Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Copyright Office poll: IE-only OK?

What?!? Insanity...

Paul Festa writes in C|Net News:

Signaling a new addition to the list of browser-specific Web sites, the U.S. Copyright Office solicited opinions on a planned Internet Explorer-only zone.

The office, a division of the Library of Congress, invited comments through Aug. 22 on an upcoming Web service for prospective copyright owners that may launch with support for only limited browsers.

"At this point in the process of developing the Copyright Office's system for online preregistration, it is not entirely clear whether the system will be compatible with Web browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.1 and higher," the office said in its notice. "In order to ensure that preregistration can be implemented in a smoothly functioning and timely manner, the office now seeks comments that will assist it in determining whether any eligible parties will be prevented from preregistering a claim due to browser requirements of the preregistration system."

The Copyright Office's request for comments goes to the heart of the battle over Web market share and Web standards. Web standards advocates have long argued that inconsistencies in the way browser makers implement standards--that is, W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recommendations--force Web developers to write different pages for individual browsers. Another concern is that Web page and application developers have to perform quality assurance testing multiple times for different browsers.

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