Re: Opinion

[Pieter Nagel <pieter.nagel@epiuse.co.za>]

  On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Christopher Pall wrote:
  
  > MS would like users to believe that it
  > must use IE to browse the web.
  
  Correction: MS would like it to be *true* that you must use IE to
  browse the web.
  
  That is a radical new aproach to the Internet that we never saw
  before Microsoft, afaik. Before, we had RFC's carefully expounding
  the difference between a protocol and implementation. Compatibility.
  Carefully defining "network byte-order" so any machine can read data
  off a network stream. But how the heck is a Macintosh supposed to
  implement ActiveX short of emulating a 80x86 CPU and significant
  portions of the Win API?
  
  There's nothing wring with writing platform-specific protocols, and
  doing so to reap market share in the ertswhile cross-platform
  Internet may also not be a legal transgression. But a moral one?
  
  We had a community of people living by a dream: communication between
  anybody. My love for the Internet got started when I founded a
  newsgroup for the support of people with a certain neurological
  condition; and I always had the vision of millions of people, "out
  there", no matter what computer they have, being able to share
  experiences and discovering "thank god, I'm not weird."
  
  In a very real sense, the Internet changed my life; and
  interoperability made it possible.  Most of my usenet friends were
  non-computer people without money for expensive systems. If NNTP were
  Exchange they would never have been part.
  
  That vision is now threatened. I am faced with the very real
  possibility that in a year or two's time, if I want to host an easily
  accesible FAQ on a web site somewhere, that I must shell out
  thousands for MS software and extra hardware.
  
  MS did not trample on 'net technology as much as they trampled on the
  culture. Which is not illegal, but it certainly explains the
  well-deserved and highly emotional Microsoft-bashing one sees out
  there.
  
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