Biting the wrong hand

Dave Winer's recent comments speculating that Apple's new web browser will hurt innovative developers is completely off the mark.

Apple has just as much right as anyone to compete with a software product. There is no guarantee that Safari will be successful. Nor does bundling it with their OS guarantee it will crush anyone. Apple is providing the innovation that Dave claims is being stifled. Safari has some new web browser interface ideas. OmniWeb also has some unique ideas (cookie management being one that stands out), as does Chimera/Mozilla with tabbed browsing.

Instead of railing against Apple, Dave should be embracing them. They have dared to revitalize a product category that has been stagnant. On top of that, Apple is improving an open source library and contributing changes back. Now The Omni Group is considering taking advantage of this to improve their product, saving them effort and expense without compromising their vision. Shame on Dave Winer for slinging arrows.

The technology that is best from a user perspective usually wins out absent the kind of illegal monopoly influence exerted by Microsoft. So if any small developer thinks they can do something better they should try, because most big things start as small things.

kherr @ 22:59 CST | link | tech