So, the US Copyright Office is considering requiring registrants to use proprietary technology found only in Microsoft Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows. Why? Well, because they are. I've seen no explanation as to why this is even a consideration. It's simply crazy. And it is not a technical requirement. Anything that they could possibly need to do can be done without proprietary Microsoft technology. Anyone who claims otherwise is an ignorant fool trying to hide their ignorance. I don't care how much more convenient for the programmers proprietary Microsoft technology might be. It's still a proprietary single-vendor technology; which, by the way, almost certainly violates Federal regulations which forbid the government from relying on single-vendor technology.

Let's contrast this with a similar situation in the real world. Let's say you want to apply for a driver's license. So, you go to the license branch and stand in a queue for 2 hours. It's your turn and the clerk greets you in English and then proceeds to ask you dozens of questions in Swahili. The clerk is quite confused as to why you don't understand his questions. You calmly, as possible, explain that you don't understand what he is saying. The clerk looks at you strangely and explains to you in English that you'll need to come back once you've learned Swahili. You see, typically, the government agencies in the US will speak to you in a commonly accepted intermediate language such as English or Spanish. The reasoning is thus: you can be assured that approximately everyone in the US speaks at least English, Spanish, or both. There are exceptions but the expectation is that anyone who plans to stay in the US and interact with the government will speak one or both languages. In a similar vein, anyone who provides web services is expected to speak one or more of the standardized languages defined by the World Wide Web Consortium. If you choose not to speak those standardized languages then don't be shocked when many people have no clue what you're saying.

At best, 90% of personal computers can run Microsoft Internet Explorer. Just under 10% of the US is completely unable to use Microsoft Internet Explorer because it only works with the Microsoft Windows operating system. Some, possibly significant, portion of that 90% is unable, due to security restrictions, to use those features in Internet Explorer that the US Copyright Office has proposed. If you consider all web-enabled devices (computers, phones, PDAs, etc) you've suddenly reduced your numbers to 50-60% of devices being able to access this government service.

At the very best it would be an inconvenience. At the worst it would exclude several important segments of the population. And it would prevent all segments of the population from using this service on anything other than a full blown personal computer running Microsoft's proprietary Windows operating system.

Labels: technology