In part one of that series I lamented Microsoft’s unwillingness to conform to web standards and the stifling effect that has on web innovation. I suggested two possible solutions: a paradigm shift (such as a move towards Rich World Wide Web Applications) that makes it easier to deploy alternate runtimes without having to convince the user to switch browsers, or the use of ActiveX to integrate new web standards into World Wide Web Explorer in spite of Microsoft. Yesterday Opera announced that it was adopting a third approach: sue the bastards.

It’s hard not to feel sympathetic to Opera’s cause. IE boasts a considerable majority of web users not through intrinsic merit but as a direct conclusion of Window’s dominance. Like any market leader, Microsoft has the most to lose from browser interoperability, so it’s dug in its heels and refused to support fully standards such as CSS, JavaScript 2 and HTML 5. The main losers are not just browser vendors like Opera and Mozilla but anyone who uses the web, since much-needed improvement in web application infrastructure is massively hampered when the space’s two ton gorilla (with around 80% market share) refuses to play along.

Nonetheless, Opera’s tactics are problematic. First of all, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the litigation is at least partially a ploy on Opera’s part to garner publicity for its browser. Their CTO, Håkon Wium Lie, categorically denies this, but phrases like the following are bound to raise suspicions:

Opera has enlarged held the position of innovator in the Web browser market, having introduced and pioneered features like tabbed browsing, Speed Dial, integrated search bar, mouse gestures, Opera Linkâ„¢ and many others.

I

have the greatest respect for Opera’s engineering prowess, and Håkon is a brilliant and genuinely nice guy. (Not to mention that he sports a cool little circle by his first name. Where can I get me one of those?) But even whether there was no malice intended, it might have been a good concept to tone down the chest-thumping a bit in order to avoid a potential backlash from mean-spirited cynics like yours truly.

More critically, Mary Jo Foley is absolutely exact in pointing out that we don’t want the European Commission deciding what’s a proper web standard and what isn’t. The main web standards consortium, the W3C, doesn’t form real standards at all considering it has no official standing. Instead it issues “recommendations”. There is thus no objective basis for deciding which technologies a browser vendor is supposed to support. As frustrating as that can sometimes be, we have to let the market build that determination.

Perhaps Opera will win its case and Microsoft will be forced to offer an IE-free Windows. that wouldn’t bother me one whit. But even were that to come to pass, I’m not certain how much it would achieve. Both Firefox and Opera are free and could easily be bundled by hardware OEMs today whether they felt that would offer them a competitive advantage. In fact, I predicted that would happen back in January 2006, and I’ve been sorely disappointed (for reasons I don’t entirely grasp). Microsoft’s intransigence is undeniably a durable nut to crack, but I’m not certain that litigation is the reply.

Original post by Matt