Opera Sues Microsoft

Opera just announced that it is suing Microsoft (open letter, press release) for using its market dominant position to tie its OS to a browser with poor standard support.

I am honestly not sure how I feel about this yet, so I will borrow some thoughts from others (on the WSG list) for now.

Christian Montoya said:

My concern with the complaint is that it is clearly twofold; that Microsoft is holding standards back, and that Microsoft is holding competitors back. One is valid, the other is clearly business. I don't like the fact that these two things go together. I want to see Microsoft get serious about standards support, but I don't think it's fair to apply a double standard when other companies use bundling practices too.

Chris Taylor found this part of the complaint:

We think these actions are essential for the evolution of web standards and the open web, which Microsoft is hindering due to it's dominant market share controlling consumer choice in web browsers and trying to force web developers to adopt proprietary technologies and techniques (ie hacks, and things like Silverlight.)

To which he responded:

Why was Silverlight included? As far as I am aware it's a plug-in much like Flash, so why would it be hindering the open web? Surely web developers have a choice whether to use that plug-in, just as they have the choice to use Flash. I'm not saying the IE/web standards thing is unfounded, but the Silverlight comment raises some concerns in my mind regarding Operas aims with this complaint.

Some others supported the suit. Opera asked for people who agree with the suit to support it in the following ways:

1. Blogging about it
2. Forwarding this to others in your network/company/group of friends
3. Getting your company to issue a press release about this in support, if appropriate

I am blogging about it, but only because I think it is an interesting development. I haven't yet made up my mind. I am certainly frustrated with all of the extra effort that it takes to support IE, but I think Christian and Chris make some valuable observations.