RE: Frames Are Improving

At 08:14 PM 8/24/96 -0600, F. E. Potts wrote:
>My concern is a simple one: I do not wish this contest, this grab for
>market share, to balkanize the web into proprietary segments where UAs
>are deliberately designed to resolve valid HTML markup in different
>ways so that one has to make a conscious decision to write for either
>one market segment or the other, but not both. This way (proprietary)
>is, of course, a tradition with M$, though Netscape (which would like
>to be the "Microsoft" of the net), is not much better.

The only way you are going to get interoperability is through customer
requests for it. They will only care about interoperability if there is more
than one popular browser. That is why it is good for the Web that Microsoft
will steal Netscape's Windows market share.

>What I would like to see is a third choice, a UA that resolves whatever
>the current HTML level is (we are currently at 3.2), uses style sheets
>(and frames :-), has provisions for math, and is designed to be secure
>(i.e., no Java, Javascript, ActiveX, cookies, etc.).  I also would like
>to see it validate the markup, rejecting bad code, even though that
>does violate the long-held principle of being strict in what you serve,
>but lenient in what you receive.

You can dream about this all you like, but it will only come about in at
atmosphere where standards are set through some form of concensus instead of
fiat by Netscape.

>As to Paul's desire, "I think that Microsoft dominating the Windows
>platform and leaving the others to Netscape is the best of all possible
>outcomes for the Web", all I can say is that Microsoft is new to the
>web, and comes amongst us with the mindset of a conqueror, rather than
>abiding by the long-standing "rough consensus" and cooperation that has
>made the web what it is.  A web that Microsoft controlled would be a
>sorry place indeed, and one where the concept of giving to the web as
>you take from it would be long lost.

A Web that _anyone_ controls is a bad thing, which is why the entry of
Microsoft into the competition is a _good_ thing.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Saturday, 24 August 1996 23:17:11 UTC