How to handle the latest BS from Microsoft and IE??

[audiomega]

According to the SitePoint Newsletter: October 15th, 2003 Issue 75, we won't be able to seamlessly use plugins in IE anymore! Instead, an alert window will pop up for every instance of Flash, Java Applets, PDF's etc...and the user has to click "OK" for each and every instance of a plugin in your page.

WTF!! Is Microsoft not wealthy enough to pay the damn license fee? Gates is a cheap <advisor edit>profanity removed</advisor edit> as illustrated by his having multibillion dollar empire and a $5 dollar haircut.

I use tons of plugins...especially Flash...and this is going to be a huge pain in the <advisor edit>profanity removed</advisor edit>to correct across the sites I maintain and take part in.

At least we do have the alternative of using Javascript to call the plugins for us...but if I go and change everything to this method...is Sun (or whoever) going to jump on a sue MS...etc...making me change it yet again?! This ruling sets a huge precedent...and other lawsuits will likely follow IMHO...until each and every one of us has to pay a license fee to either use or view plugin content...

Maybe I'm just being pissed and paranoid...but what do you guys think...and how will you go about making changes to your currently released projects?

Read more about it:
MS Info for Developers
Workarounds

Thanks for listening...

audio

[M. Johansson]

WTF!! Is Microsoft not wealthy enough to pay the damn license fee? Gates is a cheap <advisor edit>profanity removed</advisor edit> as illustrated by his having multibillion dollar empire and a $5 dollar haircut.

As far as I can see, Microsoft is implementing a solution that doesn't infringe on the patent. If they chose to work out a deal with eolas and pay them instead, there would still be the potential problem of eolas charging Macromedia and other plugin developers licence fees.

[Hierophant]

I don't see it as a large issue. If you build a properly accessible website then it shouldn't impact the user very much.

[JMulder]

I fear that users will start blaming developers for the fact that they receive popup messages from the browser when a workaround is available. MSIE being the most used browser on the world I suppose this is another tick to add to developers building sites for MSIE.

Blargh :|