Jon I hope you're right!
My cynicism is born of over a decade of exposure to web technologies, however I do remain hopeful that things will improve. It has always stunned me that anyone would use proprietary, closed technologies when superior, free, standards-based alternatives exist. Hopefully the world is getting a little smarter every day. Guy On 08/09/2006, at 10:07 AM, Jon Ferraiolo wrote: > > Guy, > I have been biting my tongue, but your email was too provocative. > Generally, I agree with your points. My additional comments: > > * The open source phenomenon is huge. The same phenomenon that > transformed > the server world (what with LAMP) is starting to affect the client > world. > Although the threat isn't imminent, over the next few years MS is > in danger > of losing control over the browsing experience to Mozilla and > Safari, both > of which are open source and both of which implement W3C standards > successfully. Firefox's market share is likely to accelerate in the > short-term as Enterprises discover its merits as a strong platform for > application development and begin to require its usage instead of > IE for > Enterprise applications. This will result in larger numbers of > people who > start to feel comfortable with Firefox (because of being forced to > use it > at their company) and therefore comfortable in abandoning IE for > browsing > the Web. (Note that Google is investing a ton of money in Mozilla > these > days. Microsoft is very much aware of this.) > > * As a result, Microsoft will be forced to re-embrace standards in > order to > stop the loss of market share and reclaim control over their own > Windows > platform. Microsoft will be forced to do whatever it takes in order > to push > Firefox's (and Safari's) market shares down below 5% once again, and > (unfortunately for them) in today's world that includes world-class > support > for open standards. And, thanks to the leadership at Firefox, > Safari, and > Opera, SVG has become a requirement. Microsoft has been aware of > all of > this for a long time. Therefore, I expect to see SVG support in IE > betas by > the end of 2007. > > * I would be hugely surprised if Microsoft followed Adobe's lead and > announced VML end-of-life in the same (unacceptable) manner as Adobe. > Microsoft is considerably more sensitive to supporting their existing > community of developers. When VML is EOL'd, Microsoft will give > something > like a 5-year window before VML quits working with new versions of IE. > > Or at least that what my personal crystal ball shows. > > Jon > > > > > Guy Morton > <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > au> To > Sent by: [email protected] > svg- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc > hoogroups.com > > Subject > Re: [svg-developers] Re: Is > Adobe's > 09/07/2006 04:20 greed clearing the way for XAML > PM > > > Please respond to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > hoogroups.com > > > > > > > Yes, it gives the lie to the lip service they give to standards > adherence. M$ in particular only support those standards that they > feel benefit their business (like someone else said, there's no other > reason for them to release software for free). > > Honestly, how hard would it have been from MS to enable native SVG > support, given that they already had VML, which has been in IE since > v5? Should we really believe their weasel words about it coming in > IE8? I don't think so! > > I'm now wondering how long it will be before MS announces the EOL for > VML, as a way of trying to screw projects like http://dojo.jot.com/ > Dojo2D and push everyone towards using XAML. > > Personally, I'd be VERY reluctant to start porting apps to XAML, > given that at the moment even M$ are not committing to it being > available on anything but Vista - that's going to be a pretty limited > market for a long time, even putting to one side that it leaves any > non-windows users out in the cold. This might be fine for corporate > applications, but wake up people, there's plenty of users moving away > from Windows these days! From my web logs I'd say only 75% of users > are using IE now - 25% of users is a pretty big chunk to lose by > building your app using IE/Windows-dependent technology! > > A cornerstone of the web is that it be accessible to all - this means > it must be cross-platform compatible. MS has never really wanted this > to be so, but it is. They'll keep trying to push a windows-centric > world view on the world, but i believe ultimately this must fail. The > web (and the world) is bigger than Microsoft (and Macrobe). > > Guy > > > > > On 08/09/2006, at 8:25 AM, tbone58x wrote: > >> So much for W3C establishd standards. How can you just walk away >> from this on such short notice? >> >> How can M$ and Adobe be part of the W3C when they do not adhere to >> what the group is all about? SVG has been around for nearly five >> years and is not slated to be part of IE7 - sad... >> >> --- In [email protected], "Randy George" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> wrote: >>> >>> Hi Geoffrey, >>> >>> I agree with your analysis. Here's my soapbox for what its >> worth :) >>> >>> Speaking honestly as a small independent developer, >>> without >> an IE >>> option sticking with SVG is not really feasible, switching to Flash >> narrows >>> options and now also has a questionable life expectancy, while >> switching to >>> WFS-XAML is a painful but compelling opportunity to survive. >>> >>> In the long run rich client technology paves the way >>> for web >>> services. MS is pulling out all stops to own the rich client >> technology >>> base. This could give them the competitive advantage in web services >>> analogous to OS ownership in the desktop hay day. MS would love to >> use their >>> waning OS advantage to leverage into rich client ownership before >> the window >>> of opportunity closes. MS is primarily concerned about the next >> generation >>> struggle for web services ownership, think Google. Though, I still >> wonder if >>> the XML factor reduces any competitive leverage MS hopes to gain. >>> >>> Adobe should be highly commended for their early and >>> extensive >>> support of SVG, but their long term survival is on the line. From >> their >>> point of view SVG was only a competitive advantage against >> Macromedia and >>> they found a different way to counter that threat. Adobe's ceiling >> is the >>> competitive world of MS and Google as they struggle for ownership >> of web >>> services. >>> >>> Vista/WFS-XAML is projected to be available about the same >> time as >>> ASV EOL (but then Bill has been wrong before). Alternative native >> browser >>> SVG is still not up to ASV capabilities and without some kind of IE >> option, >>> native SVG only reaches a small percentage of users. WFS-XAML will >>> eventually be available to the 80%+ of users on MS IE. Also, WFS- >> XAML >>> supercedes SVG in some critical ways: 3D, built in gui widgets, >> hardware >>> graphics speed, C#/CLR in place of EcmaScript. XAML will be a >> better rich >>> client base than SVG 1.2. Where is SVG 2.0 with 3D vectors, a built >> in set >>> of gui widgets,...? >>> >>> If MS is wrong about Vista release dates, there could be a >> gap for >>> rich client web development for IE between the EOL of ASV and the >> release of >>> WFS-XAML. An overlapping download option for ASV is the best >> solution from a >>> web developer perspective. From an Adobe perspective, attempting to >> force >>> svg rich client development to move to Flash before XAML appears >> makes some >>> sense. However, closing down ASV so quickly may have little effect >> other >>> than alienating a small community of developers and raising nagging >>> questions about Flash's viability as well. >>> >>> As it turns out in 2 years Adobe/Flash could be gasping >>> for >> air and >>> Flash developers should take note what Adobe policy has been toward >> the SVG >>> developer community. I imagine Adobe's bottom line strategic >> concern is >>> creation tools not rendering. Flash developers must likely plan for >> a >>> similar migration to XAML in just a few more years. >>> >>> The Open source Mozilla community will also be forced to >> counter >>> WFS-XAML in some way in order to keep from being leapfrogged and >> then >>> marginalize. My guess is that XAML rendering in FF will quickly >> trump >>> further development of SVG rendering unless MS patents force some >> kind of >>> enhanced SVG. Otherwise MS creates a whole new rich client internet >> which is >>> off limits to the open source browser world. >>> >>> However you look at it, MS is in the driver's seat in >>> 2007. >> If they >>> choose to transcode image/svg+xml to XAML, they could with very >> little >>> effort. But why would they support image/svg+xml at all? The >> Adobe/Flash >>> world and the FF,Opera/SVG world will both be playing catch up >>> technologically. >>> >>> Ironically XML based rich clients are here to stay whether >> XAML or >>> SVG. Thin clients and fat clients look out! >>> >>> rkgeorge >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: [email protected] [mailto:svg- >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> On Behalf Of Geoffrey Swenson >>> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 1:32 AM >>> To: [email protected] >>> Subject: [svg-developers] Is Adobe's greed clearing the way for XAML >>> >>> By abandoning SVG, the net effect for us and Adobe is that XAML is >> going to >>> be the way to go. >>> >>> >>> >>> Unless Adobe massively changes Flash to have a decent editor and >> improves >>> the ease of programming I just don't see it gaining a lot of >> developer >>> interest. Why should I pay almost $1000 for Flash and its tedious, >>> user-hostile graphic editor, the non-intuitive and overly animation- >> focused >>> timeline editor, when the same $1000 buys me the MSDN library >> including XAML >>> that was designed from the ground up to be a programmable graphical >>> environment? >>> >>> >>> >>> If you don't have $1000 for MSDN, just Notepad and a good XAML book >> && >>> online help should get you a long ways, especially for web-based >> stuff. >>> >>> >>> >>> Microsoft can leverage their position as the largest software >> company to >>> make XAML a very complete solution in a way that nobody else can >> manage. I'm >>> sure that it will be, as usual, somewhat overdeveloped and bloated, >> but >>> since it is part of the graphical underpinnings of Vista, they must >> have got >>> it to work, unlike - for example - Firefox SVG which is still way >> behind the >>> soon-to-be-orphaned Adobe plug-in. >>> >>> >>> >>> If I am going to have to pick one technology, I'll take the one >> that runs on >>> most of the computers. I am also picking the one that makes >> development >>> easy. If it happens to be Open Source, fine, but if XAML ends up >> being the >>> way to go, so be it. It really helps to have a revenue stream to >> pay for a >>> lot of talented work. Just 5% of Microsoft's Vista budget is >> hundreds of >>> millions of dollars - even Adobe does not have that kind of money >> to spend >>> on this. >>> >>> >>> >>> By early next year IE7 and Vista will be released. Almost everyone >> running >>> XP will be automatically upgraded to IE7, so coverage will be >> fairly large >>> in a few weeks after the release. >>> >>> >>> >>> I don't agree with the reviewers that think that Vista / IE7 are a >> warmed >>> over copy of Apple and Firefox. Perhaps the user interfaces are >> nothing >>> really new, but under the hood is a whole host of improvements are >> going to >>> make development of custom graphical applications a lot easier. >> XAML is at >>> the core of this, and I am looking forward to it. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ----- >>> To unsubscribe send a message to: svg-developers- >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> -or- >>> visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers and click "edit >> my >>> membership" >>> ---- >>> Yahoo! Groups Links >>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> ----- >> To unsubscribe send a message to: svg-developers- >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> -or- >> visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers and click "edit >> my membership" >> ---- >> Yahoo! Groups Links >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > > ----- > To unsubscribe send a message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -or- > visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers and click "edit my > membership" > ---- > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > ----- > To unsubscribe send a message to: svg-developers- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -or- > visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers and click "edit > my membership" > ---- > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > ----- To unsubscribe send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -or- visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers and click "edit my membership" ---- Yahoo! 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