06.17.11
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft is Using the Excuse of ‘Security’ Against Support of Web Standards
Summary: The company which made viruses so abundant (and whose operating system is insecure by design) is using excuses and tricks to daemonise WebGL
WE HAVE seen it all before. Whether it was the case of not supporting ODF or even something like Ogg, Microsoft never blamed competitive reasons; it’s just not good for PR and the whole antitrust karma too would be impacted. See how Microsoft used security FUD to promote OOXML [1, 2]. It sure is amusing when Microsoft spinner Mr. Bright excuses Microsoft for avoiding WebGL by citing its talking points (headline says “Microsoft: no way to support WebGL and meet our security needs”). Truth be told, there is clearly more to it considering what’s done with Silverlight (hardware acceleration and Web integration, even with proprietary software).
For Microsoft it is not unusual to snub new standards and create its own proprietary extensions that require Windows with IE. It is no secret that even Microsoft’s Web developers write hacks especially for IE6 (and they detest IE for this reason, based on comments found in page source). Watch Microsoft’s booster Bott spotting a new “Microsoft security versus Microsoft Web” gaffe. Of course he is spinning this. It’s his job.
Microsoft makes shoddy Web products because it wants to turn the Web into a sandbox of lock-in, not interoperability. Instructions for this come from the top. █
“In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to correct this.
“Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also.”
–Bill Gates [PDF]
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Needs Sunlight said,
June 18, 2011 at 3:48 am
One thing we have got to change in our strategy – allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company” from Comes v Microsoft, Plaintiff’s Exhibit 2991.
The “security” excuse has long been used to eliminate standards. It’s sad that people roll over for it. I’ve seen it used to search and destroy on IMAPS clients and other things that M$ can’t do. Obviously M$ is not using the same meaning of security as the rest of the world. Microserf is a language all to itself.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 18th, 2011 at 4:20 am
Security is like children — we exploit both to make a point with a sense of urgency.