Hacker News Reader

Comment by forkqueue | Hacker News Reader

Who benefits from IE9 being available for other platforms?

Not users. What would the ability to run IE9 add to the Linux or Mac desktop? Another web browser? Do we really need one?

Not Microsoft, who would have to invest massive amounts of effort into porting it, and large parts of the Windows codebase too.

Honestly, I wonder if the author of this article was deliberately trying to think of something to criticise about IE9, and this was the best he could do.

For non-web developers who use non-Windows operating systems, IE9 is an irrelevance. For web developers who use any operating system, IE9 has to be a good thing, because it means more browsers out there that are closer to the standards.

View on HN

Hey ! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

I'm sad that you think I was trying to come up with something - I just wrote about this strange (but honnest !) feeling I got, as people talking in nice terms about IE hasn't happenned in a while.

In fact I don't think I'm criticizing IE itself at all.

Perhaps I could re-phrase my point more simply: I don't think IE 9's standards support means "the web wins" in the long run, since IE is still tied to Windows for strategic reasons.

You're of course right that it's a good thing for web devs right now, though.

That's what standards support is, it means that you can use IE9 on Windows and Opera on Linux and sites will still work and look the same. It makes no sense at all to say "IE9 is Windows-only so Microsoft can lock users in" when IE9 is standards compliant and any site built for IE9 will work the exact same way on Linux.

I don't think your argument makes any sense, sorry. If you were talking about IE6, I'd agree, but standards compliance means never having to use the exact same browser for anything.

OK, but you still never really answered the question. What's the benefit of having IE available to other platforms? How does say, a Mac user, benefit from having IE9 available for download to them over Safari?

Simple enough isn't it?

They don't benefit now from using it over Safari. They benefit from it just as a promise from MS that they won't screw up the web just to sell more Windows PCs. As long as it's relatively easy to obtain IE for Mac, it's not a useful tool to sabotage the standards in a platform lock-in grab.

However, I agree with you that it seems totally unrealistic to expect MS to do this. Not because they're evil, but just because why bother?

"I don't think IE 9's standards support means "the web wins" in the long run, since IE is still tied to Windows for strategic reasons."

So what? How is the Web threatened or at risk or even _impacted at all_ by IE9 being Windows-only? With IE9 supporting standards so thoroughly, it very directly means that IE9 being Windows-only doesn't make a lick of difference anymore.

The game for the Web is standards. With all major browsers supporting standards, browser and platform themselves are irrelevant factors for the Web to prosper as a platform and a medium.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com