Opera Cure: Worse Than the Disease?
December 14th, 2007 (1:02pm) Mike Gunderloy 10 Comments
You may have seen the news yesterday that browser maker Opera filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission, opening up the legal browser wars yet again. Raising the banner of consumer choice, they’re requesting the Commission to implement two remedies. First, they want IE unbundled from Windows (haven’t we been down this road before?). Second, they want “the European Commission to require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities.”
Given the history between Microsoft and the European Commission (which, you will recall, ended up forcing the shipment of a version of Windows without Windows Media Player included), Opera has clearly chosen a friendly court in which to press its claims. The likelihood of a sympathetic hearing on the notion of Microsoft abusing monopoly power in the browser market seems high. But simultaneously, Opera is also playing to the court of public opinion, publishing an Open Letter to the Web Standards Community that’s been picked up by groups such as the Web Standards Project.
Restraint of trade is traditionally an area for legal remedies, but asking the courts to get involved in the already-messy business of web standards is something new. As web workers, do we really want to have this precedent set? There are several reasons why even Opera may regret opening this particular can of worms:
- It’s not at all clear just what are the “fundamental and open Web standards.” Some sites are already experimenting with HTML5 and CSS3, even though the standards are in flux and not thoroughly implemented. Are these fundamental yet? Are things like MathML fundamental? Who decides?
- No browser is perfect. Depending on how closely your read the standards and interpret them, you can always find a test to break any given browser. Will some other vendor turn around and demand that Opera be pulled until it fixes its own rendering bugs? If the end result is that only perfect browsers can be shipped, we will have no browser at all.
- Once they get involved, why would the courts stop at regulating browsers? Imagine a takedown order aimed at a site you just deployed because it won’t validate. There are people out there determined to make the Internet a better place by forcing us all to be less sloppy. I’m not sure I want them to end up in control.
If they truly have used monopolistic powers to crush competition in the browser market (a claim which the United States was ultimately unable to prevail on) I’d be happy to see Microsoft appropriately regulated. But, speaking as a web developer, I do not believe that I want the courts stepping in to determine what standards must be implemented in shipping products.
10 Comments Post your own comment
simon66 says: December 14th, 2007 2:44pm
Well phrased and well reasoned. Good job!
John says: December 14th, 2007 4:58pm
For a well considered insider opinion
DaveKebb says: December 14th, 2007 7:18pm
I think the issue is a bit fat untie-able knot of cringe and a lobbyists feeding trough.
I love Opera. It has been my browser of choice for nearly 10 years. It is incredible that such a blistering tool has a tiny market share and has driven pure browser innovation for a looooong time.
FF is a swiss army knife, ie is a follower, safari is well mac-able, not more.
A browser is such a basic tool & invisible to drones that are scared to mess with (and greying IT managers won’t mess with) hence only 20% FF takeup. The “blue e” is ubiquitous and probably responsible for many billions of dollars of lost productivity through its sloth and “come hack me” lure. For clients use only.
Opera are the great hope for cellphones and their exe-exe-exellent mini browser is coriander to the iphone’s curry paste.
Sensi says: December 15th, 2007 2:46am
Zz “No browser is perfect.”
Yeah of course but try that test with IE and Opera to help you ponder that “argument”.
http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/
“speaking as a web developer, I do not believe that I want the courts stepping in to determine what standards must be implemented in shipping products.”
Yeah “as a web developer” i guess you just love to have the microsoft bugs and mis-implementations being the defacto standards for the web rather than the W3C ones?
How many tens or hundreds of hours have we lost to fix -mostly- IE crap in our webdesign?
Enough of this sh!t.
Mike Gunderloy says: December 15th, 2007 4:22am
Sensi, I’m well aware that Opera does much better than IE on acid2. And I’ve made it abundantly clear elsewhere that I’m no fan of Microsoft. Be that as it may, I’m even less a fan of having the courts tell me what technology to use and how to use it.
Sensi says: December 15th, 2007 5:02am
The EU courts would at best tell Microsoft -because of its already recognized monopoly status- that it have to adhere more than anybody else to interoperability, i.e. the W3C standards.
I don’t see how this could concerns you.
BTW sorry if i sounded rude. ;)
Mikael says: December 15th, 2007 6:33am
Sensi said:
“Zz “No browser is perfect.”
Yeah of course but try that test with IE and Opera to help you ponder that “argument””
Test Firefox/Mozilla and Safari too, you’ll be surprised!
Mike Gunderloy said:
“Sensi, I’m well aware that Opera does much better than IE on acid2. And I’ve made it abundantly clear elsewhere that I’m no fan of Microsoft. Be that as it may, I’m even less a fan of having the courts tell me what technology to use and how to use it.”
Then you’ve not understood the purpose of *de jure* standards (de facto standards should not use the word “standard” at all), or why monopoly power is so dangerous.
When a dominant company like Microsoft encourage their customers to use their own dataformats, javascript, HTML tags and attributes then they are abusing that power they have, the unique advantage which they are not allowed to use because it stifles or even kills competition, the whole market even.
As you may understand is a lot at stake, a lot of jobs, tax-money in many countries and of course our ability to communicate is threatened which I think is the worst.
God bless US of A for many things but the yankees have a lot to learn about the responsibilities a state should have and take good care of.
Sensi says: December 15th, 2007 7:46am
@ Mikael
“Test Firefox/Mozilla and Safari too, you’ll be surprised!”
Be sure that i have already concerning Firefox, however I haven’t found it as much lamentable as IE7 in its result.
Also “A de facto standard is a technical or other standard that is so dominant that everybody seems to follow it like an authorized standard.”
“In computing, de facto standards can sometimes become de jure standards due to their share of the relevant market.”
cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto#Standards
Mikael says: December 15th, 2007 8:06am
“In computing, de facto standards can sometimes become de jure standards due to their share of the relevant market.”
Only if a community of companies and standards organisations agree on it. This is the most important point in de jure standards, they don’t follow the whim of ONE more or less predictable company or person, which simplifies communication.
Michael R. Bernstein says: December 16th, 2007 5:34pm
“a claim which the United States was ultimately unable to prevail on”
Untrue. That claim (and all other findings of fact) prevailed. Only the remedies were overturned on appeal.
Have you watched Microsoft’s actual testimony?