5 ms·

I think this is one of the destructive legacies of Internet Explorer. Many web developers (including myself) got fed up with IE, and that rage transferred onto

I think this is one of the destructive legacies of Internet Explorer. Many web developers (including myself) got fed up with IE, and that rage transferred onto Microsoft.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
They intentionally tried to destroy the web, because it didn't suit their monopoly. That rage was well and truly earned by Microsoft.
- justinlardinois 11y ago
  > They intentionally tried to destroy the web What are you referring to?
  - oblio 11y ago
    The web as envisioned early on by Netscape was supposed to have apps much sooner than it did. Once Microsoft swept aside Netscape by killing their business it basically froze development on IE. They made one mistake: XMLHttpRequest (probably the last big feature added to IE before the freeze) and we got lucky with Firefox.
    - ams6110 11y ago
      Netscape's vision was java applets though, right? The only thing I can remember that was worse in a browser than Flash. Perhaps we owe Microsoft some thanks.
      - eganist 11y ago
        ActiveX. Don't ever let yourself forget ActiveX.
        carey 11y ago
        XMLHTTP was originally an ActiveX technology, though, from the Outlook team; it wasn't originally developed as part of IE. I guess it wasn't until Mozilla and Apple added a native version that it really took off.
        frik 11y ago
        Actually KHTML and Safari supported it earlier, MozillaSuite/Firefox initial support was broken and only when it was fixed in Firefox around 2004 it got tradtion among devs.
      - eganist 11y ago
        Test
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - justinlardinois 11y ago
      I'm not sure Microsoft's lack of development on Internet Explorer in that era was due to an actual desire to kill the web. It simply had no competitors, so there was no motivation to make the product any better.
      - oblio 11y ago
        Microsoft killed Netscape to kill the thick client planned by Netscape to commoditize Windows. I'm pretty sure that Microsoft (just like Apple today) didn't want the web to succeeded as an app delivery method.
  - deepnet 11y ago
    TL;DR Microsoft tried to leverage its desktop monopoly to become a browser monopoly to a server monopoly and thus own and tax and sanitize the early web, we wuz saved by Firefox. The web freedoms we are losing today were hard won. Back when browser choice was NCSA Mosaic or Netscape , Microsoft was ignoring the web as a fad - Gates thought little of it then - sounds crazy now but in the early 90's, before access was readily available outside Universities, BBS was dominant for the public. The web was small then: registering a domain was altering a text file (no cost); SPAM didn't exist, every email was answered; all very university nice nice; ecommerce wasn't a thing. Microsoft 'awoke' to the webs potential and gave away Internet Explorer for free ( Netscape's browser cost money to buy unless you used the latest beta ) - this is what the antitrust case of win95 was about - Microsoft leveraging it's monopoly ( no Linux back then ) to aquire browser share. Why was this seen as a problem ? Because of Microsoft's strategy of embrace , extend , extinguish. It was feared Microsoft browsers would only talk 'properly' to Microsoft servers ( the server market was the 'big' money ) - thus Microsoft would dictate the web rather than Berners-Lee's democratic W3C. Everone else would be shut out of spec by dint of Microsoft end user browser monopoly leveraged from it's Desktop monopoly. This would certainly have slowed adoption as every site and every server would have to pay Microsoft's large costs - 1 server per site then so the Microsoft tax was then ~$2000, recurring, per site. Then only way to compete with the behometh of Microsoft's developers & emerging browser monopoly was the Free (GPL) development model - Netscape gave away their whole browser business to the public domain, inspired by Eric Raymond's analysis of the power of the public domain to attract developers - "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". Raymond argued that ensuring developer contributions couldn't be locked away by proprietry companies would attract developers. This had happened before with UNIX, necessitating GNU & LINUX. The GPL, the Free software license of Richard Stallman's GNU toolchain, adopted by Torvalds for LINUX, was the model for a public domain that avoided the 'tragedy of the commons'. The GPL ensured the 4 freedoms remained intact on downstream contributions. Free GNU software meant basically: if you improve public code, you must give the source code of improvements back to the public domain. Free Firefox ( in freedom & price ) coupled with the LINUX kernel (or BSD) and the GNU toolchain provided a Free server OS. With A Patchy Server ( renamed Apache ) this provided a way for the web to grow unencumbered. They had to dilute Free by calling it Open Source as some business types feared Free (as in beer) & Freedom - but it was Stallman's GPL in all but name. Imagine a building filled with floors of rackservers , if every server, every OS was forced to pay Microsoft rates - and perhaps also be content Microsoft didn't disapprove of. Microsoft licenses in a Monopoly market - the web would have been strangled at birth. Only for the wealthy and approvable - basically Encarterised. Lillywhite rather than everything and everyone. So the GNU toolchain and license, and LINUX kernel and (GPLed) Apache server meant that building of servers could be had for the price of traing staff - zero cost of entry, everyone gets to play. A server farm could be set up by a devotee in a cupboard for zero cost rather than ~$2000 per site, ~yearly to Microsoft. This is why Stallman is the granfather of all our freedoms. He saw UNIX stolen and LISP crushed by and invented GNU Free toolchain early enough (80's) to have it useable to write the LINUX kernel and be a complete Operating System by the 90's. The truth of the crappiness of the Microsoft web vision became the nightmare of late 90's early 00's web devs having to write for IE6 bizzaro HTML. Yes the W3C became stagnant later and Mozilla support of legacy httprequest allowed modern web to AJAX, etc, HTML5 blah, etc, continual revolution. Early public web culture was very BBS anarcho, democractic rules not central power - the public had after all built a functional web and email system without oversight or control - distrubuted over phone lines in the 1980's (q.v. FIDONet & BBS) before the gov & universities 'shared' TCP/IP. All early non-uni ISP's were BBS's. Arguably the tie-down of broadband and 'mistrust thy neighbours surfing' crushed sharing access & many early freedoms & the anonimity of temporary copper dialup net & webbery ( crypto was an illegal munition then ). If the web had failed, then we would be living in an info desert like the 1980s, where most people relied on newspapers & official propaganda was absolute. Without the web Rupert Murdoch would now be absolute kingmaker and dissent to the big lies of authority would be absent without the blogosphere. The freedoms we are losing today were hard won. [ * ] sources, my greybeard. [ ] references : Jason's Scott's BBS documentary ep4 FIDONet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cm6EFYktRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cm6EFYktRQ "Revolution OS" - rise of Open Source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw8K460vx1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw8K460vx1c Yes Bill Gates is super nice now but he was ruthless to get there.
- catnaroek 11y ago
  And the Web survived, and eventually became the mess we all know and love today. Usability standards have dropped a lot for everyone who doesn't own a Mac, compared to Windows in the late 90's and early 2000's. Back then, at least the trains ran on time...
  - deepnet 11y ago
    The web's survival was far from certain, other similar more proprietry instances didn't - many would argue freedom was the webs USP. Ubuntu & Debian improved my interfaces. I cannot in good conscience support a walled garden or advocate its use knowing how important freedom is. ;) In the UK the trains have never run on time.
    - catnaroek 11y ago
      > The web's survival was far from certain I didn't say it was certain in 2000. > Ubuntu & Debian improved my interfaces. Certainly, GNU/Linux has come a long way in terms of usability. I'm a very happy user of a GNU/Linux system nowadays (Arch Linux). But I wasn't really comparing Windows and GNU/Linux. I was comparing Windows and Web applications. IMO, Web applications in 2016 are still significantly less usable than Windows applications were in 2000. In fact, the more “modern” a website is, the least usable I'm likely to find it. > I cannot in good conscience support a walled garden or advocate its use knowing how important freedom is. I value civilized freedom (GNU/Linux on the desktop), not the law of the jungle (the Web). --- Let's face it, the competition between Windows and Web applications was actually between business models. Between users paying for software, and filling the screen with ads and “sponsored content”. Given these two alternatives, I'd gladly pick the first. Freedom has nothing to do with it.
      - deepnet 11y ago
        Your clarifications make sense and I agree. By walled garden I thought you were advocating Apple, I see I was mistaken. I too support the freedom to be civilized and not subject to laws red in tooth and claw. Yet diversity is important and so I also support there being freer places where new types of organisation can arise free from the old order - places like the Web.
- albasha 11y ago
  That's a bold claim. What's in it for Microsoft to build a shitty browser?
  - pritambaral 11y ago
    The less people use the web, the more they'll depend on the OS. Imagine if Facebook (or Slack) just had to build a native app for every OS they wanted users from, and there was no chance of using anything cross-platform to reach everyone. That would be the sweet utopia for the then Microsoft. Making the dominant browser shitty is not identical to that scenario, but goes a long way in discouraging an OS-agnostic platform (the Web) in favour of their monopoly OS.
    - albasha 11y ago
      So you are saying they are against web apps that replace native apps such as Google Docs and thus it was not in their best interest to make the browser powerful. Interesting.

I think this is one of the destructive legacies of Internet Explorer. Many web developers (including myself) got fed up with IE, and that rage transferred onto Microsoft.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

They intentionally tried to destroy the web, because it didn't suit their monopoly. That rage was well and truly earned by Microsoft.

justinlardinois 11y ago
> They intentionally tried to destroy the web What are you referring to?
- oblio 11y ago
  The web as envisioned early on by Netscape was supposed to have apps much sooner than it did. Once Microsoft swept aside Netscape by killing their business it basically froze development on IE. They made one mistake: XMLHttpRequest (probably the last big feature added to IE before the freeze) and we got lucky with Firefox.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    Netscape's vision was java applets though, right? The only thing I can remember that was worse in a browser than Flash. Perhaps we owe Microsoft some thanks.
    - eganist 11y ago
      ActiveX. Don't ever let yourself forget ActiveX.
      - carey 11y ago
        XMLHTTP was originally an ActiveX technology, though, from the Outlook team; it wasn't originally developed as part of IE. I guess it wasn't until Mozilla and Apple added a native version that it really took off.
        frik 11y ago
        Actually KHTML and Safari supported it earlier, MozillaSuite/Firefox initial support was broken and only when it was fixed in Firefox around 2004 it got tradtion among devs.
    - eganist 11y ago
      Test
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  - justinlardinois 11y ago
    I'm not sure Microsoft's lack of development on Internet Explorer in that era was due to an actual desire to kill the web. It simply had no competitors, so there was no motivation to make the product any better.
    - oblio 11y ago
      Microsoft killed Netscape to kill the thick client planned by Netscape to commoditize Windows. I'm pretty sure that Microsoft (just like Apple today) didn't want the web to succeeded as an app delivery method.
- deepnet 11y ago
  TL;DR Microsoft tried to leverage its desktop monopoly to become a browser monopoly to a server monopoly and thus own and tax and sanitize the early web, we wuz saved by Firefox. The web freedoms we are losing today were hard won. Back when browser choice was NCSA Mosaic or Netscape , Microsoft was ignoring the web as a fad - Gates thought little of it then - sounds crazy now but in the early 90's, before access was readily available outside Universities, BBS was dominant for the public. The web was small then: registering a domain was altering a text file (no cost); SPAM didn't exist, every email was answered; all very university nice nice; ecommerce wasn't a thing. Microsoft 'awoke' to the webs potential and gave away Internet Explorer for free ( Netscape's browser cost money to buy unless you used the latest beta ) - this is what the antitrust case of win95 was about - Microsoft leveraging it's monopoly ( no Linux back then ) to aquire browser share. Why was this seen as a problem ? Because of Microsoft's strategy of embrace , extend , extinguish. It was feared Microsoft browsers would only talk 'properly' to Microsoft servers ( the server market was the 'big' money ) - thus Microsoft would dictate the web rather than Berners-Lee's democratic W3C. Everone else would be shut out of spec by dint of Microsoft end user browser monopoly leveraged from it's Desktop monopoly. This would certainly have slowed adoption as every site and every server would have to pay Microsoft's large costs - 1 server per site then so the Microsoft tax was then ~$2000, recurring, per site. Then only way to compete with the behometh of Microsoft's developers & emerging browser monopoly was the Free (GPL) development model - Netscape gave away their whole browser business to the public domain, inspired by Eric Raymond's analysis of the power of the public domain to attract developers - "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". Raymond argued that ensuring developer contributions couldn't be locked away by proprietry companies would attract developers. This had happened before with UNIX, necessitating GNU & LINUX. The GPL, the Free software license of Richard Stallman's GNU toolchain, adopted by Torvalds for LINUX, was the model for a public domain that avoided the 'tragedy of the commons'. The GPL ensured the 4 freedoms remained intact on downstream contributions. Free GNU software meant basically: if you improve public code, you must give the source code of improvements back to the public domain. Free Firefox ( in freedom & price ) coupled with the LINUX kernel (or BSD) and the GNU toolchain provided a Free server OS. With A Patchy Server ( renamed Apache ) this provided a way for the web to grow unencumbered. They had to dilute Free by calling it Open Source as some business types feared Free (as in beer) & Freedom - but it was Stallman's GPL in all but name. Imagine a building filled with floors of rackservers , if every server, every OS was forced to pay Microsoft rates - and perhaps also be content Microsoft didn't disapprove of. Microsoft licenses in a Monopoly market - the web would have been strangled at birth. Only for the wealthy and approvable - basically Encarterised. Lillywhite rather than everything and everyone. So the GNU toolchain and license, and LINUX kernel and (GPLed) Apache server meant that building of servers could be had for the price of traing staff - zero cost of entry, everyone gets to play. A server farm could be set up by a devotee in a cupboard for zero cost rather than ~$2000 per site, ~yearly to Microsoft. This is why Stallman is the granfather of all our freedoms. He saw UNIX stolen and LISP crushed by and invented GNU Free toolchain early enough (80's) to have it useable to write the LINUX kernel and be a complete Operating System by the 90's. The truth of the crappiness of the Microsoft web vision became the nightmare of late 90's early 00's web devs having to write for IE6 bizzaro HTML. Yes the W3C became stagnant later and Mozilla support of legacy httprequest allowed modern web to AJAX, etc, HTML5 blah, etc, continual revolution. Early public web culture was very BBS anarcho, democractic rules not central power - the public had after all built a functional web and email system without oversight or control - distrubuted over phone lines in the 1980's (q.v. FIDONet & BBS) before the gov & universities 'shared' TCP/IP. All early non-uni ISP's were BBS's. Arguably the tie-down of broadband and 'mistrust thy neighbours surfing' crushed sharing access & many early freedoms & the anonimity of temporary copper dialup net & webbery ( crypto was an illegal munition then ). If the web had failed, then we would be living in an info desert like the 1980s, where most people relied on newspapers & official propaganda was absolute. Without the web Rupert Murdoch would now be absolute kingmaker and dissent to the big lies of authority would be absent without the blogosphere. The freedoms we are losing today were hard won. [ * ] sources, my greybeard. [ ] references : Jason's Scott's BBS documentary ep4 FIDONet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cm6EFYktRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cm6EFYktRQ "Revolution OS" - rise of Open Source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw8K460vx1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw8K460vx1c Yes Bill Gates is super nice now but he was ruthless to get there.
catnaroek 11y ago
And the Web survived, and eventually became the mess we all know and love today. Usability standards have dropped a lot for everyone who doesn't own a Mac, compared to Windows in the late 90's and early 2000's. Back then, at least the trains ran on time...
- deepnet 11y ago
  The web's survival was far from certain, other similar more proprietry instances didn't - many would argue freedom was the webs USP. Ubuntu & Debian improved my interfaces. I cannot in good conscience support a walled garden or advocate its use knowing how important freedom is. ;) In the UK the trains have never run on time.
  - catnaroek 11y ago
    > The web's survival was far from certain I didn't say it was certain in 2000. > Ubuntu & Debian improved my interfaces. Certainly, GNU/Linux has come a long way in terms of usability. I'm a very happy user of a GNU/Linux system nowadays (Arch Linux). But I wasn't really comparing Windows and GNU/Linux. I was comparing Windows and Web applications. IMO, Web applications in 2016 are still significantly less usable than Windows applications were in 2000. In fact, the more “modern” a website is, the least usable I'm likely to find it. > I cannot in good conscience support a walled garden or advocate its use knowing how important freedom is. I value civilized freedom (GNU/Linux on the desktop), not the law of the jungle (the Web). --- Let's face it, the competition between Windows and Web applications was actually between business models. Between users paying for software, and filling the screen with ads and “sponsored content”. Given these two alternatives, I'd gladly pick the first. Freedom has nothing to do with it.
    - deepnet 11y ago
      Your clarifications make sense and I agree. By walled garden I thought you were advocating Apple, I see I was mistaken. I too support the freedom to be civilized and not subject to laws red in tooth and claw. Yet diversity is important and so I also support there being freer places where new types of organisation can arise free from the old order - places like the Web.
albasha 11y ago
That's a bold claim. What's in it for Microsoft to build a shitty browser?
- pritambaral 11y ago
  The less people use the web, the more they'll depend on the OS. Imagine if Facebook (or Slack) just had to build a native app for every OS they wanted users from, and there was no chance of using anything cross-platform to reach everyone. That would be the sweet utopia for the then Microsoft. Making the dominant browser shitty is not identical to that scenario, but goes a long way in discouraging an OS-agnostic platform (the Web) in favour of their monopoly OS.
  - albasha 11y ago
    So you are saying they are against web apps that replace native apps such as Google Docs and thus it was not in their best interest to make the browser powerful. Interesting.