I apologize for jumping in here late but I was on vacation this past week WITHOUT my laptop (I recommend this to all!) In any event, I want to clarify one item that Henry mentioned and that is concerning the Microsoft Antitrust lawsuit. Microsoft has not WON this suit, in fact they LOST - the appeals court has simply thrown out the penalty (which was to break up microsoft into two pieces). In fact, Microsoft just lost an appeal to have the original verdict thrown out. So the status is now what will be the penalty - likely not to be busting up Microsoft! But this whole plug-in issue is VERY disconcerning. It would be nice to hear something useful from MDL on the matter! Open source chemistry is of course a very real option, but without the browser framework this becomes a serious development problem. However, the GCC compiler is a major development project so perhaps we can encourage a project to develop an open source browser that supports XML, plugins, java, javascript? Steve -- Steven Bachrach ph: (210)999-7379 Department of Chemistry fax: (210)999-7569 Trinity University 715 Stadium Drive San Antonio, TX 78212 steven.bachrach@trinity.edu
-----Original Message----- From: Rzepa, Henry [mailto:h.rzepa@ic.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 10:57 AM To: chemweb@ic.ac.uk Subject: IE and "plugins": correction
Correction to my earlier posting. I had noted that Adobe "plugins' do work with IE 5.5 SP2 and IE 6, XP. This is because they are not plugins but pure ActiveX controls (this from a developer who should know!)
So I suppose the next question is whether the "chemically important" plugins will be upgraded by their developers to ActiveX controls. MDL presumably will do so, but how many others are out there, and will they get upgraded?
Netscape of course will continue to work, but then again the cost of producing one "plugin" and one "activeX" control for Windows might mean some developers will chose one or the other but perhaps not both. With less than 30% of the use and still decreasing, this might mean the final nail in the coffin for Netscape. A similar issue confronts "non" Windows platforms.
It really is difficult to avoid the conclusion that having won its anti-trust case in the courts in the USA, Microsoft is going to get even more monopolistic. --
Henry Rzepa. +44 (0)20 7594 5774 (Office) +44 (0870) 132-3747 (eFax) Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AY, UK. http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/
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