'Daddy, Did You Break the Web?'
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News Analysis. Is Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 strategy about adhering to Web standards or controlling them? |
IE 8 is, so far, the important news coming out of MIX08. Microsoft debuted the browser and released a developer beta early this afternoon. While the keynote focused more on Silverlight 2.0, much of the news was expected. But IE 8 was more unexpected.
Dean Hachamovitch, Internet Explorer general manager, emphasized the importance of interoperability, making that one of two primary priorities for IE 8. The other priority: "For all that we did in IE 7 ... there is more that we can do for developers," he said.
Hachamovitch started by looking back. He explained, as he had many times before, that security was the major focus for Internet Explorer 7 development. He recalled, the time several years ago, that all the bad news about security problems and IE 6. "My kids would ask,'Daddy, did you break the Web?'" he joked.
But I want to ask a variation of the same question: Will IE 8 break the Web? The answer depends on Microsoft's interoperability objectives. Is the company looking to adhere to Web standards or take control of them?
Based on Microsoft's past behavior, the answer would be to control Web standards. But maybe Microsoft can change. Maybe it's so-called "Interoperability Principles" are sincere. If so, Microsoft would be more likely be sincere about adhering to Web standards.
Given Microsoft's past behavior, I'm struggling to believe the extent of sincerity. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates' infamous May 1995 Internet Tidal Wave memo articulated the importance of controlling Internet file formats and a strategy for doing so.
The Internet Tidal Wave memo is the blueprint for Microsoft's product strategy from 1995 to present day. The strategy articulated by Gates nearly 13 years ago is still forefront, or was, if Microsoft's Interoperability Principles are a sincere change.
Here's my problem: Hachamovitch put Microsoft in a leadership role, arguing that there really aren't uniform Web standards. Microsoft wants to make interoperability work for everybody.
I would ask any of Microsoft Watch readers that are Web developers/designers to pipe in on this discussion, in the comments. Are Web standards so chaotic as Hachamovitch claims?
For example, Hachamovitch said that Microsoft had chosen CSS 2.1 for the IE 8 layout rendering standard. My interest and excitement perked up until, when giving an IE 8 demonstration, he remarked: "We took the CSS spec and we wrote a new layout component." Is that using the spec or changing it?
Hachamovitch also discussed the importance of CSS certification. "We need a comprehensive test suite for CSS 2.1," he said. Microsoft has submitted 702 CSS test cases to the CSS workgroup. Is that Microsoft's contribution to improving the certification process or efforts to control it? The question is important, because Microsoft has design tools and a Web browser that could benefit from how CSS standards evolve.
IE 8 also will support HTML 5, which looks promising. "Today's AJAX-styled Web is good, but it has limitations." Hachamovitch said. He showed an AJAX page that responded poorly when returned to from another page. "The back button doesn't really work all that well with AJAX," he said. The function worked fine when he demonstrated a page using HTML 5.
I found new IE 8 features Activities and WebSlices to be potentially opportunistic. Microsoft is introducing propriety browser specifications. That's the only way I can interpret the announcement. Hachamovitch did say that both specifications would be available under Microsoft shared source and Creative Commons licensing mechanisms.
If Microsoft is so surefire concerned about interoperability, why create potential proprietary browser specifications? Microsoft can say they're licensed, but nothing prevents Microsoft from changing or extending the specifications in the future in a way where IE 8 benefits before competing browsers.
Because Microsoft already has implemented the specifications in IE 8, there already is a competitive lead with respect to next-generation browsers. For example, for WebSlices, end users grab parts of pages, or slices, and drag them to the IE 8 toolbar. When content is updated, a visual marker—what Microsoft calls a gleam—appears on the toolbar. That's a Microsoft benefit, for now at least.
If Microsoft is seeking to control rather than support Web standards, maybe a year after IE 8 releases, many other people will ask: "Daddy, did you break the Web?"
Comments (8)
"Microsoft is introducing propriety browser specifications. That's the only way I can interpret the announcement."
The only way? Really?
"Hachamovitch did say that both specifications would be available under Microsoft shared source and Creative Commons licensing mechanisms."
Lies! They're proprietary! No other interpretation is possible!
Posted by DCMonkey | March 5, 2008 4:43 PM
Joe - the extensions to IE that Dean referred to wouldn't "break the web." Browsers that lack the capability to use the special tags would just lack the feature. That's a big difference...and no different than lots of other "proprietary" features available in other browsers. The key for IE8 is standards compliance with CSS and basic HTML layout. That they've committed to.
Posted by Mark Ashton | March 5, 2008 4:57 PM
If Microsoft is so surefire concerned about interoperability, why create potential proprietary browser specifications? Microsoft can say they're licensed, but nothing prevents Microsoft from changing or extending the specifications in the future in a way where IE 8 benefits before competing browsers.
-DCMonkey :
Lies! They're proprietary! No other interpretation is possible!
What others do is OK but MS does it no matter what or how is not OK. They are evil all things they do even like others is still evil.
If any other entity created technology and submitted to the community as open source that is OK. But for MS to do is to be lies.
What I get is people either don't believe or don't *want* to believe that MS can change or is changing. Watch out because when you do realize that they changed it will be to late.
BTW where is I-Man and the VCSY stuff. I thought all of that was going to hit the fan at the same time MIX '08 was going on. As I see like others it if FUD. VCSY was going to get tons of injunctions on stopping IIS7, IE8 and SilverLight 2.0. All I see is VCSY stock is below a dollar and I-Man is gone what is up with that.
MIX '08 is here and MS is still going.
Posted by asdf | March 5, 2008 5:20 PM
Joe, your intepretation of Dean's comments seems a little....off.
"We took the CSS spec and we wrote a new layout component." Is that using the spec or changing it?
I took that to simply mean that the older (pre-IE8) layout component was not compliant, so they wrote a new one for IE8, according to the CSS spec. Yet you somehow managed to make it sound sinister.
If you read a lot of the web standard specs, the language contained therein includes phrases like, "SHOULD behave in this manner". How does one interpret SHOULD? Is it optional, or not? The point of the test suites is simply to say, "This is our best intepretation of what the spec says." It's no different than having, say, an Acid2 or Acid3 test; of course, somehow those tests (which were developed by folks who could be considered to be overtly hostile to anything MS) are not subject to the same level of suspicion.
Posted by Damon | March 5, 2008 5:22 PM
Activities are a wholly client-side browser plugin. It doesn't affect anything on the web at all. If your browser doesn't support them, they just don't show up. It's amazing when some competing browser enables, say, gesture-based navigation, the same bullshit "proprietary" accusations don't apply.
Webslices are designed to be optional opt-in pieces. If your browser doesn't support them, they just don't appear. No "breaking the web" here either.
Posted by Milos | March 5, 2008 5:27 PM
"If Microsoft is so surefire concerned about interoperability, why create potential proprietary browser specifications?"
This kind of unilateralism on MS' part *does* have its advantages; XmlHttpRequest is a proprietary extension MS made to IE that later evolved into AJAX. The interoperability really depends on whether or not other developers and browser vendors embrace the new APIs and whether or not they add value to the user. If they prove to be useful, and other browsers implement them, then there's a good chance they would be turned into a W3C spec
Posted by Keith Patrick | March 5, 2008 6:09 PM
MS is trying to break the web.
Everyone is missing the point about Yahoo;
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/03/everyone-missing-point-yahvole
Quotes from the link;
" Yahoo offers them a way to convert a large number of people over to the next round of servitude, Silverlight.
MS has all it's illegal monopoly power slipping away faster than they can say "Gee Whispering Steve, arm twisting doesn't seem to do the trick any more". Their power was derived from absolute control, over OEMs through illegal licensing, file formats through DOC/XLS, the net with IE, and a bunch of others.
Now, those have all crumbled. OOXML's hamifisted, bribe-laced bid for acceptance as a standard has fallen flatter than a CD of Ballmer singing and ODF is taking hold just about everywhere. Office 2008's better way is only slightly more toxic among IT folk than Vista, just think about your reaction when someone sends you a file in that format. The Office lock is pretty much gone.
The OS lock is gone as well, Vista is about as welcome as a genital rash that you can't explain, and the only reason sales have broken the double digits is that MS is making it very hard to get XP any more. Some people say that Apple's meteoric growth over the past year has something to do with quality or good products, but that is far from the case.
Most of the fruity gains are from Vista. When was the last time MS lost 5% overall OS marketshare in a year again? Last say, oh, never? When was the last time OEMs openly sold Linux, and commented about how well it is doing? This is nothing more than a reaction to MS pushing a broken, malware ridden, DRM infested resource hog that even they know is unusably broken.
The last lock is the most important one, IE and the net. IE held a massive marketshare advantage over everything. The embrace, extend, extinguish strategy worked for a bit. Now, it is also slipping fast. Firefox has about a 20% marketshare worlwide and is growing fast. Apple is pushing Safari, so count another 10% and climbing gone, and Linux is a blip, but a growing one, IE doesn't play there either."
Posted by chips | March 5, 2008 8:33 PM
> My interest and excitement perked up until, when giving
> an IE 8 demonstration, he remarked: "We took the CSS spec
> and we wrote a new layout component." Is that using the spec
>or changing it?
Er, that meant that they had to implement a new layout engine in the IE source code in order to implement that CSS.
Because the one in IE 7 can't do it -- and is preserved for the quirks mode.
tin foil hat.
Posted by ulric | March 8, 2008 10:28 PM