Mozilla Foundation chairperson Mitchell Baker contends that the inclusion of Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser in the Windows operating system represents an ongoing threat to competition and innovation on the Internet. She supports the European Commission's investigation of Microsoft's bundling tactics and believes that remedies are needed to address Microsoft's alleged abuses. To that end, Mozilla intends to assist the commission by offering expertise about the browser market.

The European Commission (EC) issued a finding last month declaring that Microsoft has abused its dominant position as an operating system vendor by tying its web browser to the Windows platform. The commission has sent a Statement of Objections to Microsoft which outlines the basis for the accusation. Microsoft will be given the opportunity to respond in formal hearings before the EU evaluates the possibility of imposing fines or other remedies.

This move by the EC is a response to a complaint that was submitted against Microsoft by commercial browser vendor Opera in 2007. Opera's web browser has largely failed to achieve mainstream acceptance and accounts for only one percent of the browser market. Opera insists that the EC should force Microsoft to comply with W3C standards and unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows. Microsoft is often accused of using subtle bugs and nonstandard rendering behaviors in Internet Explorer to coerce web developers into building web pages that are not compatible with other browsers. Opera contends that mandatory standards compliance is the only way to prevent this alleged anticompetitive behavior.

Deeply flawed remedies

Although there is a lot of evidence that the low quality of Microsoft's browser has had a negative impact on the advancement of web technologies, Opera's claims and proposed remedies should be viewed with skepticism. The EC's previous attempts to impose unbundling sanctions on Microsoft have utterly failed to generate competition. For example, PC vendors in Europe universally declined to offer Windows XP N, a version of Windows that omitted Windows Media Player to accommodate an EC antitrust remedy.

The proposal to mandate web standards compliance is not without problems. Within the standards community, there is broad disagreement about the relevance of various standards and how they should be implemented. For an example of this, look at Mozilla's somewhat prickly response to the Acid 3 test. Browser vendors clearly have different ways of prioritizing standards and determining which are relevant.

Internet Explorer is also not the only browser with longstanding standards compliance bugs. I can think of quite a few standards that are poorly supported or supported dysfunctionally in other browsers. Sometimes the spec itself is broken, as you can see in this E4X bug. It's hard to find a rational argument in favor of mandatory standards enforcement. It would be punitive and unhelpful to the advancement of the web.

Does the browser market really lack competition?

Claims that Microsoft's monopoly status has eliminated competition in the browser market sound hollow in the face of the profoundly vibrant browser market that exists today. The record-setting launch of Firefox 3 added up to over 8 million downloads in the first 24 hours alone. Firefox's global market share continues to climb every month, and the browser has grabbed almost 30 percent of the European market.

A number of compelling WebKit-based alternatives have emerged in the past year, leading to intense competition in JavaScript performance, rendering capabilities, and standards compliance. Google's Chrome browser could soon be shipped by PC vendors instead of, or alongside, Microsoft's Internet Explorer. In response to this emerging competition and pressure from users, Microsoft will deliver extensive standards-compliance improvements in Internet Explorer 8.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft's dominant position in the operating system market—which is cited as the company's unfair advantage over the rest of the browser makers—has also declined over the past year as Apple's Mac OS X operating system gains record traction. That factor by itself is eroding Microsoft's ability to retain Internet Explorer's entrenched status.

To the observant tech enthusiast, all signs seem to indicate that Microsoft's monopoly is on its way out. The Redmond giant is in no danger of annihilation, but it's definitely not positioned to dictate terms to the rest of the industry anymore.

Baker, however, has a very different interpretation of these facts. "The success of Mozilla and Firefox does not indicate a healthy marketplace for competitive products," she wrote. "I am convinced that we could not have been, and will not be, successful except as a public benefit organization living outside the commercial motivations. And I certainly hope that neither the EU nor any other government expects to maintain a healthy Internet ecosystem based on nonprofits stepping in to correct market deficiencies."

I think that her position on this matter is highly questionable. There are quite a few open source software enthusiasts who would argue that, for a broad range of software products, the emergence of a Mozilla-like model is actually desirable and highly advantageous for consumers. A point will eventually arrive for many kinds of software where there is simply no point in trying to derive value from shrink-wrapping it, and then efforts will converge around collaboratively-developed open source implementations that will displace and eliminate the need for proprietary commercial implementations. Why should that be viewed as unhealthy?

Microsoft's monopoly forced competitors to innovate

Microsoft's market dominance really just accelerated the motion in that direction within the browser market. The popularization of the open source development model arguably emerged as a response to Microsoft's monopoly. Developers had to find innovative ways to compete with an entrenched product. If the government had intervened in the software industry at an early stage and those conditions hadn't existed, the browser market could arguably be a lot less rich and competitive than it is today. If Internet Explorer had never gained the dominant marketshare to necessitate a change in the status quo, the only browser choices we would have today might be between an ad-encumbered Opera and a proprietary Netscape.

It's risky to let the government perpetually equalize the market, because sometimes the greatest innovations appear when inventors have to face tougher odds. It's also worthwhile to wonder what will happen when the shoe is on the other foot.

If Firefox achieves a majority marketshare in Europe, will Opera file a complaint with the EU and contend that open source licensing constitutes an "artificial distribution advantage" over other browsers? That may seem like a far-fetched suggestion, but it wouldn't be the first time that such concerns have been voiced about open source software. Opera is certainly not above attacking Mozilla in that manner. Encouraging sanctions against dominant vendors on the basis of dominance sets a dangerous precedent.

Baker is at least mindful of the challenges that are associated with finding fair and effective remedies. She acknowledges that the situation has a lot of complexities that make it unclear how the problem should be addressed and that a poor remedy could have negative consequences for the industry.

It's disappointing, however, to see Mozilla and other browser makers looking for government intervention rather than demonstrating the unequivocal superiority of standards-compliant web browsers by defeating Microsoft on their own. It's hard to imagine anything good coming from all of this.