08.23.10
The Microsoft Fox Watches the World Wide Hen
Summary: W3C entryism becomes more pronounced as Microsoft pretends to have aligned with Web standards; Microsoft also pretends to have sidled with science and MSNBC spreads new propaganda about it
SEVERAL MONTHS ago Microsoft pretended to have befriended SVG [1, 2] after attacking it for years by deliberately ignoring it under Internet Explorer (Microsoft promoted its proprietary VML instead). Well, earlier this months we showed that "VML is back" and despite Microsoft’s vicious history when it comes to the World Wide Web, someone was tactless enough to give Microsoft a chair in the W3C Web Performance Working Group:
Microsoft will co-chair the group with Google.
Why is Microsoft in there? The creator of the Web has already denounced Microsoft for snubbing SVG, for example. Why was Microsoft given a chair there? Because it illegally obtained a lot of market share? Microsoft PR agents are still trying to pretend that Microsoft employees are friends of the Web, at least to the cameras (PR gesture only). “I am worr[ied] about w3c now,” said one Indian blogger, “Microsoft to Co-Chair New W3C Web Performance Working Group”
We too are worried about W3C entryism (not just Microsoft but other companies with software patents, which are antithetical to the W3C). Microsoft is far from a friend of the Web. Likewise, Microsoft is a foe of scientific progress, but its publicity stuntmen (or stuntwomen) try to paint themselves as friends of science, more recently with the whole space elevator/NASA gig. Watch MSNBC advertising this some more:
Artsutanov is among the optimists who have come to the Microsoft corporate campus in Redmond, Wash., for the 2010 Space Elevator Conference this weekend. (Microsoft and NBC Universal are partners in the msnbc.com joint venture.)
Just giving this disclosure doesn’t make it any less of a Microsoft advertisement. Shame on MSNBC for masquerading as a reliable news source. There is too much spin in the mainstream media, in this case appealing to psyche and attributing space exploration to Microsoft. █
“Don’t encourage new, cross-platform Java classes, especially don’t help get great Win 32 implementations written/deployed. [...] Do encourage fragmentation of the Java classlib space.”
–Ben Slivka, Microsoft
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