Post on 12-Nov-2014
description
Open, De Jure, De Facto And Proprietary: Standards and Microsoft
Chris WilsonGroup Program ManagerInternet Explorer Platform and SecurityMicrosoft Corporation
NGW028
Who Is This Character?An unknown member of Flock of Seagulls?
Browser guy since 1993
NCSA Mosaic for Windows
SPRY Mosaic
Internet Explorer
2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 7.0!
And a stint in Avalon (WPF)
Web standards guy
HTML, CSS, DOM, I18n, XSL
What Am I Here To Discuss?Now that you know who I am
Define terms around “standards”
Discuss proprietary versus open
(re-)State our commitments
Open discussion!
What’s A “Standard”?The OED definition
Standard, n. ('stændəd)
A rule, principle, or means of judgment or estimation; a criterion, measure
Translation:
Descriptive declaration of a set of features with which to measure implementations
Defining Some TermsThat describe standards
De Jure
De Facto
Open
Proprietary
De Jure vs. De FactoDeclared vs. In Practice
De Jure - by right, according to law
De Jure standards are declared to be the standard – often by a consortium
Often but not always not always open
De Facto - in reality, as a matter of fact
De facto standards grow to become adopted as a standard
Often but not always proprietary
Strong backwards compatibility needs
Open vs. ProprietaryMore than one definition
Open exchange of ideas – anyone can participate in developing the standard
Challenge – balancing participant input
Open can also mean open for anyone to implement – e.g., royalty-free
Proprietary can mean private - “license must be obtained, if available”
Proprietary can mean privately developed - but others free to implement
Open Versus ProprietaryWhy isn’t everything open?
With openly-developed standards, you get:
Lots of different people participatingSmart people everywhere!
Influence and experience from a wider variety of consumers/producers
Better interoperability across vendors
“Design by committee”Less direct ownership, drive to participate
Participants may have different goals
Open Versus ProprietaryNo really, why isn’t everything open?
With proprietary standards, you get:
To solve only a limited set of problems
Maintain a coherent goals and design
No “design by committee”
May have own vision of the needs/future
To move faster
To easily maintain intellectual property
Only a private set of perspectives
Innovation HappensHow does innovation get standardized?
Sometimes tried out in a proprietary way first – like border-radius in Mozilla
Sometimes things start as proprietary and are donated to open efforts – but in the process, they are likely to change
Sometimes there are differences between the proprietary version and the de jure standard one – e.g. RSS and Atom
Sometimes the whole thing is done as an open effort from the beginning, like XML
What’s AJAX?And is it a standard?
Shorthand for “Asynchronous JavaScript + XML”
“Ajax isn’t a technology [or a standard]. It’s really several technologies [and standards], each flourishing in its own right, coming together in powerful new ways. Ajax incorporates:
Standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;
Dynamic interaction using the Document Object Model;
Data interchange and manipulation using XML & XSLT;
Asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
And JavaScript binding everything together.”
Proprietary To De FactoXMLHttpRequest – An example
In 1998, the core technology in AJAX was created and implemented by Microsoft – the XMLHttpRequest object
Other browsers have picked this up and implemented it, and now the W3C is creating a de jure standard around it
Principles of Our Standards SupportYes, we do have principles
We have always responded to our customers’ needs
We are committed to making the world better by improving the quality of our support of open standards in IE
Balance with backward compatibility -not an excuse to not improve
We don’t pre-announce – but we are becoming more open in communications
This isn’t newIn April 2000 we said:
“Since its genesis, Microsoft's Internet Explorer technology has been focused on providing customers with the best Internet browsing experience possible …
Microsoft is proud that the Internet Explorer 5.0 technologies in Windows are the most standards compliant browsing technology shipping today. This underscores the importance that standards have in the development of Internet browsing technologies.”
So Where’ve You Been?Since 2001…
Security exploits grew more profitable–and therefore more sophisticated
Feature-packed release of IE in Windows XP Service Pack 2 – focused on security
Also recognized some shortcomings of DHTML as the foundation of the only client application platform – exploiting local resources, performance, security model, tools support
DHTML And WPF A comparison
WPF designed as an integrated platform for Documents, UI, and Media (incl. anim and 3D)
Integration across all media and app types
XAML is the declarative markup language
Can be in-browser or standalone – little change
Ajax-style development uses current DHTML, but is missing some application constructs
UI controls and layouts, application model, etc.
Two new W3C WGs to work on standards for this
A Few Thoughts To Kick Off Discussion
There are lots of formats that make up the web – not all of them are open
Open standards have always formed the interoperable core of the web
Over time interoperable core increases
For example XML, XSLT, XMLHTTP, CSS, XHTML, SVG and more add to this core
Chris.Wilson@microsoft.com
© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.