Opera Settles $12.75m Lawsuit, But with Whom?

An anonymous reader writes "According to a press release from Opera Software ASA, they have settled legal claims with an international corporation resulting in payment to Opera of net USD 12.75 million. The interesting bit is that the international corporation is unknown. Dagbladet speculates that Microsoft is paying up. They reason it has something to do with this."

Comments

Re:More information is needed...

[hkmwbz]

Why Opera? Small (both footprint and download), fast, works on lower-end systems, real Small Screen Rendering as seen on mobile devices, the M2 email client, which is rather unique, built in... No need to download countless extensions to mimic features that are already there when you install Opera. Integration between those features, instead of some random unrelated extensions doing their own thing and adding clutter to the UI. Then again, with Firefox you can do just about anything by installing extensions, and the interface is a lot cleaner by default. Why Opera? If Opera does what you need, then use Opera. If not, use something else.

"I'm sure its Slashdotly correct to assume that MS and the MSN website issue are the reason for this money but perhaps its something much less sinister."

Yeah, I'm sure any company would be willing to hand out several million dollars just to keep someone quiet and not go to court. And this company is one which is not a customer or partner of Opera, it's got nothing to do with patents or anything like that. So it is probably a competitor. But who has done bad things to Opera anyway? The Mozilla Project surely cannot pay this kind of money. AOL? The ones who took over Netscape when IE had already won the browser war anyway?

For chrissakes, this is Slashdot. Someone submits an interesting story about a newspaper speculating about Microsoft doing evil again. Big deal. It's not like Microsoft has a good reputation to uphold here on Slashdot anyway.

If it's something much less sinister, why would they be willing to pay this kind of money for it? And not only that, what much less sinister company could afford it?

So yeah, again, this is Slashdot. We like to bash MS. Why? Because, quite frankly, they deserve to be bashed. And they keep proving that again and again. It's an OSS site. It reports on bad things and rumors about Microsoft. It always has. If that bothers you, then perhaps Slashdot is not the site for you?

After all, there are plenty of pro-MS zombies out there running sites that spread FUD on behalf of MS. Why aren't you out there bashing Paul Thurrott's FUD against Apple? SCO's FUD against FOSS? The numerous journalists who are nothing but kiss-asses for Microsoft?

Slashdot is an OSS community site which happens to post about interesting stories and rumors affecting nerds and geeks everywhere. You may not like it, but then perhaps Thurrott's Win SuperSite is more down your alley...

Re:Great

[bahamat]

I'ts the animated giggly ads that piss me off, not the extra buttons on the toolbar. I don't need a 480x60 block chopped out of my toolbar and getting in my way just so Opera can make $.01 per view, especially when the Mozillas are free.

I use Firefox because it has awesome ad blocking capabilities. And if its built in ad blocking isn't enough for you there's the AdBlock extension which gives the user maximum control over ads. I can't remember the last time I saw one (yes, I steal web pages).

Opera can't have this feature because it is by its very nature "ad supported" software. Ads are visual clutter and noise. They have to be to draw your attention, that's what they're for. I want them out of my way because I'm trying to get work done dammit. Opera loses on this point alone because there's nothing you can say that will justify me having to look at that crap or shelling out thirty bucks to hide it.

Game, set, match. It's been nice debating with you.