IE8 will now conform to standards
AFTER MUCH grumbling by developers and users, the vole has abruptly volete faced on its strange IE8 decision to make web pages opt in to conforming behaviour, now deciding that it would in fact be a better idea to have the new browser render in full standards mode by default. This means that the new browser now passes the Acid-2-rendering test.
The Vole had originally intended to make the super-standards mode an opt-in choice with IE 7 "standards" mode the default, which, the Vole reckoned, would assure improved backwards-compatibility with current Web sites and applications. Now though, IE8 will have three rendering modes: the new standards-compliant mode, the IE7 rendering engine and an option for displaying older Web sites. Sites that want IE8 to use its IE7 engine will have to add a tag to their code.
Most Mightysoft representatives are claiming that the change of heart comes from a burning desire to make good on their recent promise of interoperability, but some are also admitting that the decision may be down to legal reasons. Microsoft General Counsel, Brad Smith, said in a statement yesterday that, " While we do not believe there are currently any legal requirements that would dictate which rendering mode must be chosen as the default for a given browser, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue".
In December of last year, Opera Software slammed the Vole with an antitrust complaint, for its failure to get its browser conform with key web standards.
Microsoft hasn't revealed when the final version of IE8 will be available, but a beta version of the browser is supposed to come out sometime in the next few months. ยต
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Actually, if you read the article you will see that for IE8 to operate in "standards mode" a special HTML tag is required to be placed on all sites. This does not sound like "standard" behaviour to me and in fact it isn't. Once again IE8 fails to do things the proper way by requiring web site authors to use a special meta tag: 
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />
This is a cludge at best and should be the default for IE8. Who cares about broken pages? This will make the Lazy Web Developers stand out not only to the world, but to their employers as well. These standards exist for a reason, and anyone who says they are optional is a fool. 

Read more from http://www.alistapart.com/articles/beyonddoctype/
And if *you* read the article you'll see that IE8 no longer needs any special tag to be in standards mode. That's the whole point of this news article.

Derr..

Looks like Microsoft shat their pants over the EU Commission. Reminds me of that famous photo of Paul Gascoigne and Vinny Jones.
When will MS learn? I think they realized how much they botched IE6. They should only need two rendering modes. One for older IE6-style pages and one newer one to be as web standards compliant as possible. They are overmanaging an overexaggerated problem. They're just going to make things worse off for the future if IE9 comes with its own special rendering mode.
If you actually read The Inq's article you'll see that Microsoft has decided to make IE8 standards mode the default and you'd only need to add a tag to your page if you want it to use the IE7 mode.

The alistapart article you linked to is now out of date!

More info here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/
Another custom tag that must be included on all web pages is:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Random-OS-Crash-using-non-IE-browser"
content="false" /> 

Otherwise your site will cause the browser's PC to crash if they are not using one of the many semi-compatible versions of IE.
Hey thanks for clarifying to me the errors of my post, I was in a hurry this morning and didn't take the time to check whether or not my information was still valid. I still don't believe that IE8 will be all that great. I do believe that the Acid Test 3 is almost finalized and at the moment, none of the major browsers can successfully pass that test.
Who still uses IE? Use Mozilla or Opera and avoid the IE hassle all together.

AT adds: At the last count, I think the figure was about 95% of the world's population.
Every web developer codes for IE first and Firefox second. I respectfully submit that the Code everyone uses IS the standard. The fact that IE has 60-70% market share. 

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_explorer.asp

Crawl out of your caves and man up. IE may suck but your stuck with it. And no amount of complaining about standards or DryHumping firefox will change that.

Becoming standards compliant will only serve to crush the competition anyways, if what you say is true, the only reason to use Firefox was the standards compliance.