I’m still in shock. Not only has Microsoft changed course, but they’ve done so in response to their design and development community. According to Dean Hachamovitch (General Manager of IE) on the IE Blog, IE8 will now default to “IE8 Standards Mode” for any site requesting Standards Mode.

To quote the blog:

We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously...Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles. Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind, interpreting web content in the most standards compliant way possible is a better thing to do.

I’m still not sure I can believe my eyes.

I was generally pessimistic when Microsoft first announced their original plans for a new meta-tag that would be required to explicitly tell the browser what version of IE you were developing for. It felt like MS was removing the hammer from the hands of the standards movement. Companies could ignore any need to improve their sites by tossing some tag in their page and leaving it be. There would no longer be any incentive for a large amount of companies to improve.

While I was not outraged like some, I was still dubious of that decision. All the more interesting was the fervor generated when some of my heroes like Jeremy Keith, Eric Meyer and Zeldman began singing along to the Microsoft choir. I could understand some of their points, most specifically around the problems Microsoft faced when releasing new version of IE. Any company has to pay attention when the people paying the bills start crying that their site was broken by something they did. It’s the same guiding principle as to why Microsoft (and any large software company) can’t revolutionize their software with every version. Backwards compatibility is a bitch.

Still, version-targeting just seemed completely wrong. I’ve really struggled with the issue. On one hand, the issues around DOCTYPE and quirks vs standards mode are very real. The standards community has had its head in clouds for quite a while and has needed a reality check. Perhaps this new meta-tag would help. Yet what about the potential for the standards movement to, in essence, have its balls removed? How long would Microsoft be able to continually build support for standards mode from previous versions of its browser?

So has the tiger changed it’s stripes?

I’m still on the fence here. While this decision changes the default behavior for any site requesting a generic standards mode, a developer can still use the version targeting meta tags to keep IE8 in IE7 mode. It seems like nothing has really changed except for the default, which appears to only really be a default if someone has a general idea of what they are doing in the first place. This really reminds me of a new way to do what the DOCTYPE already does, except perhaps in a more explicit way, rife with the potential for harm. And what about this statement from Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel?

While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue. As stated above, we think it’s the better choice.

Is this really a response to the community or does this have more to do with Microsoft’s continuing legal issues in the EU?

It seems like I’m not the only one on the fence. Microsoft is trying to straddle a fence between making two groups happy and that rarely, if ever, goes well. On the surface they’ve made it seem like they’ve done the impossible and dodged the iceberg. But have they really? The PR engine certainly believes it according to this press release, Microsoft Expands Support for Web Standards.

Call me paranoid but I’m hiring a dentist to look at this gift horse’s mouth.