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stefanp

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Hmm conspiracy theory... Nope, Microsoft is a for-profit company with a huge platform that might be slipping into irrelevance.

They're playing the cards they have at any given time - when it means supporting standards, they do that. And when they're totally dominant, they tend to set the standards.

I'm not even suggesting it might be intentional - the IE team and the MS top management don't necessarily have the same long-term goals is all.

Maybe the IE team would even love to go cross platform and compete as a browser and not as a part of a larger platform.

Hey ! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

I'm sad that you think I was trying to come up with something - I just wrote about this strange (but honnest !) feeling I got, as people talking in nice terms about IE hasn't happenned in a while.

In fact I don't think I'm criticizing IE itself at all.

Perhaps I could re-phrase my point more simply: I don't think IE 9's standards support means "the web wins" in the long run, since IE is still tied to Windows for strategic reasons.

You're of course right that it's a good thing for web devs right now, though.

Dude, seriously... I can't believe it. Talking about freedom, comparing europe and china ... Come on ! Is this a joke ?

Your friend is getting sued, so you move to a country where people are put in jail for their political opinions ?

Don't invent stupid excuses, there's no need to. You're 24 years old and are looking for opportunity, and China, despite being a bloody dictatorship were a billion people work in slave-like conditions, is the new land of opportunity, so you're giving it a try. Good for you.

But cut the ridiculous crap. You sound like a spoiled brat.

Guys, wikileaks is basically fighting for survival against the US government, among others. Can we really suggest they "just" use this or that, or complain that they're not handling thing so well ? They are basically trying to exist in a space that's almost impossible for most countries to exist in.

We're not talking about your average (or even uniquely scalable) startup here.

Seriously, do you have any doubt that anyone involved in this could end up secretly detained for years ? Assange is taking huge personal risks here, so yeah, it is about him, to a very large extent.

Well, the hard part about paypal and probably google checkout isn't processing payments, it's managing fraud - see Max Levchin's interview in the (very good, imho) "Founders at Work" book.

So I'm not surprised google has to do potentally damaging things to somehow make it all work.

The strange part to me is that they don't require and automate this buyer contact info & tracking number gathering from the start.