What is Digg?169 Comments
- dracocat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+132I am not so sure this is as complicated as that.
The fact is that when software crashes, users don't distinguish between the OS and the software. All they know is that something didn't work right, and more often than not they blame Windows.
Now that so many people use Firefox, it is worth a little bit of their time to make sure Firefox does not crash and give users a bad experience; and not just any users, the type of users who are tech savvy and influence other people--the Mavens. - danjal, on 10/12/2007, -14/+122Its good to see Microsoft being mature
- BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -15/+96It's a trap!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -20/+90I think they're gonna lock up the Firefox team and slave them to fix up IE.
Be careful guys. - MacSuxWindozSux, on 10/12/2007, -4/+67Microsoft does this a lot. Mozilla isn't the first competitor they've invited over for the sake of compatibility. They do this all the time.
- interiot, on 10/12/2007, -9/+53Well, certainly the Firefox team will be on the lookout for airborne chairs.
- johndi, on 10/12/2007, -16/+59I think it's a matter of self interest. They don't want to go through the antitrust wringer again.
- Mejogid, on 10/12/2007, -6/+38Mozilla's non profit. Doesn't mean all its employees are.
- ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -9/+41@Gatesophile:
Except it wasn't Apple's idea, since Apple took the idea from Xerox first. Did you pay attention to the movie? Hence PIRATES (not PIRATE) of Silicon Valley. - johnvbrennan, on 10/12/2007, -12/+35Yeah...I'm guessing there could be snakes on that plane!
- AnalystX, on 10/12/2007, -11/+32It sounds like Microsoft wants to "make them an offer they can't refuse." Nobody has spotted Ballmer doing Brando impersonations lately have they?
- stephenwq, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21Makes sense, if firefox users find out that it doesnt work on vista they wont consider moving to it.
- Egoist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15@mrASSMAN: Non-profit doesn't mean they don't make a profit. The Mozilla foundation makes quite a profit, actually. The term has to do with how they reinvest the money that they make.
- Gatesophile, on 10/12/2007, -15/+29Hmm, that reminds me of Pirates of Silicon Valley, when Microsoft went to go visit Apple, supposedly innocently, and in the end, taking Apple's idea..
Hmm, could Firefox possibly have something similar up it's sleeve?!
I kid, I kid, Firefox definately doesn't need anything Microsoft has over there. :P - silenceHR, on 10/12/2007, -19/+32With it's market share Firefox made that happen and what it's much more important, it has high market share among "powerusers" (to use phrase from one of the articles posted here not so long ago). Microsoft would rather have Firefox working on Vista and have all "powerusers" migrate to Vista, then risk large crowd of tech savvy people not buying Vista (i am not going back to IE no matter what).
After all, what can they lose? IE is part of Windows anyway. This can only help thir sales, cause when many of your friends that usually ask you for tech support ask you about Vista and problems, you can give them Firefox and Thunderbird and you'll know it will work. Not supporting them would be stupid on MS side. They'll make tons of cash on Vista sales and anything that can help them do it, is good for them.
It is also good for FF and TB and whole Open Source, to know that 2 flagship products will have no problems working on next gen MS OS.
I don't see traps or anything, i see sound business logic on MS part and good opportunity for Mozilla. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20that has nothing to do with being mature or something else. it's simply that Microsoft has to make Vista something that people want. and Mozilla, as one of the most widely used applications currently, has to work flawless. customers want it that way.
there's no conspiracy going on or something ;) - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -10/+21"Its good to see Microsoft being mature"
I think it's more about saving themselves from having a hugely popular (yes, 10% market share certainly makes it so) software working poorly on Vista. They surely want to give priority to popular software in working right.
What I wonder is why Microsoft people don't just sign up on Bugzilla and post information on how to resolve bugs that may pop up during Vista testing like everyone else. If they really want to help out in the project, they should report bugs and post fixes there. I'm unsure how useful a 4 day tour at Redmond will be as bugs often takes far longer than that to find as well as fix. - hdort, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14The did meet with the guys from Opera already: http://annevankesteren.nl/2006/08/opera-vista and http://my.opera.com/olli/blog/show.dml/417961
So it does not have to do a lot with Open Source, or with trying to win people over. - Escamillo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Microsoft licensed the look-and-feel from Apple, so they had a similar agreement between them that Apple had with Xerox. Apple only got pissed when Win3.0 featured overlapping windows, which Apple felt went beyond the MS/Apple license agreement. The courts found otherwise.
BTW, HP was a co-defendent in Apple's look-and-feel suit against MS, because Apple didn't like HP's "New Wave" environment. The courts vindicated both MS and HP.
Apple fanboys need to get over it. Apple went to court over this and lost. - freebirdpat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12It makes sense, especially since I imagine Firefox users to be in the "vocal" web users category. They are vocal in forums, blogs, and comments. So it would be a bad idea to have Firefox not work on Vista and have this vocal group of users clammering about it on the various mediums they have access too.
- Escamillo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"What I wonder is why Microsoft people don't just sign up on Bugzilla and post information on how to resolve bugs that may pop up during Vista testing like everyone else. If they really want to help out in the project, they should report bugs and post fixes there."
Post fixes? Microsoft has their own job to do, not plow through Mozilla code in attempt to create fixes for it. Besides, MS devs are forbidden to look at GPL code, for fear of being accused of incorporating GPL code into their own products, so they can't create and post fixes even if they had the time to. - macewan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10my guess is they want to meet the developers to see about hiring one or more
- skunkman62, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14why does apple always work thier way into the comments?
- Darmichar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10A good majority of the people using Firefox are also the 'early adopters'. People willing to take a chance on new software/hardware/gadgets/whatever. It's in Microsoft's best interest to have Vista playing friendly with the software that early adopters use, open source or not, as they are the people that are going to be influencing the rest of the market to switch.
- Markus123, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Oh I replied to you earlier when you commented about Opera stealing from Firefox even though Opera had mostly everything before Firefox was even made... but now I see you're yet another mindless firefox fanboy who doesn't really know anything about it, so nevermind.
Note that I have nothing against firefox and am using it now, but people like you make me not want to use it. - IronChef, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13I agree. Keep your friends close....and your enemies closer.
- MacSuxWindozSux, on 10/12/2007, -10/+16Actually Microsoft went to Apple and stole the idea that Apple stole from Xerox.
(I know you knew that)
The movie also skims lightly over the fact that Microsoft wrote a number of applications for the Macintosh. So they did at least contribute, in a very microscopic way.
Edit: What he said... kind of. - rbanffy, on 10/12/2007, -8/+14Not only Apple paid Xerox for the right to use those ideas, they vastly improved over them. IIRC, the Alto had no pull-down menus or dragging icons around, no clipboard, no desktop-as-a-place-with-objects metaphor and used a complicated (even for today) way to manipulate stuff with a 3-button mouse. If Microsoft copied something directly from Xerox, it was the context menu. The whole rest of Windows 2 (Windows 1 was so crude it hardly copied anything), came, more or less, straight from Lisa, not the Mac.
But well... Microsoft tried to copy from Apple, but Digital Research was a lot more successful in that regard, as to have GEM completely crippled by lawsuits. - crimson117, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Well, the firefox guys could tell them but the code is under the GPL, so if MS used it they'd have to open up much of IE :)
- PaiTrakt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Markus is right, and most Firefox fanboys know that as well.
But still, the Firefox team has done a good job with their browser, I just happen to like Opera better :) - Dracos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The only thing MS might want to steal from Mozilla developers is comprehension of web standards.
MS isn't going to steal any Gecko code... they could have done that many years ago. In fact, MS probably doesn't allow IE developers to look at Gecko code: those devs would become tainted, and the code they write later couldn't be trusted to be 100% corporate property. The GPL is viral, remember, and hasn't really been tested in court. MS is the last corporation that wants to be the guinea pig for that. - brundlefly76, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5lol 'is Microsoft admitting something here'?
Microsoft has the most extensive and proactive developer assistance program on the planet.
AFAIK they have never limited that support to developers who dont have competing products. - kamisama, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Not really a microsoft fan, but this is a good initiative. They should do it more often.
- Darkness123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Microsoft learned that in the begining Firefox was for Techy People, now it has gone main stream with normal end users using it. I personal installed it on my relatives PCs because of the no ActiveX, it is not built into Explorer.exe and the AdBlock + FilterSetG, that blocked out most of the crap they did not need.
- sillywampa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Isn't this how things went bad with Eolas? Microsoft made nice with them to learn how they could use their technology, but then didn't strike a deal, instead opting to steal Eolas' technology. That is why we now have the headaches with IE and activeX controls.
Difference here is they can easily download the source for firefox if they wanted too.
This meeting seems to be on the level. perhaps to discuss standards compliance and how to make it so us developers dont have to do crazy css hacks to get pages workin in IE. - theone3, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9Erm.. It's freely available. They'd have to be really stupid to bring the team over just to steal firefox.
- noneloud, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10That's why I said "just kidding". Even if you didn't consider it funny, my comment was made in a light hearted manner.
- deltaphi, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7haha, I saw a teaser for that movie last week. "snakes on a plane". very funny.
I just think, Microsoft has realised, that mozilla isn't the enemy, but someone, to learn from, and to work with.
Here in germany, over 35% of the inernet users browse the net with firefox. If microsoft ignores the open source competition, they won't be no 1 for a long time. If you can't fight or buy them, work wtih them together.
Can only be an advantage for us: the user - dirka, on 10/12/2007, -10/+13Excerpt from their meeting
"Oh by the way firefox guys, that inline search is interesting, how did you say you did that again?" - person, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Here's another link: http://operawatch.com/news/2006/08/opera-visits-microsoft-in-preparation-for-windows-vista.html
It's well-known for anyone who's been reading the Opera news and has been doing their research that there is nothing more than just trying to find compatibility between alternative browsers and Vista in these meetups at Microsoft. Don't get your hopes up for anything big. - airstrike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think Sam Ramjii should go back to what he does best: Spider-Man
- astrosmash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Microsoft lost the browser war long ago. And by lost I mean that they failed in their quest to prevent the Web from becoming an OS-independent application platform by ensuring that every meaningful website and web application required Internet Explorer running on Windows. When you consider how much trouble they got themselves into during their dealings with Netscape, the strategy was a colossal failure and a waste.
Anyway, Microsoft and Vista need Internet Explorer obviously (a HTML renderer/browser component is a necessity in any modern OS), but it's also to their advantage that Windows continue to be the best platform on which to run Firefox.
There is no browser war. - Markus123, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10Except... Opera had 75%+ of those features before firefox existed, so perhaps you have it the wrong way around, those firefox extensions have copied Opera's features.
- jgclark123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@dracocat
Actually, every John Q. User I've dealt with asks what's wrong with Firefox, why doesn't it work automagically with Windows Media Player (an older issue), and how do I get the blue e back? They don't know to blame Windows because most of them don't even understand the concept of an operating system. I know my parents and grandma don't care how Firefox runs on Linux, or how IE works, just that Hotmail and some banks don't work right *because* of Firefox. (Emphasis represents their opinion.) At least I got my neighbor to convert... - apocalizer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The problem is some people are afraid of installing anything on their computers. Unless Microsoft is smart enough to give users the option of IE, Firefox or Opera at install time (probably won't though) IE will continue to dominate at least 50% of the market until the year 3000 because it's what people are used to. Whether or not IE is any good by then doesn't matter much. MS probably knows this too, but it doesn't hurt to get Firefox working with Vista to appease those users who aren't intimidated by technology.
- isellmacs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think people are forgetting that Internet Explorer and Firefox aren't really in that much competition. Now bare with me, i'm sure you're thinking i'm smoking crack, but think about this: Internet Explorer is FREE, and comes with the OS just like Notepad.
Microsoft considers browsing the internet something everybody should have access to. IE, Netscape and AOL clashed majorly because of this. Netscape and AOL (at the time they were seperate) wanted to charge money for software to browse the web. They wanted to tack on their own monthly fee, but they couldn't because MS was giving away a browser for FREE. That was part of the whole anti-trust thing: that MS was preventing Netscape from raping customers of their hard earned money by giving away a web browser for free.
Now take Firefox. Firefox is free, and AFAIK, is commited to being free. Microsoft DOES care about its customers, despite what many think. MS tried to protect it's customers against Netscape&AOL, and for the most part did so succesfully. Firefox isn't trying to rape windows users, so MS is much more willing to work with them.
Think about what would happen to MS if IE wasn't included with windows, but Firefox was instead. If Firefox is free, and IE is free, then MS isn't losing money either way. In many ways they are saving money, though they would probably have a division devoted to assisting the Firefox devs. This is majorly different from Netscape, as in the same position Netscape would have either charged MS or forced MS to charge the customer (effectively the same thing) and tried to grub as much money as possible.
It makes perfect sense that MS would more readily assist a non-profit for the good of the people style company, even though it resisted a for-profit rape the people as much as possible company. - JDelta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ zhulien
"care factor = 0. Windows Vista is dead in the water before it sees light of day - at least on my computers that is."
Because your computer is ***** and can't handle it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Ahh.. Another visitor... Stay awhile... Stay FOREVER!"
- valona, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Wouly you care to elaborate on this dishonest business practice? Otherwise the more rational amongst us, would be lead to believe that you are pulling this nugget from the dark corners of your festering rectum. And considering that I can visit the Mozilla website and view the source code of Firefox, I presume the MS have the technical ability to do so as well.
- valona, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I remember it well. Over 14000 OSS developers died on that dark, dark day. 13876 Linux distributions went silent, never to return and conquer the desktop. Sourceforge was a barren wasteground of half-finished projects with no helpfiles and terrible interfaces. Not a single post was made to alt.erotic.star-trek. He nearly wiped out the 'community' the despotic bastard. But the resistance was strong.
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