Re: Versioning and html[5]

Chris Wilson wrote:
> Matthew Ratzloff wrote:
>> On Fri, April 13, 2007 12:20 pm, Chris Wilson wrote:
>>> Remember that WE (Microsoft) get sued if we disrupt businesses.
>> Chris, you've stated this a few times, and I don't doubt it, but on what
>> grounds can anyone sue Microsoft because the "free" product they've built
>> their business around changes slightly?  Especially when the EULA says
>> they can only recover up to $5 in damages?
> 
> Ask a lawyer.

   Here's another question to ask a lawyer: If you claim to support a
specific standard, and you have bugs that break a standards-compliant
website, what's to stop people from suing you then? Clearly, if the EULA
is no defense against the former, how would it protect you from the latter?

>> Isn't the ever-evolving nature of HTML just another cost of doing business?
> 
> Sure.  I AM NOT suggesting that Microsoft shouldn't change anything.  I _AM_
> saying that we will not break our current users to do so.

   You already break current users with the standards compliance bugs.
Fixing standards compliance bugs fixes standards compliant web pages.
What you're really doing when you freeze these bugs in is shifting the
breakage from your browser to other browsers that are more
standards-compliant. For instance, if all other browsers except ID
implement HTML5 correctly, even with the version number in the markup,
but IE doesn't fix this until HTML6, all the HTML5-compliant pages will
break because the "5" in the version number won't trigger standards
support. Compliant browsers then have to emulate your behavior and
intentionally turn their backs on HTML5 standards compliance.

Received on Sunday, 15 April 2007 13:50:08 UTC