Microsoft considers adopting WebKit for Internet Explorer • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft considers adopting WebKit for Internet Explorer

#31

Post by honeybee » Fri, Nov 07, 2008, 7:27 PM UTC

Simply: no, microsoft is not considering adopting WebKit for IE.

This appleinsider article, and others like it, took an out-of-context statement by Ballmer and stretched it into a farce.

I happen to live in Seattle and have friends who work on the IE team. IE8 sports a completely new rendering engine built in-house. It ain't webkit. My friends claim that when it is finished the new engine will render things, y'know, in a standards-compliant manner. Personally, I'm not holding my breath :-)

Re: Microsoft considers adopting WebKit for Internet Explorer

#32

Post by andreyf » Fri, Nov 07, 2008, 7:59 PM UTC

snprbob86 wrote: post #27

lacker wrote: post #18

I'm sad to say it but this doesn't make sense. Strategically, the easier it is to develop web applications, the less people are dependent on Windows. It is to Microsoft's advantage to make web development as hard as possible. Therefore they will try to break compatibility whenever possible.

I still don't understand why everyone subscribes to this conspiracy theory... Microsoft builds web apps. Lots of them. The IE issues suck for those teams too. Microsoft is building an online version of Office which needs to work in IE, FF, and Safari. They are also building a huge collection of Live services web apps. Why would they make it harder on themselves?

Inaction doesn't require a conspiracy - it would take a lot of resources to fix IE, so if it's not in Microsoft's interests to fix it, they won't. (I don't agree with lacker that they break it intensionally)

Microsoft isn't in the business of revolutionizing the computing market anymore. It's in the business of sustaining a billion-$ enterprise based on on the status quo.

Re: Microsoft considers adopting WebKit for Internet Explorer

#33

Post by Zev » Fri, Nov 07, 2008, 8:35 PM UTC

I read it as "Microsoft may look at Open Source" not "Microsoft may look at WebKit"

Re: Microsoft considers adopting WebKit for Internet Explorer

#34

Post by halo » Fri, Nov 07, 2008, 8:36 PM UTC

I don't see it happening. Webkit is LGPL, and Microsoft have always been anti-GPL. It'd be a major shift in their position to suddenly embrace it out of nowhere.

The Internet Explorer's Trident engine is slowly but surely catching up with its competitors, so it's less of an issue than it was a couple of years ago. Let's not forget IE8 passes Acid2. The real problem for developers it that users aren't upgrading from IE6 fast enough, and that's not going to change whether Microsoft embrace Webkit or not.

Re: Microsoft considers adopting WebKit for Internet Explorer

#35

Post by acdha » Fri, Nov 07, 2008, 11:11 PM UTC

snprbob86 wrote: post #27

lacker wrote: post #18

I'm sad to say it but this doesn't make sense. Strategically, the easier it is to develop web applications, the less people are dependent on Windows. It is to Microsoft's advantage to make web development as hard as possible. Therefore they will try to break compatibility whenever possible.

I still don't understand why everyone subscribes to this conspiracy theory... Microsoft builds web apps. Lots of them. The IE issues suck for those teams too. Microsoft is building an online version of Office which needs to work in IE, FF, and Safari. They are also building a huge collection of Live services web apps. Why would they make it harder on themselves?

Because it helps them: most of the IE suckage comes from needing to support IE along with the real browsers, which is proportionally a bigger cost for a smaller competitor than them. IE being so much slower than everything else also helps keep the idea that web apps must be slower than desktop apps alive.

Re: Microsoft considers adopting WebKit for Internet Explorer

#36

Post by lacker » Sun, Nov 09, 2008, 7:44 PM UTC

snprbob86 wrote: post #27

lacker wrote: post #18

I'm sad to say it but this doesn't make sense. Strategically, the easier it is to develop web applications, the less people are dependent on Windows. It is to Microsoft's advantage to make web development as hard as possible. Therefore they will try to break compatibility whenever possible.

I still don't understand why everyone subscribes to this conspiracy theory... Microsoft builds web apps. Lots of them. The IE issues suck for those teams too. Microsoft is building an online version of Office which needs to work in IE, FF, and Safari. They are also building a huge collection of Live services web apps. Why would they make it harder on themselves?

You're not addressing the main argument. The harder it is to develop web software, the more people rely on Windows and Office. Making it harder for their small web apps division to get their work done is not a big deal, compared to the danger of cannibalizing Windows and Office sales.