Who Questions Bill Gates Commitment to Web Standards?

As the comments say ... Go Molly!

You know though, I've never really seen the problem as being with standards, but with all the bugs and not fixing them.

I took issue with Molly's introduction to her first question. How can IE7 be taken as anything but a minor bug fix revision? The user interface changes may be a fairly big improvement from the user standpoint, but slapping a coat of paint on a dilapidated structure is not worthy of a full revision up tick—not for the standards oriented development community she claims to represent.

cheers,

gary

Molly's been quite pro-IE7 from what I can gather from what I've read. She's also come in for some severe stick about that which prompted Bruce Lawson to write a post telling the haters to STFU.

http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/design/the-battle-for-web-standards
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/index.php/2005/criticising-molly/
http://www.molly.com/2005/07/29/standard-me-and-ie/

I think you need to be careful about "over evangelising" standards. Part of the development of w3c standards involves a significant percentage of the "user-agents" implementing a particular feature. That in itself implies their evolving nature. In part they seek to standardise what is itself already in practice, in part they try to propose "good" ideas which will carry forward if they are actually implemented.

I don't mind a software package doing what it says it does. If Microsoft decides not to implement certain things that is their choice. If other browsers do implement those things and because of that Microsoft sees its own browser lose market penetration it may changes its mind.

As Bill says in Molly's piece. They are committed to standards - the ones they like. They'll like CSS standards more and more, the greater the penetration of Opera and Firefox. Now that both will be available on mobile devices, it'll may well not be long before IE is a minority browser.

I hate that argument. A standard, if it's to be taken seriously, should be an all or nothing thing. You won't see people in any other profession getting accreditation from their governing body if they just pick and choose to fulfil the criteria they like. You don't get your driver's licence, a dive certificate etc by just doing the bits you like.
Maybe web development and its standards are not in the same category as other professions but I don't believe a standard is a standard if you can just pick & choose or make up your own bits.

The trouble with Standardsin this industry is that to a certain extent the standards will always be following after development and as such you will never have a truly standardized industry, that is just contrary to the whole ethos.

It is as Chris said important not to get totally hung up on evangelizing Standards, like it or not we have to remember that any company has the right to develop apps/protocols if they are popular and wanted by the masses then they may well become enshrined as a standard but until that point they are seen to be bucking the established standards. We mustn't forget that MS have contributed a fair amount to what are now part of standards.

As for Mr Lawson defending Ms Holzschlag in such a vehement manner, well I tend to think that Ms holzshlag has tended to bring criticism upon herself, and to say IE7 has been a great leap forward is just a comical statement and one cant help but think born of the fact that Ms Holzschlag was responsible (iirc)for joining the WaSP with MS to promote and develop standards.