“Microsoft is currently in trouble with the European authorities over its failure to give competitors access to details of its server software after a ruling in March 2004. It may be fined up to 2m euros (£1.36m; $2.4m) a day if it does not comply,” Bill Thompson writes for BBC News. “If the company really wants to show that it has changed its approach to business it could take the radical step of placing the source code for the Mac version of IE into the hands of users.”
“It would be too much to hope for the code to be made public domain and given away without any copyright restrictions, but it could at least get its highly-paid legal team to come up with a reasonably permissive licence that would let coders get their hands on the last supported version and keep it going,” Thompson writes. “Not only would this confound many of their critics, who see the decision to drop IE support as a retaliation against the new-found popularity of the Mac with the iPod generation, but it would give it a massive credibility boost with the free/open source community. A few months ago Microsoft simplified and improved the licences under which it made the source code of some products available for inspection. Now it could go a step further, and actually let us work with its code and keep this useful product alive.”
Full article here.
[UPDATE: 12:40pm EST: fixed headline typo.]
At one point in time, long ago, Microsoft Internet Explorer was arguably the best Mac browser. Seems hard to believe today. Only God knows how much spaghetti code and pieces of code are cobbled together in IE for Mac. It’s woefully old, out-dated, and bereft of modern features. Who would want to work on that? Let it die. If web developers (hello to some banks and government agencies) would simply code for open standards and eschew the proprietary, closed, Microsoft ActiveX crap, the World Wide Web would be a much better place. Nobody needs IE – amazingly the most used and also one of the worst browsers (Mac and Windows) in the world – if web devs design standards-based sites supporting everyone. Any site that requires Windows and/or Internet Explorer is the equivalent of discrimination. The short-sighted company’s name should be noted, contacted with a complaint, and you should strongly consider whether you want to do business with a company that basically kicked you out of their store or service for not using what they say you should use. The customer is always right and businesses that wish to do well should not be dictating how we get to their products and services.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Microsoft may face US$2.4 million per day EU fine – December 22, 2005
Microsoft officially ends support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31, 2005 – December 18, 2005
Apple’s Mac OS X, Safari web browser show market share gains – December 03, 2005
Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer flaw ‘extremely critical, worse than expected’ – November 30, 2005
World Wide Web Consortium objects to US Copyright Office’s Internet Explorer-only browser plan – August 25, 2005
U.S. Copyright Office: is it okay if our new website only works with Internet Explorer? – August 11, 2005
Security report shows Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was unsafe for all but seven days of 2004 – March 22, 2005
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continues to lose share; Firefox, Safari, others show gains – January 20, 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
Securty 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
Maybe they don’t want anyone from seeing the code…maybe there are privacy issues they don’t want brought up ?????
(scary Christmas music)….MS has your information
Isn’t Microsoft buying Opera anyway?
http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2108
They can just abandon IE and get to work quietly ruining the best browser currently available…
Don’t be hard on Bill Thompson. I’ve followed his writings on the BBC web site for some time and he’s a good advert for Apple.
As far as I can tell, he used to exclusively use PC but wrote about how his daughter uses an iBook. Since then he has got a Mac of his own.
What’s so good about him is that he doesn’t write in-your-face articles shouting about how Macs are the best thing around, instead he makes casual references to how a PC virus caused mayhem, but his Mac was unaffected and allowed him to continue working. There are other similar examples too, some of those articles don’t actually mention Macs, but praise something that can only be done with a Mac.
By subtly trickling in odd comments about Macs, their OS and the iApps, he doesn’t alienate those who are stuck with PCs, but he plants a few seeds of doubt into their mind. This is an approach that changes minds very effectively.
However, he obviously has more of an affinity with IE than most of us, maybe because he’s still so tied into the Microsoft way of doing things. I agree with the MDN take on this one. If Microsoft don’t care enough to support IE for OS X, then it should die. There are other browsers that are vastly better than IE and any company that still runs an IE-only web site is turning away an increasing number of customers and should be made to suffer financially by missing out on their custom.
IE for Mac isn’t standards compliant, it’s a dinosaur and even it’s creator doesn’t love it enough keep it alive.
Yeah… what HE said!
No. Give them Safari for windows.
Rumor has it that Apple is working on a Safari for Windows so that more web developers will jump on board in making sites more compatible with the Mac. Would be nice to see.
They also need to create a Windows version of iChatAV and bundle it with their iSight camera so we can video conference with everyone.
Any so-called web developer who uses ActiveX should be fired– no if’s, ands, or buts. There is NO EXCUSE.
Having said that, I find that only about one site in 100 fails on Mac browsers. Yahoo games are probably the worst offenders. Bank of America, Etrade, and Chase work fine for me. Amazom, Ebay work fine (except Amazon is mired in the 90’s by not providing MP3 as a preview format fof music– just Windows media nd Real).
I thought IE for Mac 6.0 was finished and released but bundled with the Mac MSN client software that has since been discontinued. Is that correct?
I bet the IE source code is like 100 MB if it were to be released.
Can you say bloated?
MDN Magic word: society
as in, IE is a society unto itself.
As someone who has worked in retail, I can tell you that the customer is most definitely NOT “always right.”
RIP IE! Let it die. It was good for only one version for goodness sake. Anyone remember 4.5? Oi! Also, keep in mind what the competition was at the time, NS 4.7 – now that was a piece of crap!
To address the “IE Required” issue – I am a professional web application builder and the excuse for not writing cross platform / browser compatible code is equal to 100% laziness and controlled my M$ zombies, “Microsoft is the only way to write code, must use Visual Studio code . . . bra-a-a-a-a-a-ains . . . .”
I am not saying ‘everything’ can be cross platform/browser compatible in web software development (before I get flamed) but with an open mind and a little extra work, you can bridge the gap. Besides, 90% of the time I spend making compromises to accommodate Win IE – every one else respects the standard, but does M$ – no-o-o-o-o-o-o!
thats my $0.02
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p.s. BestBuy REQUIRES Win IE specifically for their online applications. I send them a nasty letter and they gave a response like, “Gee, we’re sorry that you use a mac? Get a Windows machine then we can help you.”
MDN: “If web developers … would simply code for open standards”
OH, THE INCREDIBLY HYPOCRITICAL IRONY OF SUCH A STATEMENT!
495 errors in validation of this page alone!
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/7970/
IE did have it’s day and di very well on OSX until Safari finally matured enough that made it obsolete.
Now, let’s degrade a little and mention the 150 mil that M$ payed Apple.
Do you honestly believe they did it and got nothing in return? Coming from people in the know you would know that M$ recieved code from Apple. I don’t know how old but it was code. Possibly that is in use in Office and IE. hehe, that’s were a bit of stability came in for XP.
I couldn’t care if IE passed away or not but I do tend to agree that IE only sites should be considered discriminatory. Anybody consider making a site that lists these sites? Maybe, even push this into a class action suit. Even elevators have brail on the buttons just in case a user may come along who would find such assistance useful. Why are companies allowed to discriminate?
Also, please don’t forget M$ started on Apples way back when and it was short sigtedness of a certain company that let M$ become as big as they are now. Interesting how people forget history. Just watch, Apple will become as huge as M$ one day and let’s remember today so that when the future comes we can all say that we were warned.
Merry Christmas
Eric…
good of you to post that w3.org link.. If more web devs would learn about the standards set by them, then the entire web would be accessable to everyone…
Most of the websites I have found which claim they arent compatible with Mac browsers….. use a simple “Browser-sniff” tag in conjunction with a “refresh” tag to send Mac users to another page .. If they would just delete these tags, most often.. Mac users wouldnt have any problems with their sites !
Of course, the pourous Active X stuff is another issue …
Should the IE (for Mac) source code be released ?
What for ? …. I have always disagreed with those who say that (at one time) IE was the best browser for the Mac …
Heck … for many years … IE didnt even know what a < center > tag was !!
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> Rumor has it that Apple is working on a Safari for Windows so that
> more web developers will jump on board in making sites more
> compatible with the Mac. Would be nice to see.
Web developers don’t need to make sites compatible with the Mac, all they need to do is code to the standards.
Then instead of creating Safari for Windows Apple could spend more time in making sure that it renders the standards correctly. The Mozilla and Opera folks could do the same and everyone benefits.
> They also need to create a Windows version of iChatAV and bundle it
> with their iSight camera so we can video conference with everyone.
Creating more Windows apps isn’t the answer. Instead Apple should be working to improve Mac apps along standards based lines.
Improve iChatAV’s support of Jabber. There’s now a Google-inspired standard for audio chat via XMPP (Jabber) approved by the Jabber Software Foundation. If Apple were to work with the JSF and Google to implement the new Jingle standards and then create a video standard then Google Talk could become the Windows equivalent of iChat.
The old proprietary ways of doing things are dead or dying. The future’s in open, standards-based ways.
I couldn’t care less about preserving IE for the Mac, which seriously lags behind the Windows version of the browser, and all the great alternative native Mac browsers. However, like it or not, there do remain a few websites that only work with IE. Getting those sites to change may be an admirable aim, but not particularly realistic when you need to access that information *now*. I therefore hope that Apple and the other third party browser manufacturers will implement the “non-standard” features that IE offers and allow me to throw away the dreadful safety-net that IE represents, once and for all. It seems to me that rejoicing that we are losing an albeit small amount of compatibility with the PC world smites of cutting off our faces to spite our noses…
If MS were to release the source with a license that might allow Apple to peek into it and fix Safari to be able to load properly with those websites that are deemed “incompatible” with non-IE browsers, it would be a good thing, no matter how much IE sucks. Fact of the matter is, web programmers show no signs of bowwing to Safari and recoding their stuff that’s IE-only, so it’s now up to Apple and Mozilla to reverse engineer the proprietary crap and create compatibility themselves and hope for a day when the w3.org standards shall prevail…
>Web developers don’t need to make sites compatible with the Mac, all they need to do is code to the standards.
HA! like there are such a thing as a web standard… sorry my friend… even with web “Standards” you need to hack for each and every browser unless you are doing a header and 2 columns.
> Bakuryuuha
that’s nutty. Its up to the web developers to make it compatible with ssfari not to look into 5 year old IE code and somehow figure out how to make those sites work in a new IE/safari.
> HA! like there are such a thing as a web standard… sorry my friend…
> even with web “Standards” you need to hack for each and every browser
> unless you are doing a header and 2 columns.
No you don’t. Despite what some people might have you believe it is in fact possible to code a good-looking site to standards that will work and look the same in all modern browsers, while degrading gracefully on older, less capable ones.
It’s true that you need to be aware of the limitations of certain browsers, but it can be done without any hacks at all if you know what you are doing.
IE, Safari, besides other alternatives Mozilla suite are great browsers too……