The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has written to the US Copyright Office regarding a notice of proposed rulemaking. The notice asks if persons filing electronic-only preregistration forms will experience difficulties if the Office requires them to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser. W3C comments to the Copyright Office suggest that requiring a single browser is inappropriate for government services and encourages the Office to pursue standards-based access in accordance with US Federal policy.
In the letter, W3C states that the “proposed single-vendor preregistration service will exclude large classes of potential users.” W3C writes, “While a large proportion of the marketplace uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer to browse the Web, certain classes of users will find it either impossible or extremely inconvenient to do so. Of the three popular desktop computing platforms in use at the present — Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS, and Linux/Unix — the latest versions of Internet Explorer are only available for the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems.”
Read the full letter here.
MacDailyNews Take: Bravo, W3C! Contact the The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress (which interestingly works perfectly fine with Apple’s Safari borwser) here: http://www.copyright.gov/help
Related MacDailyNews articles:
U.S. Copyright Office: Use only the world’s most insecure browser to secure your copyright – August 17, 2005
U.S. Copyright Office: is it okay if our new website only works with Internet Explorer? – August 11, 2005
Survey identifies strong demand for Macintosh and Firefox web conferencing support – August 11, 2005
Using Apple’s Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger’s included fax capabiltes – July 22, 2005
Security report shows Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was unsafe for all but seven days of 2004 – March 22, 2005
Penn State’s IT Services recommends dumping Microsoft Internet Explorer immediately – December 09, 2004
Security expert: Don’t use Microsoft Windows, Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer – December 09, 2004
German Federal Office for Information Security: Internet users should ditch Internet Explorer – September 13, 2004
Web Standards Project: Abandon Microsoft Internet Explorer and ‘Browse Happy’ – August 25, 2004
Security expert: Microsoft Internet Explorer ‘just cannot be trusted, use alternate browser’ – July 02, 2004
Security firm warns of new Internet Explorer flaw, advises ‘use a different browser’ – July 01, 2004
Microsoft axes Internet Explorer for Mac – June 13, 2003
I love the W3C. I wish they actually had some power.
For not having any power they certinally have alot to say. Hopefully they will listen! Hopefully someone in the goverment will give them some sort of power to help with standards in the broad stroke
As MDN has pointed out in the past, Safari has a built in Spell Checker.
‘Borwser’, should probably be browser.
Just went to the site and sent a strong message of disapproval. Though I’m just one lone voice, perhaps if others did the same we could get some action.
Well it would seem that the copywrite office just needs to get there act together a little quicker than they anticipated. Restricting access to an office that everyone needs access to is rediculous and they need to spend the money and do it right the first time so the access for everyone is there.
I already got a response. It is pitiful:
We have received an email from you regarding the
proposed rulemaking on electronic-only preregistration.
The comments you submitted cannot be considered because
they were in the form of email. As the instructions in
the Copyright Office’s Federal Register notice state,
comments can be delivered to the Copyright Office by the
following means:
If hand delivered by a private party, an original and five
copies of any comment should be brought to Room LM-401
of the James Madison Memorial Building between 8:30 a.m.
and 5 p.m. and the envelope should be addressed as follows:
Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office, James
Madison Memorial Building, Room LM-401, 101 Independence
Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20559-6000. If hand delivered
by a commercial courier, an original and five copies of any
comment must be delivered to the Congressional Courier
Acceptance Site located at Second and D Streets, NE.,
Washington, DC, between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. The envelope
should be addressed as follows: Copyright Office General
Counsel, Room LM-403, James Madison Memorial Building, 101
Independence Avenue, SE., Washington, DC. If sent by mail,
an original and five copies of any comment should be
addressed to: Copyright GC/ I&R, P.O. Box 70400, Southwest
Station, Washington, DC 20024-0400. Comments may not be
delivered by means of overnight delivery services such as
Federal Express, United Parcel Service, etc., due to delays
in processing receipt of such deliveries.
If you wish to submit comments, we strongly urge that you
first read the entire notice of proposed rulemaking published
July 22 (available on the Copyright office website at
http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr42286.html) as
well as the supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking
published Aug. 4 (available on the Copyright office website
at http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.html).
If they don’t accept e-mail or FedEx, UPS, etc., why would they accept only M$ IE-based forms. Who makes decisions for these guys, “Binky the Clown?”
The U.S. Copyright Office should tear up the contract they have with Siebel, which is the CRM they are using. Either that or wait for Siebel 7.8 which will add support for Firefox. But there lies the problem. Web based software shouldn’t have to add support for a browser. It should be written to support the W3C XHTML 1.0 standards. If the browser doesn’t support it, tough.
Jeez, I’m surprised that that reply letter from the Copyright office didn’t ask for your letter to be carved into five separate stone tablets and then hand delivered. Ugh! Bureaucracy sucks!
Magic Word: “Who gives a shit!”
“I’m surprised that that reply letter from the Copyright office didn’t ask for your letter to be carved into five separate stone tablets and then hand delivered.”
Don’t give them any ideas.
Grab Them By The Purse Strings
e-Mail your Congressional Delegation. Everybody has one Representative and 2 Senators. They are supposed to look after your interests and control the budget for all Government Agencies. Tell your members of Congress that you want ‘ALL Standards Compliant Browsers’ supported. Remember to be nice–most of the Windows-using world thinks everybody uses M$ crap and that Mac users are a small cult.
I almost can’t believe that response is legitimate! (Yeah, I know it really is.) Instead of wasting time carving tablets to them, Senators and Representatives should be contacted regarding both issues: the original browser issue (which should also indicate that NO government offices should have that requirement); and the absurd feedback method requirement!
MW: “head” as in …
I would like to say that I played a very big part in bringing this to the personal attention of all the top W3C personel on the behalf of all of us 25 plus million Mac users.
The W3C letter was intelligently written, didn’t diss IE or bad mouth M$, just explained the consequences of the Copyright’s Offices action if they allowed this company IE only policy.
We Mac users know all to well how corporations like to do things cheaply and force everyone into a single standard.
M$ is famous for locking you into their particular way of doing things as well.
I’m just glad the Copyright Office checked with the general public for a change. *whew*
I find it interesting that you weren’t able to submit your comments via email, but they were able to reject your comments via email (which would be considered a certain type of response).
Here is what I wrote to them:
“I am sorry, but security regulations in my company do not allow the use of Internet Explorer. Please advise.”
kenh,
That ROCKS!
Shades of “Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy”, It’s been on file at the planning office on Centauris Prime (or wherever) for ten years – you could have said something about it.
Wow…and I thought W3C was part of a worldwide conspiracy…now I suppose I’ll have to rethink some theories…they might be alright after all.
Andrew Hamilton
Las Vegas Videographers
http://www.hiproductions.com
the company that i work for has an hr site that is explorer 6.0 only. i emailed them letting them know that i’m on a mac and use either safari or firefox. they responded that the site is maintained by a contractor and the contractor made the choice of a browser specific site. i was livid over the pass the buck attitude. so i emailed them to let them know this goes against W3C guidelines. gave them a link to the site quoted W3C’s mission statement. I also told them that ie isn’t an industry standard. they haven’t responded to that email. if they do, i’m going to forward it to W3C to see if they can contact my company about this idiocy.
>I find it interesting that you weren’t able to submit your comments via email, but they were able to reject your comments via email (which would be considered a certain type of response).>
Send them a letter telling them you don’t respond to emails and that they must hand deliver an original and five copies of any comment to your address.
I guess they really want to limit the number of preregistrations. Now only the uncreative people will be able to submit over the net.
Just send the Copyright office the links to the CERT website citing the need to CHANGE BROWSERS in the name of the US Department of Homeland Security.
That is unless they WANT the enemies of the state to steal ideas & use them against the US Government.
I too sent a e-mail to them then received the same response you did. Then I sent my e-mail with their response to my Senator asking him not to laugh too hard. Explained to my Senator that this is why folks are so frustrated with our government departments.
Like I said in a previous post on a similar inexplicable goof up by the US Patent Office, these guys are all crack heads.
Who is the HR manager for this mental ward?
Here in Portugal is worse. All government agencies use only Microsoft software, and most of the online government services requires IE running in Windows. What can I do to force my Government Agencies to use W3C standards.