Re: Why FrontPage is not HTML

[Charles Behney <charlesaugust@theriver.com>]

Dear Kevin:

Dr. Larry Leibrock is busy making a name for himself in the antitrust arena.

The Practicum Site is of special interest because of its commercialism and
bias towards all things Microsoft. Dr. Leibrock has managed to create a
situation of appearances that the only cost effective solution to software
implementation involves Microsoft. Since UT is a state funded system, the
questions of Texas carriage laws and other antitrust issues makes this
endorsement and advertisement for MS a legal, ethical and topical issue to be
pursued in national forums. Did Dr. Leibrock receive stipends, grants,
vacations, or other inducements from Microsoft? Did he consider the legal
issues that endorsing McSoft products with links to microsoft.com sites brings
from tax payer funded wesites such as yours.

Did you decide in committee to endorse Microsoft products and have sections
that are only accessible to MS Internet Explorer browswers?

These  are serious issues, and I know that I'm overlooking several things.
Would UT endorse other products on their websites, in exchange for
inducements? Is this a written policy, or is it ad hoc?

The neutral solution (for now)  would be to take all of the logo banners off
of the site, and make the site accessible to ALL browsers, not just MS or
Netscape. Would your state's health department endorse one drug manufacturer
over another, and post logos on their websites? Is an academic institution
different, if they are all BUSINESS?

Check out McSoft's review of Dr. Liebrock:
http://www.windows.com/education/hed/innovate/

This case study appears to be less a case study than an endorsement of
proprietary software for publically funded institutions. Did Dr. Leibrock
receive money from Microsoft for this case study?

Thanks for your honest accessment of  Frontpage. I think the insidious thing
about Frontpage, beside the horrific coding, is that it makes mincemeat of
good old FTP, putting websites into a degraded scheme. This is bundling and
tying of a product, that in turn ruins the very public File Transfer
Protocols.

Kevin J. Kelly wrote:

> Charles
>
> I am very aware of these issues and am not a huge fan of FrontPage myself.
>  FrontPage 98 is much better than 97 was, but still has quite a bit to be
> desired.
>
> If I may ask, what spawned your interest in sending me this note?  Was is
> the Practicum in Site Building site?
>
> Kevin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:   Charles Behney [SMTP:charlesaugust@theriver.com]
> Sent:   Sunday, April 26, 1998 6:23 PM
> To:     kjkelly@acm.org
> Subject:        Why Frontpage is not HTML
>
>  << File: ATT00002.html >>