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Google & Firefox's Relationship
sebFlyte writes "More news from FOSDEM, this time about the depth of support for Firefox from Google. According to this article on ZDNet, Firefox' growth and Mozilla's staffing costs have been underpinned by the Foundation's tie-ins with Google, but they promise not to go the same way as Netscape by selling 'every bookmark and link'... and don't forget that the lead programmer (among others) is directly in Google's employ."
Google Maps is now supported by Safari. Way to go, Google!
...given that refreshing slashdot half the time gives me no article text - and the games page has the side column (with the sections text etc.) overlapping with the main column.
If Google were to host the Start Page in different languages
FYI Google DO host the start page in different languages and heres a couple o them:
Google Netherlands
Google France
"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
Just to clarify: Google is just one of several search partners we have at the Mozilla Foundation, although (as is fairly evident from looking at the software) it is currently the one we have the closest ties with, by virtue of them hosting the home page.
"Keeping the wolf from the door" is a bit too strong - we are establishing good relationships with a number of companies, all of whom are supporting the Foundation in different ways. My comments were merely intended to say that the Foundation is not going anywhere - we'll be around for the forseeable future.
One further clarification: Firefox localisations can change to use a localised version of Google; they are not kept to using the en-US version, as the article implies.
Gerv
(the speaker on whose comments the article is based)
I didn't say that - it's a slip by the reporter, not by the speaker :-)
Gerv
google's still not evil
The inquirer reports that SEO Blog and others think they are evil because of their new AutoLink toolbar feature: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21470
I don't thinks so. Google seems to have no desire to implement this feature in a firefox plugin, In fact, note that google recommends and links to the open-source Googlebar extension for firefox on the google toolbar download page. http://toolbar.google.com/googlebar.html
Google knows that if people are ready to click on well-placed ads when browsing using IE, then it is their duty as a company to place well these ads. I don't hear google complaining about the adblock extension for firefox that can be used to block all ads, even those tasteful text ads by gooooogle.
No, google is not evil, nor will they become evil. They are making money by gaining the trust of millions of users, and investing that money - and more importantly that trust - to continue to make products that people want.
However, which brand has more recognition between Google and the Mozilla Foundation? If and when Google releases a browser, it will be known pretty well pretty quickly just because it's Google.
I didn't reveal the full details because I don't know them :-) This is good, because I can freely speculate without giving anything away (which is what I was doing at FOSDEM).
Having said that, "open source" doesn't have to mean "everything that goes on is public". We have private security bugs, private staff meetings and confidential business deals - often because the other party wants it that way.
I'm sure the Foundation will publish all the financial records that it's required to.
Gerv
From TFA, they mentioned how localized builds are a problem... If Google were to host the Start Page in different languages, would the Foundation not be able to set a different language version of the page in their localized builds?
My impression was that there were non-Google search engines out there that were better for specific languages. Maybe Swahili speakers prefer some specific Swahili sw-search.example.com search page, but the Swahili Mozilla build still has to use http://www.google.com/intl/sw/.
This is hypothetical, though; I'm not aware of any languages where people overwhelmingly prefer other search engines to Google.
try multimap.com's maps for elsewhere?
Call me a troll if you must, but there used to be mechanisms to keep corporations in check. Back in the Golden Age before RR, we had these things called "regulations" that determined what corporations could do when their best interests clashed with those of the societies in which they operated. And there were even politicians who supported and extended those "regulations" when new abuses appeared on the horizon. Let's see, what were those guys called? I can't quite remember, it's been so long...OH YEAH! They were called "Democrats"!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but those regulations ultimately helped entrenched corporate interests, with any help for individuals merely a necessary by - product for government asisstance in keeping the status quo.
I refer you to:
The Theory of Economic Regulation by some guy named Stigler (He taught Law and Economics at some small midwestern school)
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Firefox is still doing well despite the fact that users have to take three non-passive actions: 1 ) actively seek it out and 2) download it and 3) install it. Also, large installations are reluctant to draw attention to themselves for fear of reprisal in the form of increased MS fees and such. There are, however, ways to hide from MS.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I'm running Google Desktop Search on Firefox, IE and Opera. Did you mean the Google Toolbar?
The Google Toolbar is a way of getting google into the IE interface. Firefox, mozilla and Opera all have a Google presence by default.
There is no reason for Google to make a search toolbar for Moz/FF/Opera as they already (essentially) have one.
If in the future another search engine eclipses Google, then we would expect the browser developers to change their default search engines. Only then would we be able to see if anything untoward is going on.
To some extent, this is true. Pinning down facts about a historical figure is tricky, and gets trickier as you go further back.
But on a more fundamental level, it's a bogus comparison. With Henry VIII, we have multiple eyewitness accounts of his life, copious written documents about the time period which corroborate each other. We have decrees he pronounced, legislation he demanded. So while there may be disagreements over motivations for specific actions, or whether letter x was really sent on date y, there is a clear outline of his life which anyone familiar with historical research can verify.
In the case of Jesus, we have none of this. We can get glimmers of how the average person lived his or her life in Jerusalem of 15-35AD. But we have nothing written by Jesus, nothing written by eyewitnesses or assistants, nothing written about him by anyone until decades after the events are said to have taken place.
Paul gives the earliest mentions of Jesus, but provides almost no biographical detail. We know he was familiar with the story of the tomb, but that's all we know for sure. The gospels of Matt, Mark, Luke, and John came much later. Mark seems to have been written first, right after the razing of the temple in Jerusalem. The other three drew on Mark as a primary source, but reworked many details to promote their own agendas.
Then we get into the extra-biblical documentation. Except there isn't any. No tax records, judicial decisions, or anything else specifically referring to Jesus. The Christian movement itself stays under the radar for decades. The first reference to them is in Tacitus' Annals, which demonstrates only that there were Christians living in Rome by about 100AD. His information may be second-hand.
Some of the earliest literature about Jesus comes from the Gnostics, but it's very unlikely that any Christian will accept those writings as having historical content.
Things are so bad, there have been fairly mainstream, plausible attempts to show that Jesus was an entirely mythical character. You just cannot do that with Henry VIII, but the sheer lack of timely corroborating evidence makes it possible with Jesus.
I'm fine with accepting the limits of historical inquiry. I don't think these facts imply anything bad about the Christian faith or the people who follow it. However, many Christians want to believe that every word of the Bible is perfectly true. Those people will have trouble accepting that the silence of history stands in sharp contrast with the importance they place on Jesus today.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!