myths of software "standards"

[Steve Reid]

> >Sure, the Netscape extensions are nice. And it's nice to have an operating
> >system (M$-DOG) pre-installed on every hard drive. But Net$cape, like M$,
> >was trying to esablish a dominant "follow-us-or-die" position in the 
> >industry. 

> that was exactly the view I was trying to discredit us in my post.
> did Netscape protect their creations with patents? no. what did they

Of course not. If they "protected" their creations with patents, a lot 
of people would be less likely to use them. If the Net$cape extensions 
weren't used, everything would look fine on other browsers and there 
would be no pressure on the remaining non-netscape users (25%?) to switch 
to Net$cape.

> why or how they were trying to squelch competition? what kind
> of squelching is possible in a world where the next version of
> anybody's software can immediately incorporate their own features?

The "Why" can be answered very easily: $$$. Netscape is not some
not-for-profit thing like PGP, Netscape is a COMMERCIAL CORPORATION. Keep
that in mind while I explain the "How"...... 

I think it is not unlike what Micro$oft did in the early 80s... They put
out a good OS (it was considered good at that time) and sold it really
cheap, and they obtained a large market share. Since they had such a large
market share, most of the software developers wrote for M$-DOS. Since
practically everyone was writing for MS-DOS, the public bought MS-DOS. 
Other OS developers could write M$-DOS clones, but they would be just
that- clones. They would have no reason to write in new features, since
very few people would be bold enough to write software that wouldn't run
on M$-DOS. The OS makers would be condemned to forever follow Micro$oft
and try to maintain compatability. To this day, the mass market still
centers around the MS operating system. 

With Netscape, it was similar... They put out a good browser (And I'm not
arguing there- IMHO it's the best browser currently available) for really
cheap, for many people it was even Free. They've obtained a large market
share. Since they have such a large market share, everyone writes web
pages for Net$cape. Since there are now so many "Get Netscape!" web pages,
even more people are switching to Netscape. Sure, other browsers could add
their own extensions, but if they won't work on Net$scape, nobody will use
them. And every non-net$cape browser will be OBSOLETE as soon as the next
version of net$cape comes along with it's new extensions. 

> picked their standard. can you tell me how netscape
> twisted a single person's arm to put netscape tags in their
> web pages?

No arm twisting was necessary, once Net$scape had their large market 
share. Just as there was no arm twisting to get people to write software 
for MS-DOS and Windoze. Once a software company has a large enough market 
share that they can define the standards for everyone else, they are 
extremely difficult to "de-throne". At least Net$cape isn't abandoning 
the *official* HTML standards.

Before I sign off, I will say that Netscape is a good browser. It may well
be that they simply created the extensions to make the WWW better. But,
since Netscape *IS* a commercial company, I tend to believe that they did
it to ensure their own profits. Really, there is no Real Proof either 
way, so this tends to be a rather controversial (and opinionated) topic.

Some good might yet come from this... If Netscape and Microsoft start 
battling over the "Web As An Operating System" market, Net$cape and 
Micro$oft might chip away at each other enough to let the smaller 
companies catch up. (Wishfull Thinking)

I guess this is kinda off the topic of the Cypherpunks list... I think we 
should just "agree that we disagree" and let the matter be.

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