Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Proprietary Web 'Extensions' Already Harm GNU/Linux, Rival Web Browsers

"We should design some of our extensions explicitly so that IBM can't run them under OS/2. We need to put real thinking into this."

--8ill Gates [PDF]



Buddha
Namhae, South Korea



LAST MONTH we wrote about what Microsoft is doing in Korea. In yesterday's news we found the impact of what it had been doing to this nation (which is now deeply entangled in Microsoft's anti-standards for the Web) and how it directly affects GNU/Linux adoption.

Most of us have already seen this Viliv S5 at IDF 2008, but it was based on Linux OS and Hansoft's 3D Cubic launcher. Maybe they did so then because Intel is currently pushing Linux OS to their future platforms like Moorestown.

[...]

Most MID- or NetBook makers in Korea would like to install Linux OS to save cost and reduce the retail price on their units but Korea's Internet environment isn't able to accept this. No Internet banking services, No Internet shopping, unable to login to major community sites as well as being unable to post to some blogs. Microsoft Korea don't have to promote or market their OS to avoid those alternative OS from MID makers.


GNU/Linux is not the only competing technology that Microsoft harms with potentially-underhanded tactics. Using Silverlight, it does the same thing to rival Web browsers, in addition to GNU/Linux, which will never have a Silverlight plugin.

Why Silverlight does not support Opera



With the release of Silverlight 2 in October, Microsoft added official support for the newly released Google Chrome, in addition to IE, Firefox, and Safari support. Support for Opera, and other browsers with little market share, was nowhere to be seen.


That's what happens when a company ignores a World Wide Web which is based on standards and instead delivers proprietary and closed objects like ActiveX, Office rendering modes, embedded Windows Media Player, and Silver Lie [1, 2, 3], then disseminates them.

If one complies with standards, then there is no need to support Web browsers; the browsers conform to standards, so compatibility works in reverse and it can always be assured. This also accommodates better for entry by new players.

“So, many of these deviations from standards are not about innovation -- they are design decisions whose goal is to crush competition.”Where are all those regulators who realised at the time that Silver Lie was anti-competitive and hugely harmful? There was also a formal investigation in the European Commission last year, but perhaps due to laziness, nothing has been heard about it since then. Microsoft uses Novell (Moon Lie [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23]) to get regulators off its back while carrying on with GNU/Linux neglect and hostility [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

Here is an E-mail that Bill Gates sent to Paul Maritz (now the CEO of VMware, after the tossing out the company's founder for reasons we last mentioned this morning) and to Brad Sliverberg, the guy who wrote: "I’d be glad to help tilt lotus into into the death spiral. I could do it Friday afternoon but not Saturday. I could do it pretty much any time the following week." Microsoft Jack thinks that it's some sort of a joke. Brad Sliverberg also wrote: "b) put a kind gentle message in setup. like an incompatible tsr message, but not everytime the user starts windows. [...] the most sensible thing from a development standpoint is to continue to build dependencies on msdos into windows." That latter one is deliberate technical sabotage against competitors, using fake error messages (see DR-DOS posts [1, 2, 3, 4] for more details) and he was named "the least credible of all of Microsoft’s many" in a lawsuit against Microsoft for vapourware tactics.

Anyway, here is the E-mail, which was also sent (as a carbon copy) to Nathan Myhrvold, who is now Microsoft's main patent troll, gradually joined by others like Gates [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]:




---original message--- From: 8ill Gates Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 1997 10:34 AM To: Paul Maritz; Brad Sliverberg Cc: Nathan Myhrvold; Aaron Conforer; Jim Allchin (Exchange); John Ludwig; Richard Fade; Jon DeVaan;~ Steven Sinofsky Subject HTML. Opervieec

There has recently been an exchange on email with people in the Office group about Office and HTML.

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.

[...]




It goes on and discusses patents too (the full E-mail is here [PDF]). So, many of these deviations from standards are not about innovation -- they are design decisions whose goal is to crush competition. These decisions come from above, from the very stop. People want to be fair to rival browsers, but Bill Gates himself objects to it. To those who think it was a momentary flip, well... no. Bill Gates repeated this two years later:




..... Original Message ..... From: Bill Gates Sent: Saturday, December 05, 1998 12:44 PM To: Bob Muglia (Exchange); Jon DeVaan; Steven Sinofsky Cc: Paul Maritz Subject: Office rendering

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.

We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities.

Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destroy Windows.

I would be glad to explain at greater length.

Likewise this love of DAV in Office/Exchange is a huge problem. I would also like to make sure people understand this as well.




The full correspondence is here, as plain text or as PDF [PDF]. We could comment further on people to whom this was sent. Jim Allchin's felonies were covered in this Web site very extensively in the past and Paul Maritz is always part of this type of correspondences. With Bob Muglia and Steven Sinofsky in some of the most senior Microsoft roles at the moment, this type of behaviour must not be ignored.

The quote at the very top is from 1991, so it validates at least 8 years of the "incompatibility strategy." Not much has ever changed, based on what we already know.

Jim Allchin on Novell

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
 
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day