Microsoft must be stopped. If not stopped, slowed substantially. The company is a bully. The protests now are loud and clear: “Microsoft! Change Your Ways. Change Now!”
This is a rant, brought about by another attempt by Microsoft Goliath to circumvent world standards. This time it’s RSS.
Is Microsoft about to change standards again? If their ‘Triple E’ tactic is used, yes.
We have finally ditched Internet Explorer on the only Windows machine left in our place!
I can’t say I’m surprised about the attempts to control RSS. It’s a hot new technology so it was only a matter of time before Microsoft stuck their fingers in the pie.
I just got back from lunch at Wendy’s. I hate the taste of fingers!!
Is Microsoft about to change standards again? If their ‘Triple E’ tactic is used, yes.
It’s hard to believe that anyone can invent something that is proprietary—nonstandard, according to international standards—and have it become a widely-accepted new standard. I just wish the example given could have been something other than Firefox. I wanted it. I installed it. And my system kept crashing with alarming regularity until I removed it. Even when it was running as right as it ever ran, colors were different. Semi-transparent tones became solid. I was making a list of problems but I lost it because Firefox crashed and took the OS with it. Damn!
The biggest sin of the IE debacle, in my mind is the stagnation it has caused not in existing standards, but in the advancement and creation of new standards. The basic capability to layout a page in HTML and supporting standards has changed but trivially since I first taught myself HTML in High School in 1994. The only advances have come in bandwidth and automation, arguably sidestep progress as opposed to straight ahead.
My only hope at this point is that Adobe will take Macromedia’s Flash, blend it with SVG and make it an open, searchable, standard. There is no reason these vector formats can’t supplant HTML altogether for most page layout, given even the openness of PostScript.
There are some clear signs that Microsoft is only in it in support of their monopoly. Witness their “extensions” of kerberos, their attempt to change TCP/IP standards, and their innate support of the “Best Viewed With Internet Explorer” badging on web sites, to name just a few. Let’s not even discuss Palladium, Passport or the fact that WMP DRM music files only run on Microsoft platforms and not on any other OS (Yes, it runs on a lot of crappy media players, but so what?). Has the fact that Microsoft opened some of their code to foreign governments helped anyone other than Microsoft? No. It only helped Microsoft compete against the Linux threat in those countries. See this “I,Cringley” article for more eye-opening on Microsoft’s practices: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040916.html
The fact that Microsoft, who actually pays some of the brightest programmers in the world, has been out-coded by part-time volunteer open-source programmers speaks volumes about their intentions, and no public attempts at spin can change what is actually happening. Instead of bringing a better product to market and proving that they are better, they choose instead to complain about open-source. How typical and boring. What amazes me is that they seem to exert more effort on public perception and crippling other OS variants than on producing a superior product. Results speak louder than words.
Jeff,
I agree with your comments, but with one small exception. Your example of FireWire is actually not valid as Apple invented FireWire. It was called 1394 (the official technical name) by companies that implemented it so they would not have to pay Apple royalties on the name FireWire. After Apple relented on the royalties issue more companies started using the name FireWire.
I second LonePalm’s assertion on 1394; I remember many moons ago in a print copy of MacWorld or MacUser, seeing IEEE 1394a lined up with several others as proposed SCSI III implementations. I’m not sure if it had earned the FireWire moniker at that point yet or not.
I recently moved out of Seattle, and I credit MS with being one of the major factors in ruining the quality of life there. I moved there in ‘88, and partly due to the hi-tech bubble that MS helped create, Seattle got crowned the ‘Most Desirable’ place to live, which was it’s death knell. MS took over & ruined the idylic community of Redmond, and with all their minions moving in & buying up properties left & right in Seattle, they helped make the housing prices insanely high. And all of Gate’s billions are based on monopolisistic, total greed-based practices - and the most shoddy software on the market! Unbelieveable - except in America…
From what I hear from the Microsoft camp, it is just a renaming of the technology so it is more “user friendly”, akin to what Apple has done with Firewire, Airport, Bonjour…
Alas, Microsoft will likely try the exact same trick that Apple has tried with iTunes.
Alas, Microsoft will likely try the exact same trick that Apple has tried with iTunes.
Both are not playing fair in my opinion.
Um, what trick would that be? I don’t remember Apple hijacking a standard, ala java, rewriting the code so that it only works with their system and then selling it as that same standard… Microsoft has always been a corporate criminal and always will be. Just watch what they do to RSS. If you can’t beat them, assimilate them.
Ah, but given that over 90% of the world either doesn’t believe in or feel strongly enough about Microsoft evil not to use their operating system, by definition it’s more open-minded to strongly believe M$ is evil since it’s the norm to not feel strongly about it.
