Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 21st Feb 2008 15:26 UTC, submitted by Robert Kratky
Opera Software's CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner explains why they will not release the Opera browser as open source, arguing that open standards are more important than open source. Von Tetzchner also talks about the company's antitrust complaint to the European Commission in which it accuses Microsoft of abusing its dominant position by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.
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Member since:2006-03-23
well..
open standards ARE more important than the licensing of an individual piece of software.
Who cares what license the software someone uses is, as long as its always possible to replace it, and freely compete, which a free and open standard ensures. I dont give a rats ass if your browser is opensource, as long as i can view the pages with my free browser..
Member since:2006-10-08
Who cares what license the software someone uses is, as long as its always possible to replace it, and freely compete, which a free and open standard ensures.
I'd like to apply an example here to show why I primarily agree with your statement:
I'm actually working on a software project in the healthcare sector. This application is closed source and costs money. But it only uses open standards (e. g. XML) for its files, and the file layouts are documented, too. So it's easy to create free software that can make use of the files from the proprietary software (that's what I'm doing at the moment), this is because of the open standards that allow it. I don't need to have a license for the expensive product, but I can still "interoperate" with it - or replace it, as you've mentioned correctly.
As long as an application is compliant to existing documented standards, it's okay, in my opinion.
As an addition, I'd like to express that I see the high value of open source / free software. Sadly, the commercial world seems to have the credo "If it does not cost anything, it's worthless", which of course isn't true, but leads decisions which software to run. Of course, as you surely will know, these decisions are made by people who don't have the neccessary clue, that's politics as usual. :-)
Member since:2005-06-29
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/25/13 0:45 UTC
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 23:59 UTC
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 22:33 UTC
Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Linked by Howard Fosdick on 05/24/13 21:41 UTC
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 14:44 UTC
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 23:22 UTC
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:04 UTC
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:01 UTC
"In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 17:52 UTC
"The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.More News »
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Member since:
2005-11-14
I can agree with that.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. ;-)
I can see the benefit of open standards - it would be a stagnant Web browser scene if the only thing providing Web browser capabilities was the Mozilla code base and you had to go through and figure out what it was actually doing, but at least you could do that if it were open source (which it is, of course). Indeed, the power of verification is there for all to explore.
I'd rather have open source, ahem, Free Software. The level of control is superior, the barriers to involvement are lower. Opera do themselves a disservice in several respects by insisting on remaining proprietary: the important GNU/Linux distros won't touch their stuff unless it's open enough (even Firefox only makes the grade rebranded in some cases); people who support Free Software don't care as much about some proprietary vendor's battles with Microsoft as they do about one of their own.
What still amazes me is that Opera is still around. It's not a tiny company, and it would appear that they've spread their focus in order to make up for the loss of revenue from selling the browser to end-users, even though there are some corporate licensees who haven't yet switched to something else. The resulting strategy doesn't seem particularly convincing.