Ballmer "Interested" In Open Source Browser Engine 410
Da Massive writes "'Why is IE still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?,' asked a young developer to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Sydney yesterday. 'That's cheeky, but a good question, but cheeky,' Ballmer said. Then came the startling revelation that Microsoft may also adopt an open source browser engine. 'Open source is interesting,' he said. 'Apple has embraced Webkit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8.'"
Reality check? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I suppose Microsoft might embrace open source. Of course, our politicians might lower taxes too. But Microsoft, like politicians, have a long history of saying one thing and doing another. That, and I'm pretty sure Balmer knows that if he mentions open source he'll get a free plug on Slashdot and on other media sites where highly technical people frequent. From a marketing standpoint, it makes sense to hint at open source as much as possible. From a legal and business standpoint, it's more likely he'll dance around on the stage in a Gir suit while singing the doom song.
Re:Some possible problems, here? (Score:2, Insightful)
How? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what to make of this (Score:5, Insightful)
Either Ballmer is throwing out a red herring, or future versions of IE (presumably after 8) will finally be decoupled from Windows.
But, what open source browser engines are there other than Gecko and Webkit? Both are developed by MS' sworn mortal enemies. Browsers are complex, time consuming beasts to develop.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, leaving IE and ActiveX in is half the reason NOT to use Windows. Replacing them with a more secure, stable, standards-compliant browser core? Sounds great. Updating the old junk and pretending it's not five years past its prime on release date? Fail.
Battles. (Score:4, Insightful)
Features
Standards compliance
Speed
Security
MS can get features and even standards compliance through proprietary means, on the other hand, security and speed depend on lots of people looking through the code. So in essence, without an open source rendering engine MS can't hope to win. On the other hand, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome have made great leaps because they have all of the above.
Microsoft can't win evidentially... (Score:1, Insightful)
Funny how when Microsoft rejects Open Source they get people crawling down their backs. When they suggest they might move in that general direction they get people accusing them of trying to poison Open Source and calling them liars.
Seems whatever happens people just want to hate Microsoft whatever moves the company makes...
Re:Microsoft can't win evidentially... (Score:5, Insightful)
If your abusive spouse buys you flowers, you don't stop planning the escape.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
And really, why use WebKit? Sure, its a decent rendering engine but no better than Gecko or the other OSS rendering engines.
One reason for using WebKit over Gecko would be the licensing...I know that for lots of corporations, BSD-licensing is much favored over anything related to GPL...(Gecko is MPL)
Re:The third "E". The other browser. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is how.
Open source makes this much more difficult.
Wasn't Microsoft going to kill Open Source? (Score:1, Insightful)
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
ActiveX is an abortion, and has (mostly) died its well deserved death; but MS now has Silverlight, which is a much more competent stab at the web-stuff-plus-secret-windows-sauce concept than ActiveX ever was. I do strongly suspect that they cannot, and know they cannot, continue to make IE exclusive HTML/javascript a selling point. Keeping IE current is a chore, keeping it ahead has proven impossible, and there are now enough mac users out there, particularly among desireable demographics, that making websites IE only is no longer practical for anybody who wants a broad audience. That said, though, they seem to be moving forward with Silverlight, which isn't an IE exclusive; but might well be exactly the sort of "proprietary innovation" that Ballmer is referring to. Unfortunately, Silverlight is more competent than ActiveX ever was, so just waiting for it to collapse of its own weight probably won't work.
Re:Some possible problems, here? (Score:5, Insightful)
You misunderstand. Ballmer said that they would look into a new rendering engine. Which means that IE will still be IE, just with a new codebase under the hood. After all, 95% of their customer base won't understand the difference. All they'll know is that IE is still part of Windows yet works better than ever.
Which Microsoft will then go on to say is an inexorable part of the Operating System. (insert eye roll here)
Re:Microsoft can't win evidentially... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sig correction (Score:5, Insightful)
Your argument has two glaring problems. Firstly, government regulation does not equal less competition. In many cases it results in more competition, especially in the case of monopolies and collusion between companies. Secondly, the mafia cannot legally exist because of laws limiting them, in other words, government regulation. Without the most basic regulation, then any business could (and probably would) become like the mafia. Competition would be limited to companies competing to be the most intimidating, and whoever could intimidate enough people into paying them. In a world with excessive government regulation, even the kind that produces less competition, at least the government would be regulating against such behaviour.
In other words, your argument makes no sense.
Re:Some possible problems, here? (Score:3, Insightful)
But what he meant was how far gpl/lgpl will spread into the OS depending on which license is used and how integrated it is.
Microsoft will never (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will never open-source Trident. It'd be like letting the entire world look at your dirty laundry.
Re:At least he's honest. (Score:5, Insightful)
Smoke and mirrors (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:At least he's honest. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any reason to believe that the Trident codebase is anything other than a steaming pile of horseshit?
Back in the original browser wars, both the Netscape and Microsoft browsers were evolving very rapidly, with lots of quite fundamental changes. At the end, when the Netscape code was open-sourced, it turned out to be (no surprise) a big mess that took several years to sort into shape. Meanwhile, Microsoft sat on their monopoly and did NOTHING to the browser, until they were forced into evolving again once Firefox started to seriously dent their market-share.
The current state is that the Mozilla code has been substantially rewritten and is now in pretty good shape, but Microsoft are stuck hacking away at the old crud.
Re:Microsoft can't win evidentially... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you need to hate OS X, just because you don't like Apple? I personally love OS X, don't particularly like Apple too much.
I love my Ubuntu Box, but I think Linus Torvalds is a dick, I also have a certain dislike for Stallmans overly zealous attempts of forcing people to his idea of freedom (BSD is fine for me). I respect him, though for what he's achieved for free software.
I can like Linux esp. Ubuntu for it's technical merits, while at the same time diskliking its "Leading Personalities". Is that such a difficult thing to do?
Re:Some possible problems, here? (Score:4, Insightful)
They could. But what they would actually do was only include the spyware-laden shit-browser that someone paid them to include.
Re:Open Source? (Score:3, Insightful)
It even complies with Unix' "Do one thing, and do it well"
Re:Some possible problems, here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or d) Joe Sixpack is just a condescending fiction, and as the general population becomes increasingly internet savvy the average user will actually begin to care about things like which browser they use.
30 years ago, Joe Sixpack didn't want a computer in his house at all... how on earth can you justify the belief that average users will never want things they don't currently want?
Re:Some possible problems, here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh No! (Score:5, Insightful)
"The GPL is viral, and this prevents many commercial companies from adopting and using GPL code, crippling the movement."
Umm, how exactly does the GPL "cripple the movement"?
"If TCP/IP had been GPL, the Internet would be a different place today."
See, this is where you demonstrate your astounding lack of comprehension on this issue.
TCP/IP is a standardised protocol not a software product. There are closed source implementations of TCP/IP, GPL implementations and even completely free implementations today. The licence they are issued under makes no practical difference to anyone.
OTOH, if the TCP/IP standard was "owned" (ie patented) by a commercial company there would be NO internet today.
Re:At least he's honest. (Score:4, Insightful)
People say what you're saying every time a new Microsoft browser/OS system appears on the horizon.
Yes, any team could be on the ball. What possible business motive would they have, though? Re-factoring is always way down the list of any set of code. Way down. Way, way, way down. Indeed, notoriously Vista is the result of a junked re-factoring.
I see no evidence anywhere that anything different is happening this time. Indeed, with only one WinHec for Windows 7, I think it could be substantially worse.
How a post consisting of wishful thinking be marked interesting, I'm not sure.
Re:Oh No! (Score:5, Insightful)
>Many companies refuse to use GPL code because of its viral nature.
They dont refuse to _use_ the GPL code, but to _work_ on GPL code, since the GPL prevents them from closing it up. But since the only goal of such companies would anyways be to close the code up, the GPL ecosystem loses nothing. They don't lose pure users (which don't care if a app is free or unfree) and they don't lose free software developers. All they lose are proprietary/unfree extensions of their works.
Would you care to elaborate what a free software developer would actually _gain_ if a proprietary company took his code, closed it up, and started copyright lawsuits against his users who dare to copy it like they got used when it still was free? If one of his goals when developing his code was freedom, how would somebody closing up the code and launching lawsuits contribute to this stated goal of the original developer?
>That cripples adoption of GPL software.
It only cripples embracement and extinguishment of GPL software, but considering that crippling that has from the beginning been GPL's goal, it works fully as intended.
So please explain: How does encouraging non-free software through non-GPL licensing encourage the deveopment of free software?
>I know TCP/IP is a standardized protocol, which was my point.
>If it had been GPL software, it would have gone nowhere because companies wouldn't have adopted it in the early
>days of the Internet.
The GPL on a reference implamentation wouldn't actually have stopped anybody to implement such standardized protocol independently and chose any licence they want for their own implementation.
Re:Sig correction (Score:4, Insightful)
exactly. the best example for that is russia of nineties. it was a real libertarian paradize with laissez-faire capitalism and the rest of the life.
most buisnesses were undistinguishable from thugs and the rest paid protection money.
even the law enforcement was the same.
Re:Oh No! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Many companies refuse to use GPL code because of its viral nature."
This would explain why BSD is so much more popular than Linux then.
"I know TCP/IP is a standardized protocol"
OK
"which was my point."
No, you compared a protocol to code.
"If it had been GPL software . . "
See you did it again.
Just to put a finer point on it, please let me rephrase your comment.
Many companies refuse to use other peoples proprietary code (in their own projects) because of the legal ramifications. That cripples adoption of proprietary software.
GPL is not about promoting "software adoption", it is about promoting collaborative development.
Lots of people currently enjoy that collaborative development model, as can bee seen by the rising popularity of many open source projects.
Anyway, I'm not sure what alternative licence you are promoting. Proprietary? Fully free as in BSD? Some other fantasy licence that nobody has heard of outside of your febrile imagination?
Re:Sig correction (Score:3, Insightful)
Government control is a normalising force, designed to keep the system working and the interests of the people first and foremost on the agenda.
Well, that's a nice theory. However, you must have been living on Mars. In reality, it morphed into this decades ago: Government control is a force working to keep the Big Corp system working and the interests of the their sponsors - the filthy rich - first and foremost on the agenda.
Re:Oh No! (Score:3, Insightful)
>I know TCP/IP is a standardized protocol, which was my point. If it had been GPL software, it would have gone nowhere because companies wouldn't have adopted it in the early days of the Internet.
But TCP/IP is a protocol, it can never be GPL. GPL covers software. So this comparision is somewhat wrongfooted.
There are protocols that were first implemented in GPLed software, but here we have a strong point pro GPL (and in this case other open source licenses): You can easily code your own software according to the protocol, and use the GPLed implementation to test your implementation. And you can sell your implementation with whatever license you want. You can even distribute one part of your system with GPLed software (lets say, the server), and distribute your part (the client) with another license. Because they are separate programs connected via a welldocumented protocol, the GPL actually encourages this (see the GNU FAQ [gnu.org] for details.)
Re:Oh No! (Score:2, Insightful)
The most famous example of an operating system that wrote its own TCP/IP stack from scratch would be Linux, but it is not the only one. You're not going to argue that Linux doesn't count because it is irrelevant these days, are you?
Re:Oh No! (Score:3, Insightful)
This would explain why BSD is so much more popular than Linux then.
BSD is for people who love Unix. Linux is for people who hate Windows.
Yes, lots of people hate Windows. ;)
Re:At least he's honest. (Score:4, Insightful)