rant on pathetic example of Microsoft FUD

[bscott at ntisys.com]

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004, at 1:07am, greg at freephile.com wrote:
> I was developing a CD-ROM product which contains multiple Microsoft 
> PowerPointless (tm) presentations.

  You might as well give up on any hope of doing anything
standards-compliant right there.  :-/

  Pedantic clarification: This isn't FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt).  It is
EEE (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish).  The former scares people who are
considering using non-Microsoft option.  The later turns non-Microsoft
options into Microsoft products.

> Microsoft PowerPoint's idea of HTML is not anything you would recognize
> surfing the web and 'viewing source'.

  Alas, human-friendly HTML is becoming rarer and rarer everyday.  These
days, it almost seems like HTML is seen more like program output (like
object code) then something you can actually design and write yourself.

> [HTML is a] perfectly standardized and specified language.

  Hah!  I think that lasted for about a week after WorldWideWeb was
released.  Mosaic and Netscape left a grand tradition of inventing their
very own flavor of HTML.  Indeed, it was Microsoft's object model that was
chosen by the W3C, and not Netscape's, for HTML 4.0.  Remember, it was
Netscape who brought us the BLINK tag.

  (Not defending Microsoft; rather, pointing out that there are many guilty
parties here.)

> This strange tongue seems to have been originated by a multi-billionaire
> cult leader from Redmond, WA.  His followers have unwittingly or through
> no intelligence of their own spread this Word to the far reaches of the
> planet.

  Now *that's* funny!  May I quote you?

> [Microsoft's programs] also generate a crateful of JavaScript, including a
> browser-detection routine that basically says:
> 
>  "You're not using Microsoft Internet Explorer.  This page may
>  contain features unsupported by your browser.  Do you wish to
>  continue?"

  This is a long-standing Microsoft technique.  Microsoft once added code to
Hotmail that blocked non-IE browsers, only to take it down a bit latter,
saying it was a "mistake".  Sections of Microsoft's technical web pages have
things like tree menus that are perfectly standard HTML and JavaScript
(well, as standard as JavaScript can get), but have an explicit check to
disable them on non-Microsoft browsers.  Going back further, there was that
infamous check in Windows 3.mumble that aborted the load if it found you
were running DR-DOS.

  "DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run!"

> I call this whole thing pathetic because it is exactly opposite of what
> their customer needs or wants.

  For-profit companies do what generates the most profit.  That may or may
not be what their customer needs or wants.

> Why don't they create a converter that says ...

  Because that would reduce their vendor lock-in leverage?

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
| The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do  |
| not represent the views or policy of any other person or organization. |
| All information is provided without warranty of any kind.              |