Microsoft changes course on IE 8
They listened (mostly)! Microsoft announced today that Internet Explorer 8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can.
Internet Explorer will retain the version 7 rendering engine. But rather than opt-in to version 8 rendering, developers will have to opt-out of it. Developers and / or server administrators can do so with a <meta> tag or with an HTTP header.
Also see: Microsoft’s Interoperability Principles