> Or not... Come on, if everybody was forced by law to provide only pages > that look the same on all browsers on the market -- can you even imagine > what this means for developers? You mean the web developer or the browser developer? I think for the web developer everything would have been simplified down as they would not have to worry about testing their work on every single browser on the market. For browser developers it would have been a bit more challenge, however, they are the minority so that's less problematic than the other way around. > The notion of a non-proprietary standard is largely unreal. While there > are national and international standard bodies, we all know who sits in > them (or who pays who sits in them): it's not you and me :) True :-) But then again, when someone is not sitting in it he/she/it should not break the rules just like that. They can make their own and call them I do not know, MSTML for example :-) > That's a starting point. However, it's not only about the elements, it's > also about what exactly those elements have to mean. Who defines that? Good point. I think w3c has their etalon HTML browser written in Java, so other browser developers need to follow that one. If their browser does not display the sample web pages in the same or very similar way then they need to fix that. Similar to that a proprietary standard like PDF: FoxitReader or other PDF viewers supposed to display the same PDF in the same way as Adobe would do. > That's how JavaScript was born, and a whole lot of other (good and not > so good) common features of today's web pages. There wouldn't be gmail > as we know it today if Netscape hadn't had the freedom to invent > JavaScript and put it out there, for example. Maybe I am wrong on it but as far as I know JavaScript then was published and everyone else had the right for implementing their very own JavaScript engine. Is ActiveX published? Which other browser implemented ActiveX or VisualBasicScript than Internet Explorer? > Oh boy... I'm not a fan of the Microsoft way, but I'm not a fan of the > committee way either. They don't "expect" anybody to do anything... it's > the people who either do it or don't do it. Microsoft provides tools > that people are free to not use... My point is that when there are web sites that use IE only features then I cannot browse those sites with other browsers. I can only use FireFox because they are following Internet Explorer to be able to be cdo that. Opera and many other browsers still stick to the w3c so you cannot use them properly, only for limited services and sites. Can you imagine if there was a car manufacturer that would produce the 70% of the cars on the world. And they just think they change the colour of the indicator to green, or the back light to yellow. Did they brake the rules? Yes. Did you forced to buy their product? Technically did not. Tamas On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 1:19 AM, Gerhard Fiedler wrote: > You wrote: > > >> What about disabling JavaScript (which makes some sites simply not > >> work) or cookies (idem)? > > > > Now I think there are many things mixed up here. > > Not really. Try to put things into a law, with rules to enforce it, and > you get a lot of things into the mix. It's not me who has mixed up > things, it's the proposal of making this a law. > > > The problem is not to develop new stuff but to change the ones that > > was designed by someone else. When a web site promise you to provide > > a HTML page it should also promise the freedom you to choose which > > operating system and which browser you want to see it's content - > > that's part of the freedom of the Internet. > > Or not... Come on, if everybody was forced by law to provide only pages > that look the same on all browsers on the market -- can you even imagine > what this means for developers? > > > This, however, only possible if web site developers keep standards. > > Standards that can be followed by anyone and which is not > > propriatery. > > The notion of a non-proprietary standard is largely unreal. While there > are national and international standard bodies, we all know who sits in > them (or who pays who sits in them): it's not you and me :) > > > It means an HTML contains nothing more than those element that are > > defined the w3c comitee. > > That's a starting point. However, it's not only about the elements, it's > also about what exactly those elements have to mean. Who defines that? > > > As soon as they brake this - introducing new elements or attributes or > what > > not -, then that page is NOT HTML any more. > > That's how JavaScript was born, and a whole lot of other (good and not > so good) common features of today's web pages. There wouldn't be gmail > as we know it today if Netscape hadn't had the freedom to invent > JavaScript and put it out there, for example. > > > If you remember Microsoft also broke the language standard of Java - > > Sun had to fight against MS to stop saying that they use Java, as > > that were not. > > Sun "breaks" the Java standard every other year or so :) > > > Unfortunately Microsoft has this attitude to brake things and then > > expect everyone to follow them - instead of proposing their views or > > ideas to comitees as change the stanrads democratically. > > Oh boy... I'm not a fan of the Microsoft way, but I'm not a fan of the > committee way either. They don't "expect" anybody to do anything... it's > the people who either do it or don't do it. Microsoft provides tools > that people are free to not use... > > > You have been barking up the wrong tree... I agree that it would be > better if web developers placed more emphasis on compatibility. But > that's not the issue I was writing about. I was writing about what might > happen the moment this becomes a /law/. This is a whole different ball > game... technical issues become secondary, immediately. If you're > concerned about technical issues, a law is probably not what you want. > > Gerhard > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- Rudonix DoubleSaver http://www.rudonix.com -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist