It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it • Hacker News Board

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#181

Post by jt2190 » Sat, May 12, 2012, 4:35 AM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #99

georgemcbay wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was around during the time period you're talking about and in my personal experience, Microsoft had plenty of help in killing Netscape from Netscape itself. I switched to MSIE3 not because of bundling or FUD but because it was a much better browser. Microsoft has been a bad actor at times when it comes to business practices, but I think a lot of people overestimate how much that helped them and underestimate how mu…

Quite true, Netscape's rewrite was a pretty bad mistake and when it was actually released it was still bad. Must read articles by Joel about it. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000027.html

Brendan Eich has a different take than Joel: http://techluminaries.com/2008/12/15/episode-1-brendan-eich/

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#182

Post by koeselitz » Sat, May 12, 2012, 4:43 AM UTC

recoiledsnake wrote: post #115

koeselitz wrote: post #29

This is a bit silly. So the point of this article is that Mozilla "should be criticizing Apple?" Why waste a whole article saying someone else should criticize Apple? It seems more worthwhile to do it oneself. The trouble with trying to dismiss an argument with accusations of hypocrisy is that hypocrites can be right . If I make an argument that stealing is wrong and then turn around and steal something, that doesn't…

>The trouble with trying to dismiss an argument with accusations of hypocrisy is that hypocrites can be right. If I make an argument that stealing is wrong and then turn around and steal something, that doesn't mean that stealing is morally permissible. Bad analogy. A better analogy would be to believe that stealing is wrong, but only loudly blame A for stealing, but be quiet when B does the exact same thing. Maybe t…

The article didn't say that, no; the fact that the whole article is a criticism of Mozilla would seem to be an implication that that criticism would extend to Mozilla's argument, but that's an indirect implication, to be sure. But the trouble is that, if that wasn't the point of the article, then once again it seems like a rather silly topic for an article. If the author is really purely interested in people who criticize one company but not another for arbitrary reasons, well, I'm not sure I can see much that's very compelling in that.

To put it bluntly, if he's not actually talking about the software or freedom or the market or anything of substance - if he really is just saying Mozilla should either shut up or criticize Apple, without any regard to whether the criticism is right or the companies being criticized are wrong - then he is being petty, plain and simple.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#183

Post by thornofmight » Sat, May 12, 2012, 4:50 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #136

kprobst wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you must realize that this is the same argument people have been making for close to 15 years, and not much has changed. So that should answer your question about the OPs point.

The main reason most people use Windows is that Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba make it incredibly hard to buy a computer without it. Go to HP's site now and see if you can get a notebook with Linux preinstalled. Most people would be perfectly happy with a Linux machine (I can tell you my mother is) and had hardware manufacturers given even some slight support (instead of building dozens of models seemingly design…

I see Linux enthusiasts talking about how their parents are happy with their Linux distro all the time -- that's not an argument for desktop Linux though. Nobody's saying Linux isn't good at browsing the web and checking mail and writing the occasional document.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#184

Post by sauravc » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:02 AM UTC

chj wrote: post #152

sauravc wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it means owning the browsing/battery life experience e2e. Geez! When it comes to issues about Apple or Microsoft (or Ruby), it seems a number of people on HN lack the ability to think objectively. It's quite sad really. It's like watching Republicans and Democrats fight in Congress, or North Carolina banning gay marriage, or Muslims and Christians fighting over God knows what. All these things stem from the inabi…

The question is, do you really think that MS can always outdo Mozilla in "browsing/battery" experience? They are controlling browser for a reason, but not a good reason to rule other players out. As a platform provider, Apple/Microsoft choose not to provide the full computational power to software developers. All the more reason developers should go to Android.

That's a good point, but I don't think it's the question. Let's start by putting yourself in Microsoft's shoes... and by making the silly assumption that Apple's lock down of iOS is acceptable (suspending reality for a moment).

Write a piece of software for internal use. Now write a piece of software with public API's that will be available to every developer on the planet and will have to be supported for a decade.

You might find that opening up your code for global use may be easy, but it's more often the exception. But there's no denying it will push your ship date out further.

Given MS is so far behind in the ARM-based computing category, it's ludicrous to apply anti-trust restrictions on them. I wouldn't want that to happen to any company, including the ones I hate.

I probably won't ever use one of these Windows 8 tablets, given I have 4 iPads lying around the apartment and prefer Ubuntu on my laptops. But I'd still like to see as many awesome tablet choices on the shelves as possible. Microsoft is putting in a great deal of effort into making a quality product. It's already behind by several years. Let's see what they can do.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#185

Post by michael_f » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:13 AM UTC

georgemcbay wrote: post #88

cletus wrote: post #25

I wonder how many people throwing opinions around this were "of age" in the early-to-mid 90s and thus remember what an unstoppable behemoth Microsoft was. This was a time when they had 95%+ of the desktop OS share and you basically couldn't run a home computer with Windows. This was the early days of Linux (IIRC in ~1994 I downloaded SLS running Linux 0.99.x onto ~30 floppy drives over a 2400 baud modem!). Macs were…

I was around during the time period you're talking about and in my personal experience, Microsoft had plenty of help in killing Netscape from Netscape itself. I switched to MSIE3 not because of bundling or FUD but because it was a much better browser. Microsoft has been a bad actor at times when it comes to business practices, but I think a lot of people overestimate how much that helped them and underestimate how mu…

IE3 was the first good browser from Microsoft, but I didn't consider it that much better. It was just good enough not to miss Netscape (much) if you made the switch.

IE4 vs Netscape 4, on the other hand...

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#186

Post by rbanffy » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:16 AM UTC

recoiledsnake wrote: post #169

rbanffy wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows on ARM is where the action will be. It's about countless millions of corporate machines built around cheap and energy efficient hardware running corporate applications through a browser. Microsoft wants to make sure it's their browser.

>Windows on ARM is where the action will be. I thought you were the first to predict doom and gloom for Windows 8 in general every time :)

I don't think Win8 on ARM will be a huge success. Not even a moderate one. What I think, and Microsoft seems to agree, is that ARM based devices will dwarf the x86 PC market, driving it to irrelevance. The x86 PC is Microsoft's cash-cow and they have nothing to replace it.

So, again, Windows on ARM is where Microsoft is going and whatever action MS gets, will be from it.

Won't be much, but if they manage not to screw it up, it may grant Microsoft a few more years.

And yes, they are doomed. Good riddance.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#187

Post by michael_f » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:20 AM UTC

My thoughts in summary: what a difference a name makes.

iPhone runs iOS; most people don't even consider it OSX, so expectations about what apps should be there aren't based on precedence.

"Windows 8 on ARM" /sounds/ like just another platform (out of many) that Windows has been ported to. The expectation is usually based upon what the software vendor can be bothered to port, rather than what Microsoft does.

So to me it's easier to understand why people would have different expectations compared to Apple on this. Change the name and don't include any legacy UI if you want a more direct comparison to be more obvious.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#188

Post by rbanffy » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:22 AM UTC

recoiledsnake wrote: post #173

rbanffy wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, because less people complain Apple does something similar (which is not really the same anyway) Microsoft gets a get-out-of-jail-free card? Because someone else does it, suddenly, doing it becomes right?

>which is not really the same anyway How is it not the same? >Because someone else does it, suddenly, doing it becomes right? No it doesn't. But do you think different laws should apply to a company just because you don't like it? Why are you so against equal justice for equal acts?

It's not hard if you pay attention: Apple introduced a new, completely incompatible platform that can't run OSX software, runs only on ARM and whose programs you can't run on OSX. iOS is not the future version of OSX.

Microsoft has an OS whose next version is getting a new API. It's Microsoft's most important product and one you pretty much can't buy a computer without. So, we can agree that, one year from now, most PC's will be running it. It runs on both x86 and ARM and the big deal is that, on ARM, due to a deliberate choice, only Microsoft browsers will run JavaScript code acceptably. Many people believe ARM will be more relevant than x86 soon and that the browser is the API programs will be written for. Microsoft wants to re-enact the IE6 farce by artificially limiting what browsers run on Windows 8 on the platform they think will be most relevant.

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#189

Post by ricardobeat » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:34 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #158

ricardobeat wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed they could, I just said that. This lock might force MS to make IE's engine as good as WebKit. I don't see any problem as long as the standards are kept open and the engine doesn't belong to a single entity.

You got the lock-in strategy backwards. It exists to allow the incumbent not to improve their products while maximizing their profits because they don't have to compete.

We are talking browsers here, there isn't much differentiation, it's a basic service. Even then, mobile safari is the most advanced one...

Re: It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

#190

Post by yuhong » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:41 AM UTC

swang wrote: post #145

larsberg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft allowed Internet Explorer to completely stagnate IIRC, after the legal madness, there were some major shakeups. Not least of which included the entire IE team being settlement-forced into other positions in the company (many went on to what would become WPF, which should be obvious if you've ever seen XAML). I don't envy the post-IE6 group, having to take a huge codebase, maintain backwards compatability,…

There might have been a team but it seems like all that team was created to do was to maintain the IE6 codebase. That is pretty much stagnated development. At the time Microsoft was essentially giving web developers the middle finger because really, what were our alternatives? Why did IE7 ever get released? Simple, because of Phoenix, aka Firebird, aka Firefox, aka competition. Without that I doubt Microsoft would ha…

AFAIK they did add user features during that time like a pop-up blocker (look at the Longhorn 4000 builds and XP SP2). But the rendering engine and most of the other things that matter to web developers was I think left unchanged except for minor bugfixes.