Comment A not so modest proposal (Score 1) 294
I just wrote this up a few days ago, it would be nice if these guys thought it was a good idea and we figured out how to make it happen:
A not-so-modest proposal.
by Andrew Theken (andrewtheken.com)
Ok, some of you Open Source folks aren't going to like me for this one, but here goes. Normally, I wouldn't suggest such a huge step but we need to take it. You folks over at the Mozilla Foundation need to make this happen. Things are easy to implement/design deploy with web standards, when they are adhered to. Firefox's (and KHTML's) compliance is very high compared to Internet Explorer. We need to find a way to get Microsoft to use Gecko or KHTML in Internet Explorer. I realize I might be spinning my wheels here.
I know this may sound like blasphemy, but always look to the comments made in regards to the LGPL (I think the following has been stated by Richard Stallman - if anybody can source the following, email me, it's probably on the gnu.org site). Let me paraphrase: The LGPL is designed to allow a developer that wants to add commonly available functionality to do so without opening the entire application, so long as that functionality is not materially the core portion of the application. Basically, making it so that a commercial developer would choose an Open Source library for some small, non-critical feature instead of a commercial counterpart. Basically, something like a HTTP server, which is, at this point, a commonplace set of code. LGPL is designed to have you adopt Open Source instead of paying for a closed source trivial portion of code. Essentially, the proliferation of the Open implementation is more important than getting additional code to go "Open."
Now, Gecko is not LGPL'd (to my knowledge), but there's a reason why I brought it up. Untold good would come from giving away Gecko to Microsoft for IE. they have a rendering engine, they could buy and integrate any one that they wished, we need them to adopt one that complies to W3C and the rest. Give 'em the engine, have them integrate it, code contributions be damned.
Firefox would still have it's place as a more secure browser, extensions, etc. We'd just have less implementation work to do to get websites up and looking good. Something I am sure we can all appreciate.
Let them add in all their Microsoft-y glory. Code change submissions would be optional. Require that the Gecko engine generally render in much the same way as it does in other browsers, no more, no less. We need the web standards for end users and web designers more than we need Microsoft's code.
Now, let's not think about how perverse it would be to run Internet Explorer with a Netscape-derived rendering engine. Would Microsoft do it? Seems like their codebase for IE is so bad that they'll take any help they can get (seriously folks, I think they had 51% standards compliance in the 5.x series which jumps to 54% for IE7, I think Firefox's is about 94% -if anybody can source this, email me.).
PLEASE Mozilla & Microsoft, share your love.
A not-so-modest proposal.
by Andrew Theken (andrewtheken.com)
Ok, some of you Open Source folks aren't going to like me for this one, but here goes. Normally, I wouldn't suggest such a huge step but we need to take it. You folks over at the Mozilla Foundation need to make this happen. Things are easy to implement/design deploy with web standards, when they are adhered to. Firefox's (and KHTML's) compliance is very high compared to Internet Explorer. We need to find a way to get Microsoft to use Gecko or KHTML in Internet Explorer. I realize I might be spinning my wheels here.
I know this may sound like blasphemy, but always look to the comments made in regards to the LGPL (I think the following has been stated by Richard Stallman - if anybody can source the following, email me, it's probably on the gnu.org site). Let me paraphrase: The LGPL is designed to allow a developer that wants to add commonly available functionality to do so without opening the entire application, so long as that functionality is not materially the core portion of the application. Basically, making it so that a commercial developer would choose an Open Source library for some small, non-critical feature instead of a commercial counterpart. Basically, something like a HTTP server, which is, at this point, a commonplace set of code. LGPL is designed to have you adopt Open Source instead of paying for a closed source trivial portion of code. Essentially, the proliferation of the Open implementation is more important than getting additional code to go "Open."
Now, Gecko is not LGPL'd (to my knowledge), but there's a reason why I brought it up. Untold good would come from giving away Gecko to Microsoft for IE. they have a rendering engine, they could buy and integrate any one that they wished, we need them to adopt one that complies to W3C and the rest. Give 'em the engine, have them integrate it, code contributions be damned.
Firefox would still have it's place as a more secure browser, extensions, etc. We'd just have less implementation work to do to get websites up and looking good. Something I am sure we can all appreciate.
Let them add in all their Microsoft-y glory. Code change submissions would be optional. Require that the Gecko engine generally render in much the same way as it does in other browsers, no more, no less. We need the web standards for end users and web designers more than we need Microsoft's code.
Now, let's not think about how perverse it would be to run Internet Explorer with a Netscape-derived rendering engine. Would Microsoft do it? Seems like their codebase for IE is so bad that they'll take any help they can get (seriously folks, I think they had 51% standards compliance in the 5.x series which jumps to 54% for IE7, I think Firefox's is about 94% -if anybody can source this, email me.).
PLEASE Mozilla & Microsoft, share your love.
