More on give us a break..Copyright office to require IE

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: August 12, 2005 10:51:59 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: Re: [IP] More on give us a break..Copyright office to  
require IE



Dave,

It doesn't really matter whether the issues causing the Copyright
Office to suggest "non-support" for now of anything except IE (and
apparently never supporting Opera or Safari) relate to major
functional operations or cosmetic display issues.

Once the decision has been made that only a certain browser or
browsers will be officially supported, and that use of any other
browsers may cause some level of problems (even if that's restricted
to people complaining about pixels the wrong color, as the author
below suggested) then it becomes rather likely that the decision
will be enforced programmatically at the site.

That is, there's a big difference between a site that mentions "Best
viewed with Internet Explorer at 800x600", vs. one that diverts you to
a page that says, "This site can *only* be viewed with Internet
Explorer Version 6 and above -- Update Your Browser! [link to
Microsoft browser download]".  The former is advisory, the latter is
compulsory.  (Yes, there are ways to fool Web sites into thinking
you're running a browser other than the one you're really on, but
most people don't know how to do this.)

Of course, none of us really know at this point which of these two
scenarios the Copyright Office really has in mind.  The wording of
the request for comments (at least they did that much, though the
deadline and submission requirements are inane) suggests an enforced
requirement to use IE (at least for now).  If it's actually instead
only advisory and the system will work in an acceptable way with
other browsers (even if the display is imperfect) then the situation
is still ridiculous, but somewhat less onerous.

The fundamental problem is that the Copyright Office, in this day
and age, should *not* be using back-end software that imposes any
sort of major browser restrictions on end-users.  After all, we're
talking about copyright application submissions, not a high-level
graphics package with complex 3-D display requirements.  No doubt
the Copyright Office and the vendor have a very nice relationship
and the software has proven to at least be useful in limited
contexts, but the resulting situation is unacceptable for the public.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () pfir org or lauren () vortex com or lauren () eepi org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
  - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, EEPI
  - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative - http://www.eepi.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com

 - - -


> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: bill-ip () carpenter ORG (WJCarpenter)
> Date: August 11, 2005 8:55:52 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: Ip Ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: RE: [IP] More on give us a break..Copyright office to
> require IE
>
>
> bp> This site gives more information on "Why IE" for the Copyright
...

> When a commercial product says it supports certain browsers, they
> definitely do get those kinds of support incidents.  It's a PITA and
> not very rewarding for folks who want to do the right thing HTML-wise
> in honoring substance over form.  It's also pretty expensive in
> support costs for the software vendor.
...


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