Microsoft Brands WebGL a 'Harmful' Technology 503
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has announced that it has no plans to support WebGL — a cross-platform low-level 3D graphics API designed for web use — in its future browsers, citing numerous security concerns over the technology and branding the basic principles as 'harmful.'"
At least silverlight is save! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft should know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe Processing [processing.org] has them scared as shit. Not only does it do OpenGL acceleration in a browser, but it's also open source and nearly a drop-in replacement for Flash or Silverlight.
Can't trust MS's opinions (Score:5, Interesting)
What they mean by "security" is not what everyone else means. Security is just the biggest argument in the FUD arsenal. They mean control, to secure their bottom line.
For 25 plus years, that's been MS's real goal. They tried to kill off Ogg Vorbis over "insecurity"-- the supposed insecurity of no built in DRM. Security was probably one of the arguments they used to push OOXML over ODF when they were trying to maintain their file format lockdown. Talk about an outdated tactic, but then, MS has been slipping for some time now. They would have tried the old line suggesting no one would maintain the software without a large company backing it, another FUD favorite, but even they must see no one would buy that any more. And yet, they can't see the uselessness of the entire Windows Genuine Advantage program.
What specifically could they be trying to promote in place of webGL? Silverlight?
Re:At least silverlight is save! (Score:2, Interesting)
"Access devices and other system capabilities by calling into application COM components."
"Call existing unmanaged code directly from within Silverlight with PInvoke."
"Read and write files to the user’s My Documents folder, making it easier to find media files or create local copies of reports. Launch Microsoft Office and other desktop programs. Users can open Microsoft Outlook and create an e-mail message, or send a report to Word utilizing the power of Office."
They just couldn't stay away from the convenience that ActiveX plugins' "me casa es tu casa" security model provided...
Don't you just hate it (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't you just hate it when Microsoft takes the high road on security and raises some valid points. We've been through this scenario a bunch of times where some class of programs that used to only be used by local programs became accessible on the web and suddenly there is a rash of exploits (jpeg and pdf come to mind), I'd rather not go through it again.
That said, I think Microsoft laid out the problems with enough specificity that they could be addressed.
Re:Microsoft should know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Something tells me they wouldn't create ActiveX today... they've had well over a decade to learn how bad the technology actually is, and try to mitigate their mistakes with it. It doesn't surprise me they'd make comments on WebGL like this today in 2011. A lot can happen in 15 years.
Re:Microsoft should know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)