Jun 22, 2011 14:31 GMT  ·  By

Last week, Microsoft announced its intentions of not supporting WebGL for the foreseeable future in Internet Explorer. It backed its decision up with a number of security concerns which it said were an indication of the inherent flaws or weaknesses in WebGL itself.

Other browser makers, that support WebGL - which means everyone else but Microsoft, haven't said too much officially, but their employees are having their voices heard.

First, Mozilla's Mike Shaver came out and said that although Microsoft does raise some valid concerns, he is confident that the company could build a secure implementation of WebGL for its web browser, especially since it already did so with Silverlight.

That last part is the important one. Shaver was rather friendly in his tone and didn't criticize Microsoft outright for the move, but there some mild jabs, if you read between the lines.

Gregg Tavares, who works on Google Chrome, was a lot more forthcoming, he accused Microsoft of favoring its own technologies over WebGL and being hypocritical in blaming security concerns for the decision.

"The latest FUD is Microsoft’s claim that they won’t support WebGL because it’s insecure. They might have a little more credibility if they weren’t promoting a technology, Silverlight 5, that provides the EXACT SAME FEATURES with all the same issues. They can’t have it both ways. Either it’s possible to make this tech safe or else it’s not," Tavares writes.

He then goes on to list several technologies that allow GPU access from the browser, all of which are supported by Microsoft, albeit in the sense that they are not banned.

For example, the upcoming Adobe Flash 11 will include a technology dubbed Stage3D API which will enable web content to access the hardware. Silverlight 5 offers the very same functionality.

"Microsoft has never supported OpenGL which is what WebGL is based on. Instead they have their DirectX API. The DirectX API is great but the #1 reason Microsoft doesn’t want to support anything based on OpenGL is that it robs them of some of their lock-in," Tavares gave an explanation for Microsoft's reluctance.

"You see, if you program an application using DirectX for 360, DirectX for Windows, DirectX for Silverlight or DirectX for Window7 Phone, well, you’re stuck on those platforms," he added.