PaulSpoerry.com

With recent news about Internet Explorer 8’s imminent beta, Microsoft’s long and checkered history with web standards compliance has been hurled back into the harsh, unflattering spotlight. Even though IE8 will have a new “standards compliant” mode, it won’t be perfect, stirring up a new wave of grumbling about Microsoft’s attitude and position in the browser market.

Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie has weighed in with a new editorial at The Register about “How to fix Microsoft’s browser issues.” He begins by stating that because of Microsoft’s monopolistic practices, no real browser market exists, and the company doesn’t feel the need to actually listen to its users. “A monopoly doesn’t have to consider its customers’ wants or needs. In a functioning market, vendors must consider such things in order to compete successfully. But the market isn’t functioning,” Lie wrote.

Lie has a number of suggestions for Microsoft that he believes would improve both the IE experience and the overall browser market. For one, he says that IE needs to support Acid2 and Acid3 by default—without requiring users to select standards mode first—and that Microsoft should commit to supporting the underlying specifications of the Acid tests. He also demands a publicly-available set of documentation for exactly which standards IE uses, limitations, bugs, and extensions.

Finally, Lie calls for an end to mode switching in the future and a commitment to interoperability. “If two or more major web browsers, in official shipping versions, add standards-related functionality that’s generally considered useful to the progress of the web, and described in a publicly available specification, Microsoft must add the same functionality,” he said.

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