Re: Microsoft bootlicker sues Netscape

[Dan Strychalski <dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw>]

Sujal Shah <sujal@jhu.edu> wrote --

> I think you're being paranoid, just a bit.  In fact, I think you're crazy
> if you equate your statement above to JavaScripts which check browser
> versions.
 
Differential treatment based on choice of browser -- as if everyone
*could* choose their browser -- may not be quite as heinous as
differential treatment based on skin color, but these folks ain't doin' it
otta the kindness of their hearts.
 
My dad worked in the advertising industry and often described with
distaste the things he saw there. I've been in the corporate world a while
and seen a thing or two myself. I'm not so sure "paranoia" is the best
term for the resulting attitude. (When people start calling me a cynic
I'll start worrying.)
 
> THose scripts are usually used to ensure that your content is viewable by
> everyone out there.  In other words, if you have a Java applet on your
> page, but you want to make sure your lynx or Opera users can browse your
> site, you may want to redirect them to a separate page, or give them a
> different context (i.e. without frames or audio, or a lot of images).
 
Tim Berners-Lee had a NeXT machine and devised a system whereby he and
people with eighties-era x86, 68x, and <any letter/number><any
letter/number> machines could access varied kinds of information on an
equal basis. The whole idea was the same page for everybody, with the
browser rendering whatever it could and providing access to whatever it
couldn't. Sites designed in conformance with the letter and the spirit of
the HTML standards do not have separate pages for different browsers,
period. The person operating the browser gets the necessary information by
sight, sound, or feel, is told what else is there, and can retrieve
anything in raw or rendered form by their own command. The main reason to
do it otherwise is to mesmerize people for commercial purposes, to appeal
to instincts and emotions rather than to intellect -- to turn the client
machine into another television set. Commercial activity within the letter
and the spirit of the standards is fine with me, but mechanisms that allow
differential treatment are not. They *will* be abused, and widely.
 
> In many cases, it's an attempt to provide equal content to all people.  A
> better example would be a newsstand or library (something that IS done
> now) taking the Times and printing it out in Braille for a blind person so
> that they can read the same news as you, but without the pictures and
> other bells and whistles.
 
Standards-conformant browsers work fine with screen reading programs and
Braille rendering devices. That is a major concern of the standards bodies
and, I know from participation in Lynx-dev list discussions, the designers
of *some* browsers. One page for everybody, no ifs, ands or buts. A blind
person might want to download an image or graphic and later ask someone to
describe it. One page for everybody.
 
> Give me a break, you need to find a new hobby instead of looking for
> conspiracies in everything.
 
Who did I say was conspiring with whom? You demonstrate quite capably that
even plain text can appeal to instincts and emotions rather than to
intellect.
 
But we digress, though not much.
 
> Opera, Netscape, and competition forever.
 
Of course. I said Lynx forEVER, not for EVERYBODY. Though that *would*
solve a few problems. And ain't it funny how those developers keep
plugging away without being in competition with anybody....
 
Dan Strychalski                                 dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw
Any sufficiently slick commercial gimmickry is indistinguishable from progress.