[Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
As someone who writes css, I am particularly frightened by IE7. And I can imagine there are a lot of frontend developers and staff out there who spend significant time on fixing things for this niche audience, when they could be working on more constructive things. I came across this service today which has started to levy a a surcharge on IE7 users [1] and it got me thinking. 6% of wikimedia project page views are from IE6/7 - because of the following: - IE6 ships default with XP - Legal users with SP2+ can upgrade to IE8 - If you have 90s era hardware, no SP for you. Can only be solved by buying some new hardware (or switching to linux) - IT admins who dont know much about IT and have kept the workforce hostage through their ignorance. Can be solved if the workforce and boss demands it. - People new to computers and are not really sure how to use the mouse. They need to be told IE7 is bad and how to upgrade - Those without an internet connection. Can be solved by not using the internet. - IE7/mspaint hipsters. No solution. As one of the most visited places on the internet, it is probably in the best interests of the planet that we decide its no longer worthwhile to support this fallen angel. Maybe it time to start showing a notice to IE7 users that their days are numbered and wikipedia may no longer work as expected unless they move forward in their lives. It has to happen some day, so why not now and save the internet a lot of pain and suffering? [1] http://www.kogan.com/au/blog/new-internet-explorer-7-tax/ -- j.mp/ArunGanesh ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
Hi, If you didn't take the Arun Ganesh's proposition seriously, you can ignore this mail. On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:21 PM, Arun Ganesh wrote: > As someone who writes css, I am particularly frightened by IE7. And I can > imagine there are a lot of frontend developers and staff out there who > spend significant time on fixing things for this niche audience, when they > could be working on more constructive things. I came across this service > today which has started to levy a a surcharge on IE7 users [1] and it got > me thinking. > > (...) > > As one of the most visited places on the internet, it is probably in the > best interests of the planet that we decide its no longer worthwhile to > support this fallen angel. Maybe it time to start showing a notice to IE7 > users that their days are numbered and wikipedia may no longer work as > expected unless they move forward in their lives. It has to happen some > day, so why not now and save the internet a lot of pain and suffering? Our mission isn't to "save the internet a lot of pain and suffering". The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.". I don't know if there are mission statement for the Wikimedia tech or the MediaWiki developers communities, but I don't think to improve some developers comfort pushing so strongly issues like not supporting a product help DIRECTLY our objectives WITHOUT BREAKING OTHER OBJECTIVES (like for the WMF, "to disseminate [the educational content] effectively and GLOBALLY"). I fear this GLOBALLY includes the 1.5-5% IE7 marketshare. -- Best Regards, Sébastien Santoro aka Dereckson http://www.dereckson.be/ ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 9:21 PM, Arun Ganesh wrote: > > Maybe it time to start showing a notice to IE7 > users that their days are numbered and wikipedia may no longer work as > expected unless they move forward in their lives. It has to happen some > day, so why not now and save the internet a lot of pain and suffering? Unfortunately this is only going to encourage people to downgrade to IE6 :) -- Stephen Bain stephen.b...@gmail.com ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 7:21 AM, Arun Ganesh wrote: > As one of the most visited places on the internet, it is probably in the > best interests of the planet that we decide its no longer worthwhile to > support this fallen angel. Maybe it time to start showing a notice to IE7 > users that their days are numbered and wikipedia may no longer work as > expected unless they move forward in their lives. It has to happen some > day, so why not now and save the internet a lot of pain and suffering? > Absolutely not. We have debated the "show notice to broken browsers" thing multiple times--and the answer is always "it's annoying as hell when sites do it and it's not our place to do so." The stance on "supporting crappy old browsers" has largely over time turned into--continue supporting all browsers with at least 1% of our readers (roughly,I don't believe that number's ever been set in stone). Once they are less than 1%, continue supporting unless it's a burden to do so and/or makes support for newer browsers impossible. And lastly, never purposefully break a browser if you can help it. -Chad ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
> > Absolutely not. We have debated the "show notice to broken browsers" > thing multiple times--and the answer is always "it's annoying as hell > when sites do it and it's not our place to do so." > > The stance on "supporting crappy old browsers" has largely over time > turned into--continue supporting all browsers with at least 1% of our > readers (roughly,I don't believe that number's ever been set in stone). > Once they are less than 1%, continue supporting unless it's a burden > to do so and/or makes support for newer browsers impossible. And lastly, > never purposefully break a browser if you can help it. Chad, in a couple of years when this number does touch 1%, would there be a notification for users of such browsers beforehand? I expect there might be some sort of alert, so that the unsuspecting users are aware that the problem might be the browser and not the website. So you would still have something annoying, but seen by 1% rather than the 6% today. My main point of contention is that the number of people using IE7 without an alternative option is minuscule and with some awareness, the current 6% number would touch 1% sooner than later, which is a good thing for both developers as well as users. On the other hand, the developers can continue to spend effort at backward compatibility for browsers that do not work as they should. And there will continue to be users of such browsers, because everything seems to work fine for them. Is it worth sustaining this cycle longer than it needs to be? PS: I will admit, I am a newbie here and probably missed the most exciting IE7 threads :) I'd appreciate if you could link me to the archives off-list so I can read up everyone's arguments. My selfish interest in this is less time spent to check compatibility and more to try out new stuff. -- j.mp/ArunGanesh ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Arun Ganesh wrote: 6% of wikimedia project page views are from IE6/7 - because of the > following: > - IE6 ships default with XP > - Legal users with SP2+ can upgrade to IE8 > - If you have 90s era hardware, no SP for you. Can only be solved by buying > some new hardware (or switching to linux) > - IT admins who dont know much about IT and have kept the workforce hostage > through their ignorance. Can be solved if the workforce and boss demands > it. I'd like to reframe these examples. First, as I understand it, most IE6/IE7 users globally are running pirated versions of Windows. For financial or political reasons, they will not or can not acquire legal versions and thus can't upgrade their browsers. Second is certain types of Enterprise shops. Before I was hired at WMF, I worked for a company that processes complex financial records for pharmacies participating in a US federal program that reimburses pharmacies for the cost of drugs prescribed for indigent patients. Well over 50% of our users were on IE6/7. This was for two reasons: one is that these pharmacies are in the business of selling drugs, and IT is only a tiny part of their operation. Second is that with millions and millions of dollars passing through a system regulated by HIPAA and other laws, the risk of upgrading is seen as higher than the risk of using old tech. I don't think we can dismiss IE6/7 users cavalierly. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
>Second is certain types of Enterprise shops. Before I was hired at WMF, >I worked for a company that processes complex financial records for >pharmacies participating in a US federal program that reimburses >pharmacies for the cost of drugs prescribed for indigent patients. Well over 50% of >our users were on IE6/7. This was for two reasons: one is that these >pharmacies are in the business of selling drugs, and IT is only a tiny >part of their operation. Second is that with millions and millions of dollars >passing through a system regulated by HIPAA and other laws, > the risk of upgrading is seen as higher than the risk of using old tech. I can second this. I used to work for a Credit Union and we made extensive use of IE7. It wasn't that we in the IT department liked IE7, it was just that the cost of replacing the interface our tellers and MSR worked with was too high to justify the change. Someone ages ago had decided that the best way to build the GUI version of the teller interface was to use ActiveX in Internet Explorer. Thank you, Derric Atzrott Computer Specialist Alizee Pathology ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Chris McMahon wrote: > On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Arun Ganesh wrote: > > 6% of wikimedia project page views are from IE6/7 - because of the >> following: >> - IE6 ships default with XP >> - Legal users with SP2+ can upgrade to IE8 >> - If you have 90s era hardware, no SP for you. Can only be solved by buying >> some new hardware (or switching to linux) >> - IT admins who dont know much about IT and have kept the workforce hostage >> through their ignorance. Can be solved if the workforce and boss demands >> it. > > > I'd like to reframe these examples. > > First, as I understand it, most IE6/IE7 users globally are running pirated > versions of Windows. For financial or political reasons, they will not or > can not acquire legal versions and thus can't upgrade their browsers. No, I'm pretty sure that's not true at all. Even if they are running a pirated version they can still update their browsers. -- John ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
>No, I'm pretty sure that's not true at all. Even if they are running a pirated version they can still update their browsers. Not sure about Internet Explorer 8, but as of October 2007, you don't need a genuine copy of Windows XP to move from IE6 to IE7. [1] I'm not sure when they made this change, but it appears that you may also download IE8 without having a genuine copy of Windows these days [2]. [1] https://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2007/10/04/internet-explorer-7-update.as px?Redirected=true [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43 ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On 14.06.2012, 18:20 Derric wrote: >>No, I'm pretty sure that's not true at all. Even if they are running a > pirated version they can still update their browsers. > Not sure about Internet Explorer 8, but as of October 2007, you don't need a > genuine copy of Windows XP to move from IE6 to IE7. [1] > I'm not sure when they made this change, but it appears that you may also > download IE8 without having a genuine copy of Windows these days [2]. > [1] > https://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2007/10/04/internet-explorer-7-update.as > px?Redirected=true > [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43 Furthermore, whatever Windows you have or whether you paid for it or not, there are lots of free browsers that are much better than even newest IE anyway. But in any case, we must not annoy any significant part of our audience. -- Best regards, Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]]) ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
2012/6/14 Max Semenik : > Furthermore, whatever Windows you have or whether you paid for it or > not, there are lots of free browsers that are much better than even > newest IE anyway. +1. > But in any case, we must not annoy any significant > part of our audience. We are site number 5 in popularity, more or less. We are talking about annoying less than 10% of our audience, and for pretty good reasons: giving them a faster and more secure web, and saving ourselves time, effort, money and mental health. Google, which is the number 1 site in popularity, is annoying over 60% of its audience with a Google Chrome advertisement right at the top of http://www.google.com . Google is giving this to all versions of IE and Firefox. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote: > 2012/6/14 Max Semenik : >> But in any case, we must not annoy any significant >> part of our audience. > > We are site number 5 in popularity, more or less. We are talking about > annoying less than 10% of our audience, and for pretty good reasons: > giving them a faster and more secure web, and saving ourselves time, > effort, money and mental health. > 10% of our audience is still a huge number of people. Hell, so is 5%. We don't know their reasons for using an older browser--maybe Grandpa is still using his Compaq from 2001, maybe you work at a company like other people have alluded to. Maybe someone's just crazy and likes IE6/7. I think you're horribly exaggerating the effort and mental health expense required to maintain these browsers. > Google, which is the number 1 site in popularity, is annoying over 60% > of its audience with a Google Chrome advertisement right at the top of > http://www.google.com . Google is giving this to all versions of IE > and Firefox. > That's their prerogative--they're trying to sell a product. I personally think IE6/7 users would be better served by ditching IE entirely--preferably to a WebKit-based browser. Others might suggest Firefox. Others would say to grab the latest IE. There's even some weird kids who might suggest moving to Opera ;-) We should not implicitly advertising any browsers. -Chad ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
>That's their prerogative--they're trying to sell a product. >I personally think IE6/7 users would be better served by >ditching IE entirely--preferably to a WebKit-based browser. >Others might suggest Firefox. Others would say to grab >the latest IE. There's even some weird kids who might >suggest moving to Opera ;-) >We should not implicitly advertising any browsers. Not to get off topic, but to throw it out there, we can avoid the problem of not recommending any particular browser in a method similar to Microsoft. [1] Of course, that begins to get into more work than is reasonably needed for this. While I'll be the first to say that people really ought to not use IE7 at this point, I agree that asking them not to isn't really our decision, especially considering the mission statement of the Wikimedia Foundation, as mentioned earlier. If it turns out there is something significant that we can't do because we must support IE7, then I'll be all about dropping support for it in order to move forward. But without a very good reason, I don't think that is the best way to go; at the very least we should wait for their usage to go down. 5% of ">2500 per second" [2] is still quite a number of readers. Thank you, Derric Atzrott [1] http://www.browserchoice.eu/BrowserChoice/browserchoice_en.htm [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_in_figures_-_Wikipedia ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Chad wrote: > Absolutely not. We have debated the "show notice to broken browsers" > thing multiple times--and the answer is always "it's annoying as hell > when sites do it and it's not our place to do so." > > The stance on "supporting crappy old browsers" has largely over time > turned into--continue supporting all browsers with at least 1% of our > readers (roughly,I don't believe that number's ever been set in stone). > Once they are less than 1%, continue supporting unless it's a burden > to do so and/or makes support for newer browsers impossible. And lastly, > never purposefully break a browser if you can help it. Just to give some data: Looking at May, this 1% limit would mean supporting the following browser versions (May 2012 data): * Chrome 18.0 and 19.0 * MSIE 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0 * Firefox 3.6, 11.0 and 12.0 * Safari 534.55 (desktop), 6533.18 and 7534.48 (iOS) * Opera 11.62 and 11.64 * Safari 533.1 (Android browser) Furthermore, the following have no version at or over 1%, but do get there or at least near when all versions are combined: * Opera Mini * WikipediaMobile (our own mobile app) * BlackBerry browser * Apple PubSub (rss reader) -- André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
Yes, Microsoft was great when they made IE 6, but when IE 7 came out, Microsoft killed the Internet star. I mean, HTML 5? What? I read a book that said after HTML 4.01, it would be XHTML 1.0, XHTML 1.1 ... not HTML 5! Tyler Z On Thu, 14 Jun 2012 20:45:20 +0200, Andre Engels wrote: >On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Chad wrote: > >>Absolutely not. We have debated the "show notice to broken browsers" >>thing multiple times--and the answer is always "it's annoying as hell >>when sites do it and it's not our place to do so." >> >>The stance on "supporting crappy old browsers" has largely over time >>turned into--continue supporting all browsers with at least 1% of our >>readers (roughly,I don't believe that number's ever been set in stone). >>Once they are less than 1%, continue supporting unless it's a burden >>to do so and/or makes support for newer browsers impossible. And lastly, >>never purposefully break a browser if you can help it. > >Just to give some data: Looking at May, this 1% limit would mean >supporting the following browser versions (May 2012 data): > >* Chrome 18.0 and 19.0 >* MSIE 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0 >* Firefox 3.6, 11.0 and 12.0 >* Safari 534.55 (desktop), 6533.18 and 7534.48 (iOS) >* Opera 11.62 and 11.64 >* Safari 533.1 (Android browser) > >Furthermore, the following have no version at or over 1%, but do get >there or at least near when all versions are combined: >* Opera Mini >* WikipediaMobile (our own mobile app) >* BlackBerry browser >* Apple PubSub (rss reader) > >-- >André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com > >___ >Wikitech-l mailing list >Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org >https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
You do know we still support IE6 right? We should probably discuss dropping IE6 support before IE7 :) Ryan Kaldari On Jun 14, 2012, at 11:45 AM, Andre Engels wrote: > On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Chad wrote: > >> Absolutely not. We have debated the "show notice to broken browsers" >> thing multiple times--and the answer is always "it's annoying as hell >> when sites do it and it's not our place to do so." >> >> The stance on "supporting crappy old browsers" has largely over time >> turned into--continue supporting all browsers with at least 1% of our >> readers (roughly,I don't believe that number's ever been set in stone). >> Once they are less than 1%, continue supporting unless it's a burden >> to do so and/or makes support for newer browsers impossible. And lastly, >> never purposefully break a browser if you can help it. > > Just to give some data: Looking at May, this 1% limit would mean > supporting the following browser versions (May 2012 data): > > * Chrome 18.0 and 19.0 > * MSIE 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0 > * Firefox 3.6, 11.0 and 12.0 > * Safari 534.55 (desktop), 6533.18 and 7534.48 (iOS) > * Opera 11.62 and 11.64 > * Safari 533.1 (Android browser) > > Furthermore, the following have no version at or over 1%, but do get > there or at least near when all versions are combined: > * Opera Mini > * WikipediaMobile (our own mobile app) > * BlackBerry browser > * Apple PubSub (rss reader) > > -- > André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com > > ___ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
I agree with Chris and Derric here; at least in the "western world", a large percentage of IE7 users have not upgraded for "Enterprise" reasons. Many of these enterprises use proprietary software that is written for IE7, and upgrading to the IE9 versions can be cost-prohibitive. Often by waiting another couple of years, the cost of the upgrade will drop to the level that is acceptable to the organization (or alternately they can make a better business case because support drops for the older versions or other critical changes are being held back). My own employer is in this situation, and until they figured out how to add Firefox accessibility to the VPN, I had to keep IE7 on one of my home computers for those occasions when I work off-site. Risker ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
Another approach to consider for IE6/7 users is where it makes sense ship a stylesheet which hides everything other than the content. I believe Wikipedia should be accessible to all regardless of their browser choices. Here is the IE6 one for those who haven't seen it - there is also an IE7 equivalent somewhere. code: http://code.google.com/p/universal-ie6-css/ demo: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/content/demo/2009/05/21/forabeautifulweb.html On 14 Jun 2012 06:57, "Chris McMahon" wrote: > On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 5:21 AM, Arun Ganesh >wrote: > > 6% of wikimedia project page views are from IE6/7 - because of the > > following: > > - IE6 ships default with XP > > - Legal users with SP2+ can upgrade to IE8 > > - If you have 90s era hardware, no SP for you. Can only be solved by > buying > > some new hardware (or switching to linux) > > - IT admins who dont know much about IT and have kept the workforce > hostage > > through their ignorance. Can be solved if the workforce and boss demands > > it. > > > I'd like to reframe these examples. > > First, as I understand it, most IE6/IE7 users globally are running pirated > versions of Windows. For financial or political reasons, they will not or > can not acquire legal versions and thus can't upgrade their browsers. > > Second is certain types of Enterprise shops. Before I was hired at WMF, I > worked for a company that processes complex financial records for > pharmacies participating in a US federal program that reimburses pharmacies > for the cost of drugs prescribed for indigent patients. Well over 50% of > our users were on IE6/7. This was for two reasons: one is that these > pharmacies are in the business of selling drugs, and IT is only a tiny part > of their operation. Second is that with millions and millions of dollars > passing through a system regulated by HIPAA and other laws, the risk of > upgrading is seen as higher than the risk of using old tech. > > I don't think we can dismiss IE6/7 users cavalierly. > ___ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Jon Robson wrote: > Another approach to consider for IE6/7 users is where it makes sense ship a > stylesheet which hides everything other than the content. I believe > Wikipedia should be accessible to all regardless of their browser choices. > This is basically what we did for Netscape 4 when we gave up supporting it back in the day. We switched the style loads so they wouldn't load any skin CSS on Netscape 4, giving you the raw Monobook skin layout. Not pretty, but still functional. :) On 14 Jun 2012 06:57, "Chris McMahon" wrote: > > Second is certain types of Enterprise shops. Before I was hired at WMF, > I > > worked for a company that processes complex financial records for > > pharmacies participating in a US federal program that reimburses > pharmacies > > for the cost of drugs prescribed for indigent patients. Well over 50% of > > our users were on IE6/7. This was for two reasons: one is that these > > pharmacies are in the business of selling drugs, and IT is only a tiny > part > > of their operation. Second is that with millions and millions of dollars > > passing through a system regulated by HIPAA and other laws, the risk of > > upgrading is seen as higher than the risk of using old tech. > My experience has tended to be that folks have two browsers in such environments -- the IE 6/7 for "work stuff" and Chrome or Firefox for "other stuff" (Facebook, Youtube ;) -- brion ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
Max Semenik wrote: > But in any case, we must not annoy any significant part of our audience. Let's put that in a sitenotice. :-) MZMcBride ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:18:47 -0700, Risker wrote: I agree with Chris and Derric here; at least in the "western world", a large percentage of IE7 users have not upgraded for "Enterprise" reasons. Many of these enterprises use proprietary software that is written for IE7, and upgrading to the IE9 versions can be cost-prohibitive. Often by waiting another couple of years, the cost of the upgrade will drop to the level that is acceptable to the organization (or alternately they can make a better business case because support drops for the older versions or other critical changes are being held back). My own employer is in this situation, and until they figured out how to add Firefox accessibility to the VPN, I had to keep IE7 on one of my home computers for those occasions when I work off-site. Risker I do have to mention something on this whole topic. All these arguments seem to focus on saying that that IE6/7 should be supported because enterprises are dependent on out of date software and can't update. This line of thought completely ignores the fact that upgrading isn't even the only option... the possibilities of simply installing a second browser for web browsing and only opening IE for internal systems (pretend the page sitting in IE is an app and use shortcuts) or installing chrome frame. Given that fact arguments that enterprises "can't and should be enabled" rather than "just wont and should be ignored" feels rather flimsy. -- ~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://daniel.friesen.name] ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
- d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
Daniel Friesen wrote: > I do have to mention something on this whole topic. All these arguments > seem to focus on saying that that IE6/7 should be supported because > enterprises are dependent on out of date software and can't update. > This line of thought completely ignores the fact that upgrading isn't even > the only option... the possibilities of simply installing a second browser > for web browsing and only opening IE for internal systems (pretend the > page sitting in IE is an app and use shortcuts) or installing chrome frame. > Given that fact arguments that enterprises "can't and should be enabled" > rather than "just wont and should be ignored" feels rather flimsy. Brion made the same argument already in this thread. It's not a particularly bad argument, though it seems to miss the fact that if your company or organization is strict/senseless enough to require you to use IE6 or IE7 every day, they've probably also disabled the ability to install new applications on your workstation. MZMcBride ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
Daniel Friesen wrote: > IT departments need to start maintaining their computers and employees > need to start demanding that the computers they work with are kept to > modern standards. > People keep bringing up legacy apps as a reason that IT departments > cannot give employees a properly maintained browser environment. > But as I explained that's BS because there are other options than simply > upgrading IE. The argument that it would be confusing to employees is > also BS because that's easily covered by making everyone use > Firefox/Chrome/etc... for all web browsing and placing shortcuts on the > desktop that open up pages in IE to make it look like the internal > systems are apps rather than websites. Well, that or using chrome frame. > So basically this boils it down to pointing it out that the arguments > saying that a proper browsing environment "can't" be provided is BS. And > this is not something they can't do, it's just something they won't. > Which is a case we should not be catering to and enabling. Right... well, again, just like the OP, you're focusing on how you feel the world should be while completely ignoring reality. It's not a matter of catering to obstinate IT folks. It's a matter of being pragmatic about the current landscape and its limitations. MZMcBride ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On 14 June 2012 20:49, Tyler wrote: > Yes, Microsoft was great when they made IE 6, but when IE 7 came out, > Microsoft killed > the Internet star. I mean, HTML 5? What? I read a book that said after HTML > 4.01, it would > be XHTML 1.0, XHTML 1.1 ... not HTML 5! I recommend you learn a thing or two about HTML's history, and how XHTML 1.0 and 1.1 (as well as 2.0) was a mistake. XHTML was an attempt to make sure to use strict XML for the HTML, which would create easier parsing. Unfortunately, no one actually did what was required; *serve* as XML, which meant the browsers would still quirk parse it. Now, of course, if you serve as XML, the browsers will parse it as XML and then break if there is a syntax error. But XML also does not support most HTML entities, so there is a problem right there. But the parsing is likely to be faster. HTML5 was create in protest against the slow progress to a new HTML standard, and as XHTML wasn't going anywhere fast, people gave it the shrug it so richly deserved. For that reason, XHTML5 exists, which is just like HTML5, but is required to be parsed as XML. Also, your email seems to indicate that Microsoft created HTML5, they were perhaps the _last_ ones to get onboard the 'HTML5 train'. Much of HTML5 was supposed to go past the usual long-winded and slow process of standards that is W3C. And IE6 sucked when it was released. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On Fri, 15 Jun 2012 07:15:47 -0700, MZMcBride wrote: Daniel Friesen wrote: IT departments need to start maintaining their computers and employees need to start demanding that the computers they work with are kept to modern standards. People keep bringing up legacy apps as a reason that IT departments cannot give employees a properly maintained browser environment. But as I explained that's BS because there are other options than simply upgrading IE. The argument that it would be confusing to employees is also BS because that's easily covered by making everyone use Firefox/Chrome/etc... for all web browsing and placing shortcuts on the desktop that open up pages in IE to make it look like the internal systems are apps rather than websites. Well, that or using chrome frame. So basically this boils it down to pointing it out that the arguments saying that a proper browsing environment "can't" be provided is BS. And this is not something they can't do, it's just something they won't. Which is a case we should not be catering to and enabling. Right... well, again, just like the OP, you're focusing on how you feel the world should be while completely ignoring reality. It's not a matter of catering to obstinate IT folks. It's a matter of being pragmatic about the current landscape and its limitations. MZMcBride Focused, not exactly... overenthusiastic for a moment perhaps... but without a valid point? No. Base point. The argument that IT departments cannot provide a proper browser for employees to use does not hold water. They can, it's only a matter of it not being done. Argue all you want on whether IT departments that just won't provide a proper browser environment matter to us. But don't argue that they can't because of legacy apps as people have been trying to argue, because that argument isn't valid. -- ~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://daniel.friesen.name] ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
MZMcBride wrote: > Right... well, again, just like the OP, you're focusing on how you feel the > world should be while completely ignoring reality. It's not a matter of > catering to obstinate IT folks. It's a matter of being pragmatic about the > current landscape and its limitations. This touches, I think, on both the fundamental issue, and the reason we can (and likely will) debate this forever, without ever finding a right or even a consensus answer. Do we want to educate/force people to use the "right" browser, or do we want to support them, regardless of what they're using? There are lots of reasons to want to educate/force a change: security, implementational convenience, standards compliance, modernity, etc. And there are just as many reasons to oppose the imposition: personal preference, obstinate IT department, obsolete computer, cascading incompatibilities. Some of these reasons (on both sides) are super important, while others are more subjective -- but not everyone will even agree on which are which. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On 15 June 2012 01:30, Daniel Friesen wrote: > I do have to mention something on this whole topic. All these arguments seem > to focus on saying that that IE6/7 should be supported because enterprises > are dependent on out of date software and can't update. > This line of thought completely ignores the fact that upgrading isn't even > the only option... the possibilities of simply installing a second browser > for web browsing and only opening IE for internal systems (pretend the page > sitting in IE is an app and use shortcuts) or installing chrome frame. > Given that fact arguments that enterprises "can't and should be enabled" > rather than "just wont and should be ignored" feels rather flimsy. I hate to perpetuate this topic, but your assumption that adding a browser to a corporate estate will be trivial (or, at least, less work than just upgrading IE from 6 to, say, 8) is not always correct. One UK Government organisation where I used to work was quoted an outline figure of ~ US$300m to upgrade IE6 to IE7 (almost all of which was re-certification to UK National Security standards). The figure for Firefox - which doesn't have baseline accreditation, unlike IE - was ~US$500m, and would only be good until the next *.*.1+ release of Firefox, unlike IE where the patches are signed-off. Sure, these costs are partially inflated by their poor contracts, but full security audits against thousands of bespoke (and badly-written VB-based archaic) apps is insanely expensive. Are these organisations screwed mostly as a result of their own short-sightedness in building systems that weren't standards-compatabile? Yes. Should we trivialise the difficulties into which they've steered themselves? No. Yours, -- James D. Forrester jdforres...@gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] IE7 tax
On 15/06/12 14:06, David Gerard wrote: > > > - d. » Yes, I switched to IE because I liked better the typeface it was showing the pages... ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
