April 19, 2005

Dear Microsoft and Mozilla -- I have an idea that as crazy as it may sound, just might work really well for everyone involved: You, Us, Everybody, and maybe even a few of their pets

Hmmm... not sure where the pets comment came from but its too late to care. Heres the thing: back in the '96ish time frame you made this realization that much good would come if you pinched a few pennies from your change jar to help a then fledgling Apple, your long time nemisis, stay in business such that you could avoid -- you know what, while I have my ideas Im not going pretend I have even the slightest clue what the decisive factor was that caused a $150 million dollar investement that sent a shockwave of horror through the land of Mac yet for all intents and purposes was exactly what was needed to turn Apple around just enough to be able to rebuild itself -- and its done quite an amazing job of that... So let me ask you this... Could it be possible that another simple 150 could find its way into the funding account of Mozilla? Wait! Don't click that delete button from your news reader just yet...

...hear me out and in ten years from now, like Apple has done with iTunes for Windows, maybe we will find that this one simple gesture has found the good graces and will of this Rising Pheonix left from the Netsape Nemesis Act that so nicely replaced the now repealed Apple Armagedon Act of the late eighties, early nineties fame, building versions of software that actually use the CLI/FCL as the foundation for the platforms with -- wait, by then the last few percentage of platforms not able to run native CLI-based applications should all but be consumed by Mono/Novell and Apache, or, do I dare suggest even by a MS version of a cross-platform CLI? Maybe I shouldnt press my luck and just stick with something that I feel has a bit more staying power.

So hears the thing... The Apple Abolition Act of '96 was a nice gesture but no one really bought into the idea that this had anything to do with good will and everything to do with saving a billion a year Macintosh applications business, most of which came in the form of Office for the Mac. Now, nearly 10 years later a very happy and healthy Apple continues to drive these types of numbers if not more so if this was the only benefit that came of this then its safe to say that a 150 million dollar investment in '96 has brought in over 10 billion in sales that may have otherwise gone the way of the DoDo, a Next computer more likely to fill the void left by the missing Mac than would a PC, no matter who made the hardware... MacAddicts are not just fans nor even loyalists -- FANATICS would be a much more appropriate term to accurately describe a member of the Mac community -- Fanatics, Plain and Simple. But enough about those phreaks(here's to you Russ -- its all about the love :D) lets get on with this idea so ya'll can find yet one more reason to hate the very damn day you stumbled (actually, I tripped you -- sorry ;) my blog, wishing that you had taken that left turn instead of that right... then none of this would have ever happened (now click your heels two times Dorothy and this will all just go away -- with the help of some benzedrine of course, but away is away, right? :D

Ok! Heres the deal... by funding Mozilla you would find that you could ease back on IE7 a bit, focusing 100% on fixing the security issues and let the rest of the talent push forward with Longhorn development. While this wouldnt exactly save you any money its not going to cost you any either... but saving money isn't the concern... security is the concern and its the most important piece of the IE upgrade and in many ways would probably be plenty enough to keep your customer base safe and happy until such time as Longhorn can present a more complete and robust solution that can take full advantage of all that XAML has to offer. You had no plans until just a month or two ago to work on another IE version so its obvious that the browser market is not where you feel your energies are best spent. Thats perfect! Because Firefox fills in this void quite nicely. Think of how much better it would be if this dedicated team of Mozilla engineers were finally given a chance to properly fund the areas of the project that without being funded may never have a chance to be properly addresses as their is simply not enough time to do it all... that is unless that time came pre-paid from a caring and devoted Uncle Bill who is only looking out for the best interests of his Windows users... and Im not kidding... by doing this you WOULD be looking out for the best interests of your users and by doing so would probably save yourself enough paying Windows customers who are considering moving to Linux to jusatify the 150 expenditure alone and all by itself.

But thats just the start. By giving way to Firefox to take over the role of the (un)official Windows web browser you disperse of a business you havent had much interest in anyway and give way for a flood of happy and eager FF developers to begin developing extensions that tie directly into the the CLI and as such give them an instant and much needed boost in the development of robust and useful web-based applications. Please keep in mind that this would mean that this same luxury would happen for other platforms that have CLI-support such as Linux and OSX via Mono and Apache. But how is this a bad thing? You obviously took the standardization route for a reason and I can honestly say that I would call you a bold face liar if you hadn't considered the fact by doing this one simple act you were opening the doors WIDE OPEN for the OSS community to walk on in and begin the obviously HUGE effort to bring a Windows Class Library to a non-Windows kernel. I believe it was one of the most brilliant moves ever made, quite possibly the most brilliant act that Microsoft has ever conceived and followed through with, At some point the day will exist that an application written in C# or COmega or how 'bout even Java.NET ('cmon, we're smarter than that not to know that the lovey-dovey crap going on in front of the cameras means more than just trying to work out your differences -- I cant imagine that in this day and time that there could be a more lethal combination than to be able to take all thats great about Java and all thats great about C# and combine them together to make quite the little powerhouse tool box) by years end there will be at least a beta of a Java-1.5/6-to-CLI compiler and in the mean time we can begin the migration using IKVM -- pretty simple, huh? :)

Okay, quick review...

- Give the Mozilla folks 150mill
- Ensure that, like the Apple deal, this investment does not allow you the ability to define the exact direction of the Mozilla organization, nor Firefox directly.
- Focus on IE security only
- Reccommend that for web browsing the Firefox browser is your smartest choice for a standards-based web browser and that IE will continue to be your best choice if desirous to extend your applications from the web browser. We already know of AOL's plan to deliver a product that supports both browsers rendering engines in the same UI so if the idea of a hybrid browser product doesn't worry you then this should be a no brainer.
- As the release of Longhorn comes closer, open the IE source to a newly formed browser technology committee who would oversee the development of an integrated product that would keep existing IE-based applications running happily (and secure -- not suggesting a global opening of the source... just those who need to see it to bring this project to fruition -- I still believe that when it comes to platforms closed source is a lot harder to "pick" than is open) while at the same time allowing the Mozilla organization to expand the horizons of this hybrid browser to tie in XUL and all of the Mozilla components and make them a part of all the OS has to offer -- existig Moz apps continue to run and can be expanded into new areas via new development using any combination of supported .NET technologies.
- And the list goes on....

Come on MS think about giving it and Mozilla, think about accepting it. Nobody loses if something like this were to happen and the development world can stop focusing on what they can't do because its platform specific and instead what can't they do now that we were all strong enough to recognize how much good could become of this and as such mended the fences and began working for the same cause for once... its almost scary how much good would become of this...