Re: Re: Firefox disguise feature needed!

> I guess Microsoft intentionally does not comply to the accepted  
> standards
> to drive all these websites to block the competing software. Is that
> legal?

There is nothing illegal about a developer (such as microsoft) from  
choosing to not support a set of standards. Microsoft, does infact,  
follow a standard ... their own. It just doesn't happen to jive with  
w3c in this case, and creating their own standard is also not illegal.

Likewise, there is nothing illegal about corporations supporting MSIE  
and not supporting Firefox.

All of this would only become illegal if microsoft forces people to  
not support a competing browser in some way (such as incentives).  
They are not, however, doing this. Its just a matter of business. Its  
cheaper to develop for only one platform, and corporations are  
choosing to develop for the most wide spread one, MSIE on Windows.

Both perfectly legal and from a financial standpoint makes a lot of  
sense.

** This is where MorLUG and other lugs and free software groups come  
in. It is partly our jobs to spread the word and try to make these  
companies understand why it may be in there best interest to support  
w3c standards and firefox as well as MSIE. Until corporations start  
demanding that MSIE meet w3c standards MS has little incentive to  
change.

Personally,  I think changing your browser string to say "Hey look!  
I'm using MSIE TOO!" is hurting efforts to get companies to change  
the way they design their web pages. It tells them that we have a  
work around that doesn't cost them a dime, so why should they care  
and fix it?

Mike.
[email protected]