[TYPO3-dev] Please test UI patches also in IE6

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi,

> Dmitry Dulepov wrote:
> I think we should drop IE6 support for backend completely in 4.3. MS
> officially drop regular support for IE6 at December 31st, 2009.

Response from Microsoft to the idea of various websites to drop support
for IE6 [1]:
" Dropping support for IE6 is not an option because we committed to
supporting the IE included with Windows for the lifespan of the product.
We keep our commitments. Many people expect what they originally got with
their operating system to keep working whatever release cadence particular
subsystems have. "

About the lifespan of Windows XP (which was shipped with IE6 included) [2]:
" Products Released        Windows XP Professional
General Availability Date  12/31/2001
Mainstream Support Retired  4/14/2009
Extended Support Retired     4/8/2014
Service Pack Retired        8/30/2005 "

I couldn't find the date of December 31st, 2009 in this regard. The
worrying conclusion of the data above must be that MS will continue to
support IE6 until the lifespan of Windows XP has ended.

Last month Digg had a survey about IE6 usage. [3] Lots of IE6 users simply
can't upgrade (mostly because their computer is a company owned PC).

The main question here is: what is the target audience for TYPO3? If you
want to have businesses and corporations as TYPO3 users, I'm afraid that
IE6 is a must have. When agencies get requests for proposals they usually
have to compete with other CMS's. IF IE6 is a must have then TYPO3 without
IE6 support for the backend means that TYPO3 will not be considered for
this project.

typo3.com still says that TYPO3 is an enterprise level solution, but
dropping IE6 support would change this. I also feel that this decision is
more a matter for the association.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/08/10/engineering-pov-ie6.aspx
[2] http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223
[3] http://blog.digg.com/?p=878

Notes: I am aware that supporting IE6 requires a much bigger effort for
making a cooler, better and more functional backend. I'm personally no fan
of IE6 (to put it mildly).

Regards,
-- 
Jigal van Hemert.