What is Digg?195 Comments
- wykdtron, on 10/11/2007, -14/+90The main motivation for releasing Safari on Windows is to make the iPhone "Web 2.0" platform viable. Any dent they will make in the browser market is simply a nice side-effect for Apple. Seems like most people are missing this subtle point.
- darksheer, on 10/11/2007, -5/+70@triplehelix:
AOL purchased Netscape and later made the decision to release the browser as open source software which gave birth to Mozilla. For many years, the Mozilla organization consisted mostly of AOL employees and AOL still owned all the rights. A couple of years ago, AOL let Mozilla go and with a large sum of their own money created the Mozilla Foundation. - robbh66, on 10/11/2007, -23/+77I'll agree with the reasoning to a degree.
AOL was not good for the web, but it brought the web to a lot of people who didn't have it previously. In the end, AOL did a lot of good, albeit, a lot of bad too.
I think Apple does the same thing, just in different ways. The iPod and iTunes has introduced online music to millions of people who might not otherwise gotten into it. Much like AOL, Apple makes things so damn easy it's hard to resist. - triplehelix, on 10/11/2007, -18/+61@ fkr3 - currently owning, and founding, are two very different things.
- ChompTheMan, on 10/11/2007, -4/+41In the first picture it looks like the Apple share of the pie is a stake driven in between Firefox and all the other web browsers besides IE. In the next picture it appears that Safari has swallowed up FF and the other browsers, leaving IE with it's 78% share. Somebody is having some very delusional dreams.
- unit101, on 10/11/2007, -18/+49Isn't Safari based on an open-source rendering engine, Webkit? Sounds to me like he got defensive over the chart Jobs put up showing Safari hypothetically taking up all of Firefox's market share. I thought they didn't care about market share?
- OBKenobi, on 10/11/2007, -4/+29Reminds me a lot of what's happening with American politics. The two party system, and here we have the two-OS system. And look at the GPU market, another duopoly! Wait... the same thing's happening with the CPU market (those exotic niche CPUs for exotic applications don't really count).
Except for perhaps Microsoft, these companies won fairly, but the problem is that now they are overstepping their bounds if they seek to impose controls over the internet. Price-fixing is another major problem. Duopolies create an illusion of choice, when there really isn't any.
The internet must remain 100% open and neutral. Any entity that threatens this balance is an enemy of the human race. - winnch, on 10/11/2007, -5/+29"Steve asserted Monday that Safari on Windows will overturn history, attract 100M new users, and revert the world to a 2 browser state."
Sorry, but given Safari, Opera, Camino's CURRENT market share, don't we basically already HAVE a 2 browser state? And doesn't Firefox have closing in on 100M users? It just seems like a ridiculous, hypocritical statement to make.
Furthermore, WebKit is open source. Is Safari's UI and implementation proprietary? Sure. Similarly, Darwin is open source but Aqua and Apple's layers on top are proprietary, as they should be. I personally favor Apple's model. Open source on its own fails often because it doesn't have good organization, marketing, and integration. Apple's tiered model takes the best of both worlds. Always perfect? Not at all. Nor is a strictly GPL'd world.
At the end of the day, if you love IE, you can use IE. If you love Firefox, you can use FF. If you love Safari, now you can have that too.
If that's a bad thing for the Internet, then Mr Mozilla is in serious denial. - darksheer, on 10/11/2007, -1/+24kinjiru,
The problem is not your opinion; you are absolutely right, open source developers often don't get the credit they deserve. The problem is the way you choose to express that opinion--immediately slinging insults and going into 100% flame / troll mode doesn't do much for your credibility. Ok, so AOL didn't purchase Netscape until after the Mozilla project was created; but to deny that AOL played a huge roll in mozilla is not only entirely factually inaccurate, its an insult to the dozens of Mozilla developers whose salaries were paid by AOL between 1998 and 2003. And yet you come in here claiming that we're "spitting in the face" of developers by spreading "lies" while at the same time you come across as ignoring the work of the developers who laid the foundations for gecko out of which you now apparently work.
It's unfortunate that when the business world turns to look at open source projects, its often a demeanor such as yours that they encounter. Quite frankly, if your first reaction to something you don't like is to immediately become as insulting as you think you can muster, I'm in no way surprised when a company (or other people for that matter) simply say "no thanks...not for me."
I'm done with this conversation; for those who want a legitimate history lesson on the origins of the Mozilla project, Mozilla Foundation, and Mozilla Corporation, I'm sure there are resources for that information far better than the comments section of this Digg post. - fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -34/+55@ triplehelix - AOL owns Netscape, the basis for Mozilla browsers.
It's pretty easy to get the impression the Mozilla Corporation, and *especially* their community, want the internet to be free and open - provided you only use their platform and their softwares.
Obviously Apple has their own agenda, and even more obviously that agenda is to further their own prducts, sales and profits. Mozilla's authority starts and stops with their employees. Apple can do whateve they want, and users can choose to use whatever they want. - darksheer, on 10/11/2007, -8/+27Wow Kinjiru...who ***** in your cereal this morning?
It's people like you and your elitist attitude that give the open source community a bad name in business. Thanks! - sfinternetguy, on 10/11/2007, -11/+30it is built on an open source rendering engine, but the everything else is proprietary. he wasn't being defensive-- he is merely saying how wrong Steve Jobs's view on the state of the internet is.
of course firefox cares about market share-- there goal is to promote open source and web standards-- how can they do that if no one is using the product? - darksheer, on 10/11/2007, -6/+25damn...didn't get the edit in in time--
That's not to say that AOL is responsible for Mozilla--but they certainly played a huge role in making it happen--both financially and development-wise. - fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -2/+19@ kinjiru
"Actually no AOL was not involved with the start of Mozilla at all.. nor was Netscape's skeleton used for Mozilla.. quite the opposite in fact."
I'm inclined to believe Wikipedia over you. Although WIkipedia can be wrong, I'm sure it's wrong less of the time then you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation
" the Mozilla Foundation was launched on July 15, 2003 to ensure Mozilla could survive without Netscape. AOL assisted in the initial creation of the Mozilla Foundation, transferring hardware and intellectual property to the organization and employing a three-person team for the first three months of its existence to help with the transition. AOL promised to donate $2 million to the foundation over two years."
"And lets see what efforts you have put forth to help then lil boy hmm?? What? You've never helped out.. .. what a surprise.."
I fail to see how my contributions or lack thereof, in any way change history. - kelson, on 10/11/2007, -7/+23No, the COO of Mozilla is unhappy because Steve Jobs, in one of his slides, made it explicit that their goal is to eliminate *all* other browsers from the face of the web, with the exception of Internet Explorer.
Slide 1: the web as it is today. 78% IE, 15% Firefox, 5% Safari, 2% other.
Slide 2: the goal. Roughly 75% IE, roughly 25% Safari... and nothing else. - NWFackler, on 10/11/2007, -4/+19i think it would be benificial for everyone if, instead of taking over firefox's market share (which wont happen), it would take over IE's market share.
now you just have to get microsoft to stop shipping IE with windows. - Qumahlin, on 10/11/2007, -20/+35holy crap you mean now that Firefox has to compete again Safari on both Windows and Mac that the COO of Mozilla isn't happy? You don't say. Microsoft was quite unhappy too when FireFox showed up on the scene.
Pulling this "its not good for the web" crap is asinine - kelson, on 10/11/2007, -2/+17"lol, seriously people tell me what's proprietary in Safari."
The user interface.
You can't just download and reuse the source code for the browser. You *can* reuse the source code for the rendering engine -- the part that actually displays the page -- but you have to write your own application to use it. - kelson, on 10/11/2007, -2/+17When I read about the Safari beta for Windows, my first thought was that here was an opportunity to encourage web developers to break out of the thoroughly entrenched two-browser meme. Way back when, they developed for Netscape and IE. Now they develop for IE and Firefox. Maybe since Safari is the default browser on MacOS, Windows-based developers might be more willing to test in it than they seem to be with Opera. And if we can get them to actually pay attention to a third browser, maybe we could get them aiming for standards-based ways of doing things from the beginning.
For anyone wondering why that's important: http://www.alternativebrowseralliance.com/why.html
To learn that Apple's goal is entirely antithetical to that possibility is sad, and a bit disturbing. - triplehelix, on 10/11/2007, -4/+19how bout this, just develop for the god damn standards instead of specific browsers.
- darksheer, on 10/11/2007, -3/+17Really...calm down. If calling me a moron (edit: oh, and a "nimrod now, too) makes you feel better about yourself than so be it--but god damn...just take it easy.
There is ONE error in my original post: the date of the acquisition of Netscape by AOL was after the original Mozilla codebase was released (but was it before that original code was completely scrapped in favor of redevelopment from scratch--is that accurate enough history for you?)
Beyond that, I go on to state that AOL funded the founding of Mozilla foundation--which it did in 2003 with a pledge of $2 million of AOL money.
I stated that many of the developers of the Mozilla code were AOL employees--many of them were until 2003 when Netscape was dismantled and the remaining approximately 50 employees were let go.
I think I have some frame of reference here; I started using Mozilla with Mozilla in late 1999 / early 2000 and continued to use the suite until I first got ahold of the source for the "Phoenix project" and built it for the first time--and saw a glimpse of the future.
Your insulting tone and demeanor are really completely unwarranted and uncalled for--a simple "actually, the mozilla code was released before AOL purchased Netscape" would have sufficed. - Decimit, on 10/11/2007, -24/+38Someone from Mozilla is talking ***** about Safari? Did I understand this correct? Mozilla? The now bloated, slow, shadow of it's former self browser that actually had to have a different browser based directly on it be a slimmed down version. Wait, that was Firefox and now it's a bloated, slow, shadow of it's former self. Damn.
- justdave, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13I don't think he's worried about Safari at all. If you bother to read the article, he welcomes Safari, because it's bringing more choice to the web, whcih is exactly what Mozilla's mission is. He's just annoyed that Apple thinks Safari will make Firefox go away.
- Saiing, on 10/11/2007, -3/+16"And perhaps in thanks for my work and the many many others that actually worked on it you might say thanks by learning such before making even bigger asses of yourselves..."
Kinjiru: People who don't demand thanks, are people who most deserve it. - jerwood, on 10/11/2007, -2/+15Man, Steve Jobs is ***** crazy sometimes. If he's going to make crazy talk like that, why not just say that Safari, FF, Opera, etc combined will someday makeup over 50%? It would be super-great for Steve if Apple got 28% of the browser market, but it would be super more great if FF still had 28 (likely more) percent too. As the underdog, Apple needs standards more than they need browser-share, IMHO.
- fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -8/+21@ totalhelix-
OK, to be completely anal....
AOL owns Netscape (the brand), released Netscape (the software) as open source and founded Mozilla (the organisation). So AOL can be traced back in every sense to the beginings of the Mozilla Corporation and their core products.
So while you're right that currently owning and founding are two different things, AOL can be attributed for both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mozilla_Application_Suite - kelson, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13"are you telling me that you download and reuse the firefox interface?"
Me, personally? No. But if I wanted to launch a new browser, like, say, Flock or IceWeasel, or the latest incarnation of Netscape, I could.
Remember: different people have different priorities. Just because you can't think of any reason to look at someone's source code doesn't mean that other people don't have any use for it either. - tapo, on 10/11/2007, -3/+15All those extension developers are downloading and modifying Firefox's interface. Linux distributions like Ubuntu all compile their own slight variation of the browser, so it can blend in with their desktop better. Netscape, Flock, Songbird, and Democracy all use parts of Firefox's interface (though the latter two use a stripped down version called XulRunner). If Mozilla were ever to rest on their laurels and not release a new version, I can just fork Firefox's code.
Safari is a decent browser with a good rendering engine. But Jobs was really arrogant in his beliefs of taking Firefox's marketshare. A free, open source browser developed by people who want to see the web have innovation again worked hard and spread their browser through word of mouth. Apple is forcing users to install it by bundling with iTunes, took their rendering engine from the KDE project and hasn't been cooperative in returning changes to the codebase, and they haven't acknowledged them much at all - strange considering they had the bulk of their work done for them, and haven't even said thanks. Not a very nice thing to do.
Here's hoping that Safari takes a chunk out of IE's marketshare and leaves Firefox the hell alone. The FF developers deserve their success, and Apple is being a complete dick in this case. - lobotomy42, on 10/11/2007, -3/+14And I'd rather use open source apps that work really well, that do what I want, and that have few glitches than proprietary apps that look pretty but are half-finished, unstable, and filled with security glitches.
So there. - fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -7/+17It's not just for the iPhone, it's for a "total Apple" experience - your media and media players, your phone, your television, your computers and all the software on and for each of them.
An excellent goal for a business, and they're executing it well. - stalefries, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12monkeyrun: he wasn't talking about the web, he was talking about Safari. He meant that, besides the rendering engine, the rest of Safari is proprietary (like the interface, bookmarks storage, etcetera)
- FlatFeet, on 10/11/2007, -7/+17Has it really gotten down to the point that Apple releasing a free browser turns Mozilla upside down? In my opinion, if I like it I'll use it. If I don't like it, I won't use it. I use Safari on my Mac because it runs faster than Firefox. On my PC I use Firefox because it's better than IE. Will I use Safari on my PC? Already downloaded it, and I like Firefox better.
Let's just calm down, it's just a browser. - streak, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9@unit101, Jobs' slide is so terribly offensive because Safari was shown to take away ALL of Firefox's marketshare and NONE of IE's. How ridiculous is that? It's like Jobs saying: the Firefox marketshare corresponds to people who choose to use a non-Microsoft product whenever possible; people who use IE will always use IE; and we're going to make Safari better than Firefox. Oh, and by the way, Safari is faster than both IE and FF, but we really don't expect IE users to switch AT ALL. Perhaps Jobs formulated the presentation in the manner he did, so as not to alarm Redmond-ites. Instead, though, he insulted many people, such as Firefox users who choose to use open source solutions whenever possible and anyone with sensibility about how competitive markets operate.
- tapo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9Then put in a feature request, or find an extension that disables it.
Firefox still is a lean and mean browser, and I personally think the performance optimization was a really good idea. Why should I have to deal with sluggish backwards/forwards performance for people who are uptight about RAM usage? It scales caching depending on how much RAM you have, most new computers come with at least a gig, and unless you're doing something insane (twenty tabs open, encoding video, playing supreme commander all at the same time) you're not going to run out or notice it going into swap. - tapo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Sticking patents and ***** on it? There's no software patents on Firefox - that's a lie. The copyright is open source.
The only thing Mozilla has done to Firefox is trademark the name and logo so adware developers can't compile their own version and ruin the brand, as a result, they need to defend the brand or they'll lose it according to U.S. Law. - fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -11/+18So you're saying is AOL wasn't involved in the start of Mozilla and the skeleton of Netscape wasn't used by Mozilla initially?
Genius, aren't you. With ***** idiots like you on board, it's no wonder people have been waiting 4 years for memory leaking and retention to be an old joke.
PS.
Are you Asa Dotzler? You have the same troll-like retard thing happening. - ridd1e, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7I was surprised why Apple chose such unfortunate way of presenting data too. They shouldn't have done it that way - first Steve is talking about web standards, next he's showing Safari eating all open-web-aware browsers… I felt betrayed for a while.
I really hope it was the easiest way for them to present data with animation. But I'd take something from IE too, c'mon. - skellener, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8It doesn't really matter how Steve Jobs sees the world. The fact is that more choice is good (as is stated in the article). Better to have Apple release an additional choice for Windows users, than not to. As long as everyone is free to CHOOSE the browser they want to use, it doesn't really matter what Apple's plans are. When MS tried to block people from using other browsers on Windows, that was wrong. If Apple thinks they will one day have 22% of the browser market, so what? As long as there are other options, I don't think it really matters. What is said in the article can be said for all of the other browser makers. I'm sure the makers of Opera and other browsers would like to see their share grow as well. There's nothing wrong with that.
- triplehelix, on 10/11/2007, -34/+40how exactly do you figure that aol gave birth to mozilla?
- imdeanlabouty, on 10/11/2007, -5/+11http://www.duggmirror.com
Got it. - bassmanyoowan, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8mirror:
http://duggmirror.com/apple/Mozilla_COO_Steve_Jobs_Not_Good_for_the_Web/ - manogamez, on 10/11/2007, -7/+13Memory leak is a feature. Similar to Vista's prefetch.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009749.html
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=29707 - NSResponder, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6" too ignorant and lazy to bother learning the truth"
Has it ever occurred to you that if you just wrote better code, you wouldn't have to be so bitter and defensive?
I ran WorldWideWeb.app on NeXTSTEP before Andreesen's Amateurs ***** Tim's idea up. The reason you get no respect is because you haven't *earned* anyone's respect.
-jcr - mink78, on 10/11/2007, -5/+11Apparently someone ***** in Kinjiru's lunch too.
- bibbles, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6LOL, you guys fail to see that FireFox is the only share Apple can really think about taking over. People who use FireFox download browsers that don't come with their OS. People who use IE just use whatever came with their *****, and don't care to improve upon it.
By packaging Safari with iTunes they may convert a few people from IE to Safari, but most people using IE aren't going to bother trying it out, after all, they never used FireFox. - justdave, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7@fkr3:
The Mozilla Foundation is not the Mozilla Project. The Mozilla Project was created by Netscape in 1998. At the time it was still mostly managed by Netscape people (and a few outsiders). In 2003, it separated from AOL (who purchased Netscape somewhere in between), and became an independent legal entity, but "Mozilla" was around for a long time before the Foundation existed. (since 1998). - prammy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7"I find the hypocrisy of the guy almost funny. Here's Mozilla Corp, who's trying to corporatize Firefox in every possible way they can with free software, by sticking patents and other ***** on it, obviously worried about a competitor, and basically being jerks about it, accusing Apple of the very thing they do."
Actually if you read the article he is not worried about competition but was concerned with the way Steve Jobs described the market share he wants. Which is Microsoft and Apple. And he says this is a bad thing for users and as someone who went through all the frustraion in developing for both Netscape and IE from 98-2002, I can agree with it.
Competition is always good. Products usually turn out better that way. - iamnoskcaj, on 10/11/2007, -4/+9As much as I enjoy plugins... quite often, I'm FORCED to use whatever runs BEST (meaning faster and more stable).
This often means I'm running Safari instead of Firefox.
When I used Linux on my desktop full-time (between the mid-90's and 2005), I used whatever was fastest. I used Gnome almost exclusively for more than 5 years... and fortunately for me, Epiphany (or Galeon) was LIGHTNING FAST, AND had KILLER FEATURES (tag-based bookmarking in the early 00's).
For the short time I used KDE (around 2001 for a few months) I had to use Konqueror, as it seemed to run the fastest in KDE at the time. That changed after a while, and I eventually switched back to Gnome and used Epiphany again.
In an ideal world I would use the best browser, which to me, means it's the best performer, and the most OPEN to third-party extensions/enhancements and developments. Firefox's normal plugin/extensions system is incredible. Look at the vast sea of add-ons available. Then look at something like Greasemonkey, for instance. There are site-mods that totally turn websites upside down. They can really improve things, or just allow you to slightly change something. An open browser is IDEAL, it's just unfortunate that the most OPEN often means it won't perform as well... especially when you have third-party add-ons.
Apple has produced a VERY fast browser. On my Mac, I can't find a faster browser, period. I could have 20 windows open, with 30-40 tabs and have NO problem. Often a few of my windows have 10-20 tabs each, along with a bunch of other one and two tabs windows. The only thing that EVER seems to impact Safari's performance is having too many instances of Flash running. This can bring Safari to it's knees.
Truth be told, when I start installing a bunch of SIMBL plugins, or other hacks (that can give me similar abilties as Greasemonkey), Safari can perform quite poorly too.
It's a shame that Firefox's most compelling feature (it's openness) can also be it's biggest downside, when it comes to performance. After all, when it comes down to it, what are you going to use? A browser that runs WELL, or one that runs OK, but can be tricked out like crazy?
I know I'm all over the map with this post... it's a very touchy topic, and one that I've thought about extensively. The truth is... for all the people bitchin about proprietary software, and non-opensource apps being terrible... how many of you are using a proprietary OS? MY GUESS IS MOST OF YOU USE WINDOWS OR MAC OS X FULL-TIME! It's quite ironic that you're arguing for openness, yet you're using a proprietary OS.
Don't get me wrong there... because I switched to Mac OS X, myself, after almost ten years of dedicated Linux use. I chose to do it for many reasons... ease-of-use, and consistency, as well as performance were all determining factors. Mac OS X was the ONLY commercial OS I could EVER feel comfortable with, with it's OpenSource roots and it's extremely flexible nature, I couldn't imagine using anything else. To be able to run all my favorite opensource commands and utilties, as well as GUI apps, and now Windows Apps... to me, choosing a pure opensource product is not the best solution... for me, Mac OS X and Safari are a great compromise, as they both are proprietary, to an extent, yet remain open enough to be standards compliant (in rendering) and flexible enough to run the opensource apps and libraries I need.
I have to stop writing, or I'll ramble forever. Bottom line: quit looking at opensource vs proprietary as an absolute, and open your minds to new ideas, consider how you can benefit from both worlds. - TimmyGUNZ, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5My only problem with the graph is that it swallowed Firefox and not the IE share. Firefox is wonderful and the user community behind it with the extensions and themes will keep people from jumping over to Safari than IE will. Rather than appear to be crushing "the little guy," Jobs and co should've represented their intentions better by having all 3 co-exist on their chart with a decrease in IE market-share.
- ninj3, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4@goodoldharris
How do you see that? When I look at those two slides I see IE with 78% and then IE with 78% again. How in the hell does that show that Safari plans on taking any of IE's market share?
If they can be bothered to put in Firefox and the Others in the 1st slide, why would they suddenly get lazy and miss them out in the second? It's clearly deliberate. Big ass companies like that surely wouldn't miss such an important mistake. Animation problems? This is ****ing apple! They can't make an animated slide properly??
Jobs has given his message, Mozilla has understood it. It's very simple and very clear that the message is, "we will eat up all of the Fx and Other market share".
And although I seriously doubt that would ever come even close to happening, it's still an insult to the hard workers at Mozilla who took the market from IE and opened it up for everyone.
Mozilla took a large piece of the pie for a reason: innovation and open standards. And as long as they're one of the few organisations that still put these goals into their browser, they will continue to eat at everyone's market share, IE and Safari included. -
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