Talk:Embrace and extend
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JavaScript/JScript
Could somebody explain please why JavaScript was an example of eee?
- Yes. Microsoft's implementation of Javascript in IE, called JScript, used a different Document object model to Netscape's. When W3C standards were created for the DOM, Microsoft continued to ignore them. This means that pages scripted for IE often do not work in standards-compliant browsers. In addition, Microsoft's implementation of JScript also allowed other scripting languages to be used, encouraging fragmentation of Web scripting.
Free software
In addition, free software has so far appeared to be resistant to the "Embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy, at it prevents the third phase of the plan from being executed, by ensuring that any vendor extensions to the standard are available to the community, and cannot be tied to any single vendor.
- I'm kind of confused by this. At the beginning, it seems to say that it is ineffective to use EEE against free software, but at the end it seems to say that it is ineffective to use EEE on behalf of free software. Ahhh, now I see it -- it's talking about taking free software code and modifying it (modifications must stay within the license, thus cannot be kept proprietary). This doesn't seem to match with the rest of the article, which talks about creating imcompatible implementations of standards. That's a whole nother game, folks. --Brion 08:00 Oct 14, 2002 (UTC)
Put back above text with wording clarified to attempt to fix the problem above.
consoles, disk compression, spreadsheets
Recently added to the article:
Surely these cannot be examples of EEE, as there were no open standards to embrace? Rather, Microsoft introduced a competing product which performs a similar function but is not at all compatible with the other, previously more popular proprietary product. EEE is based on advertising compatibility but providing an incoming upgrade path only. --Brion
- Well put. I would guess, based on the overall flavor of this article, that a user, perhaps unaware of the NPOV policy, saw this article as a forum for Microsoft-bashing. Perhaps this is not true, but in any case the author of those additions has made attacks on Microsoft which are not only non-NPOV, but have nothing to do with the topic of the article.
- These additions have been removed, so shouldn't "The neutrality of this article is disputed." be removed as well? I don't see any other mention of NPOV issues on the talk page.
Aragorn2 13:52, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
"tragedy of the commons" etc
I have removed all the stuff about "tragedy of the commons", ontological warfare, and other such hard-to-read stuff. Also the (supposedly related) biology. The article should get down to the substance of the issue, rather than these very technical ideas which most people cannot, I take it, easily understand. Evercat 14:51, 4 Nov 2003 (UTC)
no longer support Win32
I pulled this sentence that was added by an anon user on Nov 27 2004.
- Microsoft has also announced that they will no longer support Win32, which is the API used by Standard C and C++ programmers on Windows.
I really doubt they are going to stop supporting Win32. Maybe concentrate future development elsewhere, but I really doubt they are going to stop supporting it. Can anyone cite a source where Microsoft announce this? AlistairMcMillan 18:27, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Internet Explorer v Netscape
I removed this text, which was added by CyborgTosser in this (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Embrace_and_extend&diff=1295879&oldid=1244769) edit:
- it would be inaccurate to apply the term to a subject such as Internet Explorer vs. Netscape Navigator
He doesn't explain why he thinks EEE shouldn't be applied to this subject and it doesn't make sense when components of IE and NN (i.e. HTML, ActiveX, Java and JavaScript) are cited throughout the article as examples of EEE. AlistairMcMillan 19:04, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
NPOV tag
I'm no M$ fan, but I think this article is clearly POV (or thinly veiled) at points. -Grick(talk to me!) 06:44, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
- Please explain which points. If you don't explain which points you are disputing, then I'm going to pull the disputed tag. AlistairMcMillan 12:23, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've just gone ahead and rephrased a few points I thought were questionable. Perhaps the tag was a bit overreacting; thanks for waiting before pulling it though. -Grick(talk to me!) 04:48, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)
Disagree with "Most Companies ..."
"Most companies see standards as merely a way of comforting customers that a technology is fundamentally mature and immediately concentrate on proprietary extensions, the value added, which is the primary way of retaining customers over time."
The author of this seems to be saying that most companies view public standards as merely some sort of marketing gimmick and that most companies are primarily in the business of creating proprietary standards and products in order to retain customers. That is ridiculous if you step back and think about it.
Standards are very fundamental and absolutely essential for modern business practices. How could a company have much of a revenue stream if there was no standard currency to use? How long could a company stay in business if it ignored the laws that applied where it operated? In fact, standards are so fundamental in any civilized society that we normally don’t even consider not complying with them; instead we normally view violating accepted standards as "cheating" or "crime".
Unless a company is trying to sell some "bleeding edge" product, there is normally no need for it to reassure prospective customers that some technology is fundamentally mature, so obviously most companies do not view standards as "merely" a way to do so. Even in situations where technological maturity is an issue, companies join forces to create standards primarily out of a desire to mature the technology, not to create some marketing gimmick.
With respect to the marketing aspect of standards, the most important considerations for any prospective customer would usually include: "What is it?", "Will it work?" and "Is it safe?" Unless the answers are obvious (or can be made obvious through demonstrations), the company will often refer to standards to help answer those questions, but that is not the same as using it as a gimmick. Actually, because standards tend to be a dry subject, marketing people don’t usually like to talk about them much. As a result, standardization is probably much more important to most companies than many people realize. Furthermore, the standards are often customer-driven as a means of defining the customers' needs and improving the chances that they will be met. (Think about military specifications, for example.) That's not to say standards are never used as a marketing gimmick -- it certainly happens -- but that's the exception, not the rule.
The primary way of retaining customers over time is (hopefully) meeting their needs. If a company produces products that violate existing standards, whether it is concentrating (in some way) on proprietary extensions or not, usually customers will conclude that the company’s products are defective and the abandon the company. The company may even find itself in legal hot water or suffering sanctions from peer groups. This, of course, assumes that the company has a peer group with enough clout to enforce its sanctions and to give customers other alternatives.
"Most companies ... immediately concentrate on proprietary extensions, the value added" Immediately after what? Concentrate how? Value added to what? Manufacturing companies add value by converting raw materials into finished products for their customers. Companies that sell services add value by improving their customers' situations. Only something like a contract design or engineering firm could claim to add value for its customers by concentrating on extending established standards.
Yank entire Free software EEE
I think the entire Free software EEE section should be removed. I suppose that would be a major revision requiring community consensus.
Even if GNU/Linux is responsible for the demise of previous UNIX operating systems, it does not follow that this was an example of EEE. EEE typically involves cynically embracing X, extending X to form X' and leveraging dominance in Y combined with true-X compatibility to form a critical mass for X', then breaking the X-X' compatibility. I don't see how there was any previously existing dominance in any Y for the Free Software movement to leverage.
As far as the statement UNIX vendors cannot incorporate extensions without being subject to strong constraints goes, nothing in the GPL can put any constraints on UNIX vendors extending their own software to match the capabilities of GNU software - there just isn't much of a financial incentive to do so. That's being undercut on price, not an example of EEE.
Naturally for software to run under the Linux kernel, it must have beeen compiled with a Linux-compatible compiler. We can't expect parts built to put in a Ford to work in a Toyota. But it's not as if this is being done just to lock out competitors. The C libraries are covered by the LGPL, not the GPL, so linking to them does not change proprietary software into free software.
ActiveX/XPCOM
I removed the mention of technologies like ActiveX and XPCOM since they embraced nothing. For EEE, the first steps is to embrace an existing technology, like HTML, C++, etc. --minghong 13:47, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Halloween documents
Someone just added "and later confirmed to be real by Microsoft". Is this true? Why would MS want to confirm this? — Sebastian (talk) 23:15, 2005 May 21 (UTC)