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[Timothy Butler]

> There's a fact of life - when you're the 800 lb gorilla, no matter  
> what the situation, you can do pretty much what you want.  If you're  
> not the 800 lb gorilla, and you don't like what the 800 lb gorilla  
> does, then go do your own thing and quit complaining about it.

	Of course, on the Internet, Microsoft is down to about a 600 lb  
gorilla (272 kg for my friends east of the pond or north of the  
border), which means virtually every site that is half way well  
maintained at least is trying to move away from "defacto standards" to  
real standards. Facebook and all the other stylish, game changing  
sites that are determining what people are expecting in sites these  
days are too stylish to be fully associated with stodgy Internet  
Explorer. That's in large thanks to Firefox, but the combo of Firefox  
on the desktop and Safari/WebCore/KHTML on the desktop and phone is  
really potent for the future. Safari is already *the* dominant mobile  
web browser. Stuff other than Internet Explorer is cool.

	Web standards are cool, too. That's why Microsoft is breaking some  
compatibility with its past in IE 8, moving itself closer to web  
standards. When that happens, those who listened to us "radicals" can  
pat themselves on the back. Those who said, "but, but, but, defacto!  
defacto! defacto!" Can go "recode! recode! recode!"

	The winds are changing. Microsoft even seems to have ceded to ODF.

	-Tim

PS: You'll notice I have always referred to Microsoft properly as  
well, or in a neutral fashion (e.g. MS). However, if Fred ever did so,  
the apocalypse would commence, I'm quite sure. It'd be like switching  
to New Coke or something. "New Fred." May it never be!

---
Timothy R. Butler | "Bad is so bad, that we cannot but think good
Editor, OfB.biz   | an accident;  good is so  good, that  we feel
tbutler at ofb.biz   | certain that evil could be explained."
timothybutler.us  |                           -- G. K. Chesterton