Now here’s a news item that will either delight or befuddle you. Later this year Microsoft will offer 24/7 product support on jQuery, the popular open-source Javascript library,
“This is certainly welcome news for the AJAX world (which owes its existence to Microsoft, who introduced the XMLHttpRequest object in Internet Explorer 5.0, back in 1999). Libraries like Dojo and jQuery represent a kind of programmatic Switzerland for the AJAX world, shielding programmers from disparate browser behaviors that otherwise tend to make AJAX programming problematic for the non-ninja. Microsoft could easily break Dojo, jQuery, and the rest of AJAX-kind if it were to make (further) unwelcome changes in the way IE supports things like DOM and XMLHttpRequest.”
Microsoft is promising to support an unmodified version of jQuery, too — clearly intending to send the message that the days of using IE to make life miserable for Web developers are over (no more forcing dual development for IE versus other browsers that actually do a good job of supporting standards). Redmond’s support of the library will be handled through Microsoft Product Support Services, Guthrie said.
Most developers are (and rightly so) taking a wait-and-see attitude. However, if announced support proceeds as promised, pehaps we’ll see the day when Microsoft supports other open source libraries, too. Microsoft needs to move in this direction for many reasons. It has already done a good job in alienating some of the most talented young developers who now believe that being a “lover of open source” means they must automatically despise Microsoft. If the company doesn’t alter this direction, the results won’t bode well for the long term viability of Microsoft software. Plus, Microsoft needs to become a major cloud service provider (or concede its profitable Office applications to cloud-based freeware from Google, or open source projects like OpenOffice.org). With browser options like Firefox and Google Chrome a mouse-click away, Microsoft needs to make IE a team player, or it will see its dominent position with browsers die out, and with that, its hopes for a thriving SaaS/Software-plus-services.
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