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The Battle That Could Lose Us The War
from the we-need-a-better-browser dept.
By Dave Whitinger, dave@wmkt.com (Temporary E-Mail account)
Linux is quickly becoming the operating system of the future, thanks in part to the advanced type of development that we refer to as Free Software, or Open Source, as well as the rock-solid features that are present in Linux. It is the ultimate server platform.
Linux is also enjoying success as a desktop workstation. My wife, Trish, makes the perfect example of the typical desktop user.
When we became married in August of 1996, she was a complete computer illiterate, having never even used a Windows or Unix machine. I presented her with a choice:
- I will give her a Windows computer, but will offer nothing in the way of technical support or training assistance.
- I will give her a Linux box, and will give her complete technical support and training assistance.
A New Hope
Not knowing the difference anyway, she chose the latter, and found herself extremely happy with a rock-solid desktop.
She enjoys her Red Hat Linux 6.1 workstation. Coupled with the K Desktop Environment and various applications that I have installed for her, she's ready to go. She has her TkRat E-Mail program, Netscape Navigator, notepad text editor, licq, games, the Gimp, and a variety of other nice applications, all accessed via a friendly interface.
Finding friends in mailing lists and on-line web-based chat groups, she was happy as a clam. She would fire up her Netscape Navigator and hit any web site she wanted, and was constantly bragging to her friends about this great computer operating system that she had the privilege of using.
The Empire Strikes Back
...Until the day that Netscape Navigator, her web browser, her window to the outside world, the major purpose for using the computer, simply disappeared from her desktop while she was browsing.
Trish turned to me, confusion spread across her face, and opined, "Dave, my Netscape has simply vanished from my screen. Perhaps you have telneted in and did a kill -9 on it?"
Dave responds, "Absolutely not! Why would I do that? Let's examine the problem more closely, that the answer to this perplexing issue will reveal itself."
Upon further investigation, it turns out that Netscape apparantly did not "like" the Java code that was being incorporated into one of the websites that Trish frequents. My solution: Turn off Java.
A very important and critical issue is realized here. At this point, Trish's computer is not as powerful as all of her friends' Windows computers. If they can access certain Java-enabled pages that she cannot, she is being left out, all because she chose to use Linux.
Fade to 2 or 3 weeks later.
Trish: "Dave, this website is telling me that I cannot use their services."
Dave: "What's the URL?"
Examining the website, it turns out that it is using some special kind of plugin that is only available for Windows or Macintosh platforms. I explained to Trish that she simply will not be able to access the services on this website, until they decide to make this plugin available for Linux. A short and polite note to the webmaster later, there was nothing we could do, and the issue was closed, and Trish's computer became even less valuable to her.
Fade to 2 or 3 more weeks later.
Trish: "Dave, this website is telling me that I am using an unsupported web browser, and cannot view the pages within."
Dave: "Okay, this is starting to make me angry. The web was initially created as a completely open environment where multimedia can be viewed, regardless of your platform. It's a platform independant medium, yet here are people making platform dependant websites."
Trish: "That's great that you feel that way, but I just want to access this coupon website! All my friends say they are getting great deals, and I'm missing out! Oh, and now my netscape just froze again! Argh, (killall -9 netscape ; rm ~/.netscape/lock) again. I want a Windows computer like all my friends have."
I hung my head in shame, realizing that if she is going to be able to take full advantage of the web, she will need a Windows computer. Trish, who has used nothing but Linux for over 3 years, and is completely happy with her computer, now feels the need to switch to Windows so that she can get the same web-browsing features as her friends.
Does this sound like a big deal to you, gentle reader? If it does, than I have accomplished my mission. If it does not, read on:
In 1994, I hated Netscape Communications, Inc. The way they were embracing and extending the HTML standards was starting to become very disturbing for me. The more websites that I found that said that it uses Netscape Extensions, the more angry I became.
Then Netscape released Navigator for Linux, and everybody loved them again. They were our saviour, completing the picture of a perfect desktop for Linux users. We were all Linux users, browsing any site we wished, enjoying the satisfaction of having a great web browser for our desktop.
Then Microsoft created Internet Explorer. Then Microsoft won the "Browser War". Then webmasters began using some of the "advanced" features of Internet Explorer, shutting out Netscape users.
Problem yet? Still not convinced? Okay, let's fast forward 1 year:
Microsoft owns 99% of the web browser market share, and they control the HTTP protocol. They start adding a huge variety of features to their "Internet Information Server", their competitor to Apache, to offer advanced features to Internet Explorer clients. At this point, sites being served by Apache become useless. Then Linux becomes obsolete as a web server platform. Then Microsoft wins the war, and we're right back to square one, and proprietary technology wins again.
Return of the Jedi
On April 1st, 1998, Netscape Communications, Inc. made one final redeeming move. They released the source code to Netscape Navigator, freeing it to the Free Software community to do with as they chose.
1 and a half years later, this browser is still nowhere near completion. There is a band of rebels working feverishly on the code, trying to bring it to a usable state as quickly as possible. Plagued with problems and set-backs, Mozilla continues forward, currently at "Milestone 10". Will we see a completely usable web browser for Linux in time to save us from seeing a new monopoly for Microsoft be created?
Attention: This is the battle that could cost us the war. If we come together and push all of our might toward a Free Web Browser for Linux, we have a good chance of winning this battle. If we fail, we will lose the war. This is the issue that Microsoft wants us to overlook.
I am making a personal committment to get involved with the Mozilla project. It is the project with the most potential to become this Free Web Browser that we so desperately need. Netscape is NOT going to save us this time. Netscape has failed us, and it's time to take matters into our own hands.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
Add that to your .signature:
If we fail, we will lose the war.
And repeat it every morning to yourself:
If we fail, we will lose the war.
When you are looking over Mozilla, finding items that could use your contribution, remember:
If we fail, we will lose the war.
The truth of the matter, friends and esteemed members of the community:
If we fail, we will lose the war.
Mozilla is critical! (Score:4)
Hopefully, AOL realizes this. If Microsoft ends up controlling the web, it's only a matter of time before AOL is reduced to insignifance for most purposes. Perhaps they don't realize just how urgent it is, though. AOL needs to make the Netscape Client Engineering Group a very high priority, and get Mozilla into the AOL client as soon as possible. This alone will shift the browser market away from Microsoft in a huge way. Yes, I know about the bundling deal, and I don't think it's worth it.
We do need to focus on more than just the browser, though. While Mozilla is absolutely the most important, we still need to have a diverse array of software available, to give the Linux platform some value, both on the desktop and server side. I personally am working on a replacement for MS Exchange [mt-kisco.ny.us] and hopefully will be able to hook up with the developers of some of the better Outlook clones, in order to offer a nice end-to-end integrated solution. Mozilla tie-in? Absolutely. Everything's gotta work with the Web, and I've already got a good web-based front end in place.
Heed Dave's call and spread the word. This is very important.
The problem is with how browsers are built (Score:5)
Why? Browsers are, for the most part, free these days. There's no competitive advantage for that.
If the browser were _modular_, with the display engine as part of the browser, but the information on all the tags and extras as a series of plugins -- you'd be able to add support for new HTML code ON THE FLY.
That's how XML is kind of supposed to work, isn't it?
I think what we need is a plugin-centric browser... one with a basic display engine that knows how to draw/display stuff, but doesn't come with any specific information. Then plugins with that information -- plugins that can be updated on the fly, or replaced when needed -- are added, and voia! Superbrowser!
So then you get your HTML 4.0, Cascading Stylesheet, XML, and proprietary tag support whenever you need to.
Oh, and you can have a program that sets your browser identification as whatever the hell you want it to say, or even change it on the fly.
Just a thought...
The desktop war perhaps... (Score:5)
All I can suggest is:
The only way we're going to break moron webmonkeys out of using noncompatible junk is to be a large enough audience to affect their planning. If we join forces with our differently-abled brothers and sisters, perhaps we can force the issue!
And I wonder if a boycott proxy would be helpful?
Your Working Boy,
I hate articles like this one... (Score:3)
Upon further investigation, it turns out that Netscape apparantly did not "like" the Java code that was being incorporated into one of the websites that Trish frequents. My solution: Turn off Java.
I have yet to come upon any problems after extensive testing of Netscape with thousands of pages loaded with Java. There was an initial misconfiguration of Netscape, (actually X) wherein a necessary font for Java was not installed by default, but once installed, I haven't hit any pages with Java which were unviewable.
Then Microsoft created Internet Explorer. Then Microsoft won the "Browser War". Then webmasters began using some of the "advanced" features of Internet Explorer, shutting out Netscape users.
Again, with the ignorance. MS has hardly won the browser war. The problem with many authors of Tech articles today is that they don't understand the computer market AT ALL. They continue to naively think that just because some particular product doesn't have market share in one particular market, then it must not have market share in ANY market. The fact is that Netscape STILL dominates the Browser war for two reasons:
1) Companies use netscape on all their UNIX boxes.
2) Companies use netscape on all their Win95 boxes. IE wasn't free when the majority of companies purchased their licenses, and Netscape continues to dominate the market share in the commercial sector, which is roughly twice the size of the personal or private sector.(After all, everyone who works in virtually any white collar job has at least one machine they have at work, but not all of them have PCs at home.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
We're not at war.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
We're not at war.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
We're not at war.
If we fail, we will lose the war.
We're not at war.
When comparing M$ Windows to Linux, let us consider an analogy. You see Windows is kind of like a Trojan horse. Sure, it looks all big and impressive, and when you bring it inside the walls, it opens up and bites you in the rear end.
But linux is like a Juggernaut to the Trojan horse. Every day it gets bigger, more robust, and more difficult to stop. Eventually MS will have to bow out to Linux not because Linux will declare war on Windows, but because Windows will simply pale in comparison.
You see, one of the most important differences between Windows and Linux is that Windows is all smoke and mirrors (marketing) whereas Linux is an product that is actually well made and capable of delivering on its promises. The public will grow tired of the illusion sooner or later, its all a matter of time.
--
"A mind is a horrible thing to waste. But a mime...
It feels wonderful wasting those fsckers."
Now and Then (Score:3)
Let me warn you that I haven't upgraded my Netscape past 4.5, figuring they're all "dot" releases and will probably not have CSS support. If I'm wrong let me know ASAP!
But the fact remains that these days I develop sites primarily with IE in mind, because CSS is easier to develop, and produces much cleaner HTML, in my opinion. I don't know, or care, if MS has extended the CSS standard, but what i do know is that I can't seem to get equivilant functionality from Netscape.
Mozilla really needs to get it's act together, in terms of releasing a reference release, in my eyes. Just bolt on a usuable GUI and call it 1.0. Then start adding features and call that 1.5. Netscape is withering away because of the lack or percieved development. If we wait til Mozilla is perfect, it'll never come. The world changes, and just as Mozilla catches up to it, someone, somewhere, adds something new...
Is a BROWSER really the issue though? (Score:4)
To compete in this area, Linux needs a stable, solid, full-featured browser. True as well.
But, IMHO, Linux isn't even ready to take up that challenge. A solid, stable, pretty, glitzy GUI is needed first.
The OS needs to be usable to a new user - on the same level as Windows.
Linux needs to be easy to install, easy to uninstall, able to sense hardware without the user needing to open the PC to read numbers off of chips.
Linux needs to support the latest and greatest hardware, like USB (USB2), firewire, parallel port scanners, WinModems...
Linux needs to have GAMES!
Linux needs all these things to displace Microsoft as the king of the desktop!
But is that what we want? Or do we want the best OS possible. A stable and robust system, architectured to be portable and extensible, to support new hardware easily as opposed to supporting it now. It's the fisherman maxim.
Write in cool hardware support and you play now, write in extensability for new hardware and you play for a lifetime.
Unless of course what we want to do is relegate Linux to the function of WebTV boxes, in which case all it needs to do is run a browser, a mail client, and that's about it.
Let's do this right folks. Let's design it for the future. Let's not get seduced by Microsoft's rapid upgrade cycle of feature glut.
Linux isn't there yet for the desktop. We have other, more important issues to worry about. 64bit is one. IPv6 is another. Parallel multiprocessing is another still...
Fsck conformity with M$! Let's beat them, not join them. Linux has always been about technical superiority and building knowledgable users. Dumbing Linux down will not serve it at all.
If Linux bends over for the lowest common denominator, I'm going FreeBSD, and so will all the people developing for Linux.
Re:The problem is with how browsers are built (Score:3)
And of course 99% of those plugins will all be distributed as
Oh, you can't use
No, we don't need a browser that is plug-in based, we have those and they obviously only work if you own the OS platform and browser that uses them as well. What we need are sites that conform to STANDARDS.
Unfortunately that will never happen.
I don't think the "war" will ever be over. There will ALWAYS be a company somewhere perverting the standards for their own benefit. If they can convince enough of their users that the advantages of doing something that will never work anywhere enough outweights the drawbacks, it will catch on and you're right back at square one.
There will ALWAYS be more people willing to go for "Cheap, easy and the WRONG thing to do" than "Less cheap, less easy, but the RIGHT thing to do." People are lazy.
-=-=-=-=-
Its no skeleton key... (Score:4)
So who wants to vote for this month's most proprietary web pages? We'll make a nice webpage and a link to the lucky webmasters.
Scary thought: Inbox 10,000 emails with the subject, "Can't access your page."
Scarier: 10,000 emails a month until you fix it.
War? (Score:3)
I think people are confused as to what free software is about. Free software is not about bringing down Microsoft, or any other company creating proprietary software, it's not about getting GNU/Linux on all computers world-wide either. The goal was and still is to create a wholly free operating system. I get the feeling that people in our community feel threatened by proprietary software and I don't understand that reasoning. I use exclusively free software on my systems (except for ssh, but that will hopefully change soon); I have no need for proprietary software, so why should I feel threatened by it?
The guy who invented the web... (Score:3)
The team who developed Mosaic gave allowed others to embrace and extended to do the obvious things that were missing, instead of putting the software under the GPL. Both Netscape and Explorer have roots in Mosaic. The base code for Explorer came from Spyglass whom Microsoft cannibalized. Spyglass' wares were derived from Mosaic, IIRC. So you can thank the bungled handling of the Mosaic codebase for the current situation, at least partially.
The W3C guys haven't learned any lessons from all this. They still offer source code that can be embraced, extended and locked away into proprietary machine code. Here is a link to the license [w3.org] for libwww and other w3c freeware like the Amaya browser. Their FAQ says this: Yes, we want people to experiment with and improve our software. It can even be used in commercial software. If you make changes for the better, we encourage you to contact its authors. You may not make changes and continue to call it by a trademarked term or misrepresent the origin, capabilities, or liabilities associated with its use. You may make valid assertions, such that it is based on Amaya code, or that it is compliant with a Recommended Specification of the W3C.
They want everyone to follow the standard, yet they purvey reference implementations that can be molded into whatever proprietary shape that the Microsofts or Netscapes of this world care to dream up. It comes to reason that a reference implementation of a standard should have a license that promotes compliance and prevents it from being used as a basis for proprietary extensions.
Re:The problem is with how browsers are built (Score:3)
Companies will never give up trade secrets. Why? Because the second they do they lose their edge. The second they lose that edge, they're on their way to death. Atleast, that's how they see it.
If people have to do something they don't want in order to support you, it's simple, they won't support you, unless you're microsoft who has a stronghold on the market and multiple billio...err, never mind the buts...