselves a DVD
Player. They saw that their neighbours were doing some cool thing in their
homes, and m,anaged to inform themselves and buy the bloody players.

If people were so keen on IE alternatives, they would pester their bosses to
be allowed to switch. Apparently, FF is not different enough for people to
care.

Going the legal way might just open a huge can of worms. For example, how
likely will companies be in the future to agree on standards, if next thing
they know they'll end up in court for it? As a company, I'd rather stick to my
proprietary stuff instead (Flash...).

Also, maybe it simply isn't so easy to be 100% compliant to a specification.
Is the specification even unambiguous enough, and clear enough for every
developer getting the same picture? Should we really use the courts to
establish the meanings of paragraphs in specifications like that? And what
about Opera, they suck pretty bad, too - if Microsoft gets some flack, they
should be next.

As a web developer, I'd rather wish the EU would shoot down both IE and Opera,
and simply force everyone to use Firefox. While they are at it, they should
also disallow new versions of Firefox to come out, because they might force me
to adapt my code. But that is not the world we REALLY want to live in, or is
it?

~~~
jamiequint
"If people were so keen on IE alternatives, they would pester their bosses to
be allowed to switch. Apparently, FF is not different enough for people to
care."

This is what I am getting at. Its not enough for your average person to care,
because the stakeholders in the browser war are the developers who have to put
in all the extra time to make it work on IE _so_ the average person can be
browser agnostic.

In this case Microsoft is abusing their power as a large presence in the
market to do whatever they want even though that is detrimental to the market.
While I do think that an antitrust case would be over the top, there has to be
some way to do something about this.

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dcurtis
I think this letter is about 3 years late.

IE7 fixes most of the annoying stupid problems that used to drive me crazy;
now I can develop a site in Safari and Firefox, and it usually works almost
perfectly in IE7. I don't mean to say that IE7 is perfect, just that the
problems aren't nearly as bad as they used to be.

~~~
nailer
Visit Acid 2 in Opera. It's fine.

Visit in in FF2. It's a little odd, but you can tell its a smiley face. In FF3
it's fine.

Visit in in Konq, or Safari, or Nokia browser. It's fine.

Visit in it IE 7.

Then make up your mind.

~~~
dcurtis
Yeah, theoretical tests show how shitty IE7 really is, but in practice, it
works 98% of the time for me.

~~~
nailer
You're completely right - IE7 works fine for users. But that level of user
support would be a lot easier for developers to achieve if we didn't have to
code around its quirks.

~~~
dcurtis
My point is that it has like 95% fewer quirks than IE6. And I was referring to
it as a developer.

It still is hideous. Why did they take they file/edit menus off? That was
probably the worst user interface mistake in the history of Microsoft, only to
be superseded by the Office 2007 interface.

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cdr
Microsoft should file a complaint to force Opera to support javascript
properly.

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abas
Perhaps web developers should stage a strike. Have a day (or more) where
everyone participating turns off there work arounds for IE (and perhaps put up
a link to their favorite browsers).

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run4yourlives
>For example, Internet Explorer is the only modern Web browser that does not
support Acid2.

Um, no. In fact I think only Safari and Opera support Acid2.

I fully support the guys at Opera in furthering web standards, but they should
make sure what they say is factual.

~~~
damien
From the wikipedia article that he linked:

Acid2 is supported by: \- WebCore-based (Safari, OmniWeb, Shiira) \- Konqueror
\- Prince \- iCab \- Presto-based (Opera, Internet Channel on Wii) \- Gecko-
based 1.9+ (Firefox 3 beta)

It is not supported by: \- Internet Explorer \- Firefox 2 (Current stable
version) \- NetFront (PS3 browser)

So yes, technically IE is not the only browser that doesn't support it, but
they are the only browser which has said that CSS compliance is not a priority
for them.

~~~
andreyf
I think it's nitpicking to say that the current version of FF doesn't support
Acid2. It's clear that MS doesn't care to implement CSS correctly - and they
only reason they can do that is because of their extraordinary market share.
That's wrong.

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downer
The obvious correct solution is to get everyone off of IE altogether.

