Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: The nonsense of removing IE
Author: Peter Wilkinson Posted: 4/30/2000; 5:41:10 PM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 4/29/2000 Msg #: 16840 (In response to 16831) Prev/Next: 16838 / 16844
I agree completely that standards support should be the goal of the browser makers. The issue I see is not that goal but the practicalities or lack of, of legally dictating technology direction.What happens to browsers that don't support these standards??? There are a lot of browsers out there and all would be affected by a legal requirement for standards compliance. What does my own personal browser that I write that is purely for viewing XML have to comply with??? And if that is a different list then consistency is blown.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it is a hopeless situation, just that the right way to get compliance is too work with the browser makers and to have people like the WebStandards people say what they think of the current state of compliance. Legally madating this things solves little. 1. No one will be able to comply in any reasonable timeframe with complete compliance, or possible only the largest makers. We lose competition. 2. Any legal action applies only to the US. What happens with browsers developed outsite of the US??? Opera for example. 3. If its decided that Microsoft is the only company legally obliged to support these standards then it gains power. Is that is what is trying to be achieved here.
The best way for Microsoft to be brought into complete compliance with the specs is for a competitor to build a compliant and functionally equivalent browser. At the moment Netscape 6 doesn't look like it will be it, its HTML, CSS compliance is good but it loses out on XML etc.
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