[WEB4LIB] browser and OS wars

[Paul Taylor]

Actually, such arguments overlook issues that go deeper than how a web page 
appears onscreen. Platform independence and open standards not only, as 
mentioned, open a site up to users of multiple systems, but also encourage 
non-proprietary systems (use whatever tool you want, the toolbox is open to 
ya), and don't penalize users who wish to avoid platforms with proven and 
notorious security holes. While this may seem a superfluous argument over 
ephemera, when you utilize proprietary standards, you give security authority 
to the private maker and not the public user. The trend, currently, is toward 
intrusive measures, enshrined in arcane, privacy-encroaching EULAs, which 
pose a real threat to user security--especially when such system makers are 
going all-out to be information repositories for credit card information, 
social security numbers, etc. 

As responsible netizens, especially given our implicit duty as library staff 
to protect personal information and intellectual activities, I feel it is 
imperative that we discourage the use of systems which, although ubiquitous 
and zealously marketed, are designed to feed the personal information 
appetites of megacorporations at the very real expense of end users who, in 
all honesty, are more often than not ignorant of the EULAs we click through 
during installation, as well as of other, less obvious threats to personal 
security, which are inherent in proprietary systems.

-Paul


On Tuesday 06 August 2002 02:05 pm, dan wrote:
> Hey Guys,
>
> Can't we get beyond this same old "your browser and OS suck, you should use
> the one I do that rules the world and will feed starving children in its
> spare time"?
>
> As anyone knows who has been on this list for more than two weeks, and as
> was made clear in Bill Drew's message, he's talking about an INSTITUTIONAL
> STANDARD.  I believe that all students have ThinkPads.  It is an MS campus.
>  You don't have to like it, but you do have to accept it.  Bitching,
> moaning, whining, and flaming won't change that, whether done by Bill or by
> list members.
>
> Then there are the throw away lines like "upgrading to Linux" which should
> be "changing to Linux" under any definition of the word "upgrading". 
> Personally, I don't care much for scrolling banners either, and don't see
> the necessity of flash on a library page, but each institution decides its
> own standards and its own purpose of the webpage.  Ours happens to be
> designed as a simple toolbox with no flash (and no Flash), using standard
> institutional colors and layout.  If I were in charge of the world is it
> how I would do it?  Not necessarily.  However, I'm just one committee
> member in a group that is oriented to simplicity and function and no flashy
> stuff or beautiful pictures.
>
> Does that make me right and Bill wrong?  Of course not.  It makes the old
> "different strokes for different folks" that most seem to have forgotten in
> the last decade or so.
>
> cheers
>
> dan

-- 
Paul Taylor
Computer Coordinator
Salem-South Lyon District Library
9800 Pontiac Trail
South Lyon, MI 48178

248-437-6431 phone
248-437-6593 fax
http://south-lyon.lib.mi.us