Re: [Auth]Re: Auth digest, Vol 1 #22 - 8 msgs

[Albert Scherbinsky]

OK, there are lots of good reasons for form filling software
vendors to cooperate around a standard. Why should they
cooperate with GNU/FreeDevelopers.net? Here is a quote from
the FreeDevelopers.net web site"

"Who is the enemy? 

Our enemy is the proprietary software companies and the
managers at the top of
those companies. These are the people that
disproportionately benefit from
perpetuating the system of proprietary developer servitude,
which results from
hiding the code. As Richard Stallman has said, hiding the
code divides and
disenfranchises the developers, thereby empowering the
proprietary software
companies as it weakens the developers. This cabal will
fight us furiously and to
the end." 

I don't think it is a stretch to say that this is not
entirely friendly to the software vendors. :(

Albert

Ron Burk wrote:
> 
> >
> >So, how do you convince the vendors to cooperate?
> 
> You never know until you talk to them, but I think it's
> strongly in their best interests. Passport is ultimately
> a threat to their product. Supporting standards is
> good for their products. To support everybody, they
> currently have to resort to ever-increasing degrees
> of hackery to figure out how to "automatically" talk
> to a web form that was never designed for programs
> to talk to (in fact, some sites actively try to code in
> a way that prevents form fillers from working). I figure
> there's a decent chance they will be happy to participate
> in forming a standard, and then supporting it. If this
> standard took off, that would let them spend more time
> adding new functionality to their products, and less
> time adding one more hack to work correctly with
> weird web page #248 (that's my guess, anyway).
> 
> It also may be easier for them if a third party approaches
> them about creating a standard. If someone with
> a competing product calls you and says "let's make
> a standard", you tend to suspect their motivation,
> but since dotGNU doesn't really want to be in the browser
> plug-in business, they may view the "intrusion"
> into their marketplace positively.
> 
> Ron Burk
> Windows Developer's Journal, www.wdj.com
> 
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