Comic Update: The Halls of Opera
May 18, 2008Let’s get the disclaimers out of the way.
This week’s comic is not about Microsoft. The history of Internet Explorer’s many issues with standards compliance is well documented elsewhere, including various frustrations listed in this blog and in many of my posts over at Mindfly.
This week’s comic is about expecting a certain standard from someone when you are not living up to those standards yourself. In this case, of course, I’m discussing web standards and the big flap they cause in the development/design world due to the various browsers’ speeds at implementing them.
If you’re a designer, and you’ve ever had to make a website trying to find out how to make a website look correct in Internet Explorer, than you understand how important web standards are. It saves us time, which means it saves businesses money, and ultimately all the happy little people surfing the web get to see their favorite website about cute puppies the way that the site’s designer intended it.
So when someone says: “Hey, browser makers, get on board with styles already,” I’m going to be right there holding a sign and trying to pretend that protesting in the middle of winter in Seattle isn’t cold and demoralizing.
Everything in moderation, though. When Opera went to the European Commision to try to force another browser maker to change it’s feature set through legal actions, we start to muddy the line between “good activism” and “bad business behavior”. When Håkon Wium Lie, Opera’s CTO, then at several different points (including in this article/rant at The Register) outlines a very specific, detailed list of what Microsoft needs to do in order to be compliant to Opera’s view of a browser maker’s responsibility, things go from bad business to hypocrisy.
Why hypocrisy? Simple. Mr. Lie’s little list is incredibly specific, as expected of a programmer, and includes several points that must (his word) be adhered to. The one of most interest to me at the moment is the closing one:
“5. Commit to interoperability. It is important to ensure that Microsoft remains committed to supporting web standards, even beyond Acid2 and Acid3. 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.”
Is this a good idea? Why yes, yes it is! Nothing frustrates me more than finding a good CSS3 property (or CSS 2.1 property) that would solve a design issue I have with a website, only to discover that a couple of the leading browsers don’t have it, thereby making it of limited use. This is something I experience on a weekly basis (if not more frequently), and probably the largest source of frustration with my job.
However, Microsoft isn’t the only browser that needs to do this. After all, what good is it if only IE was keeping up with standards? Yes, it has the dominant share in browser usage, but there’s a good 25%-30% of users who are using other browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Opera. We wouldn’t want them suffering because their browsers aren’t keeping pace.
Generally, of the four browsers, IE is in fact the one that typically is behind the game. But while going through several CSS3 properties last week, I found myself looking at three that Opera was not yet using, but that were in use by at least two other browsers.
What’s that? Is Opera not living up to the standards it’s expecting of others? Why… that would be very hypocritical of them, wouldn’t it? They’d NEVER do that!
Well, as it turns out, yes they would.
The properties in question (and this isn’t a complete list, I’m sure, just one that came up from only an hour or so of looking) are as follows: border-radius, outline-offset, and word-wrap. The first two are implemented in Firefox and Safari. The last one is implemented in Firefox and (gasp!) Internet Explorer. All three are documented in publicly available specifications.
Opera can’t render any of them.
Now, granted, outline-offset will appear in Opera 9.5. As of yet, though, I’ve seen nary a peep about those other two, and I doubt that’ll change before 9.5 goes gold.
Frankly, Opera, you need to stop focusing on legal action against your competition. This kind of behavior is belittling, and ultimately serves as little more than a PR stunt as long as you’re failing to actually keep your own browser living up to the standards you’re yelling at others for failing to uphold.
We get it already. Microsoft sucks. Now stop poking the big dog with a stick and go grab a larger share of the market by showing everyone how cool Opera really is.
It’s Turgin! Working for Opera!
I was wondering if anyone would notice him there. ;)
Viking here from the mystic lands of Norway. Funny comic. Except it’s not quite true ;) Opera hasn’t done any legal action against Microsoft. Even if that were true, of the three CSS3 properties you mention, only one stands up. Opera supports outline-offset in Opera 9.5 (just as other browsers have supported it in a similar time frame), border-radius isn’t ready yet. the spec is still in flux and both Safari and Firefox don’t have a interoperable version of it – they both implement it differently, and both still use vendor prefixes. word-wrap; I’ll give you that one, even though MS invented it, so one browser had it before it was in the spec. The spec it is in is still not anywhere near stable though.
Go back to eating your nuts or we’ll set SVGorilla on you.
Mr. Storey,
Glad you enjoyed the comic!
You’re right about a number of details. Filing a complaint with the European Commission isn’t taking legal action against Microsoft. However, I think it’s fair to say that Opera is hoping to have a situation where Microsoft is compelled to follow the series of guidelines laid out by Mr. Lie. My objection to the tactics used is the focus of the comic itself, specifically that Opera isn’t fully compliant with its own demands.
Yes, Opera is a much, much, much, much, much better browser than any version of Internet Explorer. Yes, of those three properties listed only one truly stands up to the litmus test at all once 9.5 comes out. However, the fact is that Opera is listing very specific requirements for how they feel Microsoft should act. One of those very specific requirements is the point #5 I have in this post, and the key text in there is “described in a publicly available specification”. Nothing there indicates the stability of the specification, or the preexistence of a property in a product prior to arriving in the specification, or any other qualifying factors. By Mr. Lie’s strict guidelines, if it’s in a publicly available spec and supported in two or more major browsers, it needs to be included.
The fact is, if you’re going to hold Microsoft to compulsive behavior on how to design their product, you need to hold yourselves to the exact same standards. Goodness knows I don’t use word-wrap. But if I did, I’d be annoyed that your browser, worked on by the father of CSS himself, doesn’t include it. Yes, every browser should equally support standards. Yes, Microsoft is abysmal at that and needs to be constantly egged along. I just feel that Opera doing it in the fashion they have, while missing details themselves, isn’t the right way to go about things, and ultimately generates more ill will than genuine benefits.
You are missing the point here.
Microsoft is guilty of abusing its monopoly power to prevent competition in the market. As such, it has to play by other rules than companies who are not in a monopoly position, and have certainly not abused such a position.
If Microsoft had not been convicted of using illegal means to abuse their position in order to prevent competition in the market, they would not have been forced to play by specific rules created to right the wrongs made by the monopoly abuser in the first place.
Opera is not a convicted monopolist. As such, there is no need to force Opera to follow the special rules of convicted monopolists in the market.
If Opera ever was in a position to abuse its monopoly power, then it would be useful to start talking about how Opera should follow these rules specifically for convicted monopolists. But as it is today, Opera is in no way impeding on competition in the market place. It isn’t even close to being able to manipulate the market the way Microsoft can due to its strong market share.
Opera’s complaint to the EU asserts that Microsoft has engaged in activities in the market that impedes competition. If the EU finds Opera’s assertion to be correct, then Microsoft should indeed, by law, be required to follow special rules for convicted monopolists which Opera would not be forced to follow because it is not in Microsoft’s position.
Opera isn’t saying that all other browsers should be forced to follow specific rules it does not have to follow itself. It is saying that a monopolist abusing its market share to prevent competition should be forced to follow those rules.
Rob,
First, thanks for speaking up!
I agree that Microsoft is in a different market position than Opera, so is victim to certain burdens. I agree with Mr. Lie’s point that Microsoft should in fact be required to keep up with standards. I’m not missing his key point that Opera feels Microsoft should be compelled due to its market position.
I get it.
However, my issue is that an interoperable web isn’t dependent upon just the monopolists keeping up with standards, and therefore it shouldn’t just be Microsoft that’s held to the standard. It’s about all the browser vendors keeping up. By and large Opera is one of the most standards-compliant browsers in the market. However, Opera hasn’t kept up with implementing certain CSS properties, despite some of them being in the wild for years now. I believe that despite Opera’s relatively small market share, they should be concentrating more on implementing those missing features and leading by example, rather than being preachy with political/legal/showboating maneuvers.
In particular, where’s my RGBA colors? Focus on that, please. People that make websites will be more grateful for that than they are for several dozen columns in newspapers where Mr. Lie reminds us all where Microsoft falls short.
Whether Opera should implement new stuff sooner is completely unrelated to the Microsoft complaint, other than the fact that having to spend all that time on being compatible with MSIE flaws to work on the web takes away time from implementing proper standards.
Let me emphasize that again: Microsoft is likely a part of (if not the main) reason for Opera not having time to implement more of upcoming standards, since Opera is forced to mimic bugs and irregularities in IE in order to work on real web sites.
Thus, if the complaint is successful, Opera will in fact have a lot more time and resources to implement those cool things you so crave.
You should be supporting Opera’s complaint, and you should hope that it goes through and that Microsoft is forced to play nice, so that Opera can free up resources to improve support for open web standards.
You are here People who want better compatibility with real web sites are here.
Opera is stuck in the middle. With a certain amount of resources, it has to balance implementing cool stuff, and getting real sites that rely on IE garbage working. Sites that don’t work is one of the main complaints you see when reading the forums at my.opera.com.
This was broken. Le me try again:
You are here {——— Opera is here ———} People who want better compatibility with real web sites are here.
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