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Mozilla Exec Claims Apple is Hunting OSS Browsers
Rob writes with a link to a Computer Business Review article on the negative impact Mozilla COO John Lilly sees Apple is having on Open Source. Lilly claims that Jobs' recent discussion of Safari on Windows is an attempt to create a duopoly of browsers (IE and Safari), with Firefox and the rest on the outside looking in. "The graph 'betrays the way that Apple, so often looks at the world,' Lilly said. 'But make no mistake: this wasn't a careless presentation, or an accidental omission of all the other browsers out there, or even a crummy marketing trick,' he said. 'Lots of words describe Steve and his Stevenotes, but 'careless' and 'accidental' do not. This is, essentially, the way they're thinking about the problem, and shows the users they want to pick up.'" We discussed an analyst's opinion on this subject this past Friday.
Apple's introducing a superior browser to Windows, therefore they're trying to weasel out Mozilla/Firefox? If they really want the market share, make Firefox 3 worth going back to, and I, for one, will start using FF again.
Gee, I hope its as user friendly as iTunes. I simply live to see the message "You cannot use iTunes because another user is running a copy". That's user friendliness right there.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
In computing, you can be successful as #2, but the #3 player usually loses out and disappears. (Remember Amiga? Commodore? DEC? Ask Jeeves?) If Apple wants their browser to have any commercial significance, they have to pass Firefox.
Safari is even less enticing on Windows than it is in its native environment.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
RTFA. They don't want the market share. They want to keep the web open, as stated in the Mozilla Manifesto.
Anyway, they do have the market share. Apple releasing Safari for Windows will increase consumer choice and the competition will help all browsers improve. It will also help web developers realize they can't develop for only one or two browsers, but instead should develop according to standards unless they want to turn away significant fractions of visitors. I see only good coming out of the release, regardless of what Jobs' intentions are.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
If Safari turns out to be better than Firefox, they deserve to take their marketshare. If not, well, Apple deserves to see this fall flat on its face. But I guess "OMG teh evils corporashuns!!11!" is likely to attract more readers...
I don't think it was even that - it was more like trying to show the relative market shares of the two browsers, without complicating the chart by introducing other elements (Opera, Firefox, IceWeasel, Konq, Lynx, Links, etc ...).
In other words, this is a tempest in a teacup.
Kevin Smith on Prince
This is all a tempest in a teapot. Safari on Windows is not going to harm OSS browsers any more than Opera does. There is no reason to think that Safari is going to displace Firefox (or Konqueror or whatever). The users of those apps use them because they had a choice and found a product they liked.
Remember: more competition is always a good thing.
By the way, Safari isn't even the best browser on OS X (that honour goes to Camino) so I really can't see how it will have much impact on Windows.
If the Linux and Microsoft fanboys want to join me in the Asbestos Lounge, the popcorn and beer are on me.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Apple (Read Jobs and handlers) left out lynx, Opera, FF, tinybrowser, etc out of the presentation because the end result would have looked much more visually confusing that they wanted, IMO.
TFS/TFA make a critical logical error. They state that nothing Jobs does in these presentations is accidental, because we all know how meticulously planned they are. Therefore, if nothing is accidental, then the omission must be a sign of Apple's malevolence toward open source. QED!
Bullshit. The graph doesn't necessarily 'betray the way Apple looks at the world', it betrays they way apple wants the shareholders, newspapermen and fans to look at the world. Their ongoing conceit (diff than deceit) has always (From the late 90's on) been, we are competing against this giant monopoly, here we are, the valiant underdogs. True or not, this is the image (RDF) that has been provided. Apple's recent success may cause people to forget this, to assume that the marketing message is different now. An assumtpion like that would have to come butressed with facts, not shoddy logic.
Does this mean that Apples wants to make nie with open source, or acknowledge the contributions of open source, etc? Of course not. But that doesn't mean that a graph is really a coded browser battle plan to get rid of FF. Apple would be perfectly happy competing for a plurality in browser market share, especially if it meant that users would/could be intimately familiar w/ the iphone interface out of the gate.
Using BSD as the basis for OSX basically gave FOSS credibility in the consumer market.
It's like a decade of free positive publicity.
Mozilla can take the competition. If it can't it shouldn't be in the game.
Are they honestly crying in public because a competitor wants to... compete with them?
Firefox has managed to get a 25% marketshare against Microsoft, on their own OS. Hell, I'm typing this from Firefox on a Mac right now, because I like the addons. If Safari is trying to "edge out" Firefox, they just need to make sure Firefox is a significantly better browser. If it's not, well, you can hardly blame Apple for making a better product.
Apple is gunning for open source software...and he bases this on a pie chart?
Apple's main target by releasing Safari on Windows is Internet Explorer; they want to basically get newbies who have tried iTunes or have iPods and liked it, and might be willing to try other Apple stuff. They aren't going after Firefox users, so a comparison of Safari v IE v Firefox makes no sense. Hell, why not include Opera as well, and OmniWeb, and Lynx! It'll be one confusing motherfucker of a pie chart, but by god Norwegians, both the people using OmniWeb and text-mode fetishists need representation too!
To me, this smacks of "Yoo hoo! Over here! Firefox still exists! Yes! Wooooo! Give us publicity too!". And he's somehow extrapolated a simple omission from a pie chart into a hatred of open source software in general. Very nice.
(Not that I think Safari for Windows is there yet, it's nice but not wonderful. I still use Firefox if I'm use Windows, but prefer Safari under OSX.)
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I don't think Apple's interested in the browser market as it exists, I think they are interested in having cross-platform "client" to run a new generation of web-based content that they will release over the next few years- things like a Safari-based Word Processor, or perhaps photo editor- a remote connection client so you can always get to your Mac. I think Apple wants / need certain features to make this work, and it's easier all around if they use their browser rather than IE or FF. Watch Safari turn into a client for Safari apps, not a new entrant into the browser war. They want it cross-platform so PC users will also be able to take advantage of it, possibly selling more Macs in the process.
Safari rigorously follows the standards, helping keep the web open for all standards-based browsers. Mozilla should be thanking them.
Lies about crimes
IMHO, this is ridiculous! Safari gets released for Windows, and the Mozilla team immediately has an outcry against it?
... but that won't directly add to Apple's bottom line. They aren't likely to make anything SELLING Safari for Windows either - so it's more or less going to remain a freebie you can opt to use or not use, as you see fit.
The more competition, the better, I say! May the best man win, and all that. I didn't realize Firefox was being strictly worked on as a project with a goal of defeating IE, and no other players were ever supposed to "interfere" with that mission!?
This isn't even a scenario that's real comparable to iTunes - despite that getting thrown around as a comparison. With iTunes, Apple was releasing it as a vehicle to sell music on their store. In that regard, the whole thing was a commercial venture - and it simply made sense to allow the vast number of Windows users a "front end" to be able to purchase Apple's music, instead of keeping it just for the 5-7% of the marketplace that uses Macs.
With Safari, on the other hand, it may become useful or required as a development tool aiding in building apps for the iPhone
What the heck is "iMail"? I googled for it, but the first two or three links were either parked domains or 404's.
Perhaps you meant Mail(.app). In that case, I'd have to rate your opinion-making skills as "weak". Mail is way better than Thunderbird. It has everything T-bird has, but with polish and proper system integration. And a handy "bounce message" function that essentially tells automated spam systems to sod off. Thunderbird still has a ways to go before it's at the level of flexibility and polish of Firefox, and only then does it have a chance to be better than Mail.
Your opinion of Safari at least has merit. It would be nice to have plugins (Developer Toolbar and AdBlock are wonderful) in Safari. It's lacking in that area. But Safari (for Mac) is still a damned good browser. Safari for Windows is crap, though. (And, no, they're not the same.)
Actually, I think Safari was a bad decision for Apple but a good decision for everybody else. The easy solution for Apple would have been to put Gecko inside a Cocoa app, which would have given them much more compatibility with Web 2.0 sites. By struggling to establish a third standard, they are actually helping everybody else. And if they manage to establish Safari as the #2 browser on the web, all the better: FOSS will simply take the Safari rendering engine (which is open source) and wrap it in a Gtk+ UI.
Considering the slide Firefox has been in in my personal satisfaction index, I find myself not giving a damn that they're afraid of a little competition.
I use OSS because I like the way it works. If it doesn't work well enough, I use something else. Firefox isn't going to stay my browser of choice if there is something out there that does the job better.
Now I'm not really fond of Safari, but if it runs fast, loads fast, doesn't hog system memory, I'm going to start using it. End of fricking story.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Honestly, Firefox is supported by the geek movement towards superior and sometimes, open source solutions. Geeks are geeks before they are Apple fanboys in most cases, so I see them supporting their geek roots over brand loyalty. I would content that Apple users are much more prone to installing and running Firefox than a Windows user is. I do not have the numbers, or if anyone does, but I bet the % of Apple users running FF is higher than the % of Windows users running it.
Geeks spawned the Firefox movement and they will support it as long as it is the best.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
That's not at all how Apple operates. You're completely ignoring their real motives. They don't care if they own the dominant web browser. They know it's basically irrelevant to their business.
What Apple sells is a particular computing experience. To have people develop web apps for the iPhone they need the browser platform it runs on: Safari. So Safari on Windows lets non-Mac users develop iPhone applications (similar to OS X's Dashboard).
Apple does not care if only developers use Safari on Windows. As long as there's a lot of iPhone apps to download. Having people browse the web with Safari on Windows does nothing for Apple's bottom line. But as a development platform it's critical to their latest product.
Developers: We can use your help.
It is still a reason for celebrations. We should have fireworks on that day. IE6 has tormented web authors far too long.
Okay nobody seems to have picked up on the obvious flaw with this statistic - the w3school's site (from which the data on which this prediction was based) is a (poor imho) web developer's resource. Naturally with an audience that has an intrinsic interest in browsers and standards Firefox (and other alternative browsers) it will show up in statistics generated disproportionately to it's actual usage in the general public, it also explains the adoption rate of IE7 being very high. These statistics are useless and that prediction is completely invalid outside of that specific site.
There's mischief and malarkies but no queers or yids or darkies within this bastard's carnival, this vicious cabaret.
If the only way that Mozilla can survive is for Apple (and whoever else wants to toss their hat in the ring) to refrain from building a browser, then Mozilla doesn't deserve to survive.
But the good news is, Mozilla can survive, and it will, if it is good enough to compete against Safari and IE and Opera (and whoever else wants to toss their hat into the ring.) And presently, it is that good. I don't foresee that changing anytime soon. And if and when it does, I'll gladly adopt whatever the best browser is on that day, just as I've ditched Netscape 1.x through 4.7, IE 3 through 6, and all the rest I've tried over the years. Right now I like Firefox.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Can we please kill this meme? As I wrote the other day: "There are only two competitors in the web browser market: Internet Explorer and standards-compliant browsers. From a web development standpoint, it doesn't matter which of the many standards-compliant browsers is being used: that's why there are standards. So this talk about Safari "stealing" from Firefox is bullshit. It doesn't make any difference."
That's it. There's no story. Safari on Windows doesn't hurt anyone except maybe Microsoft. Just because Jobs didn't take time out of his keynote to stroke the collective Firefox ego does not mean Apple is "hunting" Mozilla.
The exec also highlighted Mozilla's attitude about market share: "We've never ever at Mozilla said that we care about Firefox market share at the expense of our more important goal: to keep the web open and a public resource," he said.
The subtext being that Apple somehow is contrary to this. As if releasing a browser (based on an open source rendering engine) which actually has better adherence to standards than Mozilla browsers is going to make the web less open and public. Sorry folks, but that is a dead end.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Apple gunning for the OSS browser market is a great thing. Mozilla spent years going nowhere before the Firefox developers finally made something sane out of it. Now the Firefox developers are busy playing with the interface, piling on features, and rambling about web standards while the browser is still not able to pass Acid2.
What Apple brings to the table is competition. Opera gave up on Windows and is busy in the embedded market. Konqueror is great, going nowhere in the Windows world. IE 7 showed the world that the IE team still have their heads up their butts, so without another great browser on Windows there's no serious competition for the Firefox team, and thus nothing to keep them from going the way of Mozilla. Now that Firefox actually has a decent browser with a big name behind it to compete with, maybe we'll see Firefox development focus on fixing bugs quickly, becoming Acid2 compliant, etc.
I watched the keynote vid before and never noticed that little slight. I had to go back and watch that section again just to prove it. Very observant and interesting, wish I had mod points for you because I'd rather see FF, Opera, and others remain while Safari takes share from IE. FWIW, I'm a Macbook Pro and use FF because Safari lags in terms of dev tool add-ons. It's not that Safari is a bad browser, I just think FF is superior for web development.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
WebKit is not OSS now? Hm...
Anyway - how is Safari-the-WebKit-engine worse than Firefox-the-Gecko-engine? If anything I'd like to see more standards compatible browsers and then there's a chance we can defeat evil MSIE. Gecko-is-the-standard did not play well last time when Netscape gone under and Microsoft won the first browser war, right?
Apple doesn't really stand to gain by edging Firefox out of the market. It's also been suggested a few times that Safari for Windows makes iPhone development more accessible, which is true, but even that assertion misses the big picture:
By releasing Safari for Windows, Apple is investing in Safari's relevance. The smart Windows users have it easy: run FF most of the time, until you come across a really dumb or poorly-authored website, then just use IE when you really need to load that page. Mac users don't really have that option. If it doesn't render properly in Camino/Firefox, try it in Safari - if that doesn't work, maybe try OmniWeb, but chances are you just aren't gonna view that site on a Mac.
Apple doesn't make money from Safari. It was developed for OS X because its then-default browser, IE, sucked. And they based Safari on KHTML, an open-source engine totally separate from Mozilla's. This is great stuff! Two separate OSS teams coding for standards-compliant browsing!
But back to my original point about relevance: I still have the Tiger version of Safari, but I mainly use Camino because it seems to generally be a bit zippier, and it works with the new Yahoo! mail UI while Safari doesn't.
--- what??? you heard me right - a major web player like Yahoo! is developing web apps and putting more priority on Gecko than OS X's, and iPhone's, default browser. Sure, Firefox has more marketshare than Safari, but for iPhone users who can't change their browser, and for OS X users who are not inclined to change their browser, this is a huge problem that undermines the value of Apple's products.
Apple's strategy: push Safari out to everybody who might be downloading iTunes. Include it on CD with every iPod sold. Make it install on Windows by default unless the user unchecks a box. Suddenly, Safari is in the hands of zillions of Windows users, and companies like Yahoo! take notice: "We'd better make our apps work with Safari!"
Mozilla should not feel threatened, excepting that Firefox will now have to compete on its merits, instead of just being "the alternative browser". Users who have installed Firefox on Windows already know how to choose their own browser, and they won't go to Safari without a reason.
Lilly's comments are ABSOLUTELY sour grapes, because he doesn't want to compete with another free (as in beer) product. When he sayd that the web is owned by people and not companies, he fails to mention that Safari's web rendering component is standards-compliant and open-source.
So, to summarize:
- Apple NEEDS Safari to be recognized as a major browser.
- Safari will likely continue what Firefox has been doing: chipping away at IE's dominance.
- Those who have switched from IE will choose between Safari/Firefox (and KHTML/Gecko) based on product merits. Plus some people will just use Safari because iTunes told them to.
What do you mean by extreme? It's always seemed fairly sedate and understated to me, with the exception of the raucous iPod ads. Remember the Mac ads when Jobs came back? They were all elegant, and barely even dared to "sell" the products - they were mostly just sparse shots of the product on a white background, with little elaboration.
I think the marketing of Microsoft and Dell are much more extreme. The Windows Vista ad is ridiculous - as if people actually say "Wow!" at a new version of Windows. Or there's the Microsoft ads that talk about how they empower people to conquer the universe. Or the Dell ads, with their SUPER COOL!! CHEAP!! BUY NOW!!! AMAZING FEATURES!!!!
All of those examples seem much more extreme that the comparatively quiet and friendly Apple advertising.
it's sort of like a cult, it doesn't matter sometimes Jobs says ridiculous thingsWhy should it matter? I use Apple products because they work well. Should I use something different just because Jobs occassionally puts his foot in his mouth? I don't understand why anyone would choose a computer or software based on the personality of the CEO, rather than the usefulness of the hardware and software.
Apple always tries to create its own bubble where it competes with mythical collective enemies such as "The PC", "Microsoft",Geeee, that's all a fabrication. It's not like Dell or Microsoft have ever acted antagonistically towards Apple, or "declared war" on them. Oh wait, they have. The other players have just as much, or more, of a problem with this mentality than Apple. Just look at all the big-noting over companies trying to create an "iPod killer," for example. If anything, Apple is happy surviving alongside the other players, where the likes of Microsoft and Dell aren't happy until they crush all the competition. To them, being in second place means losing. Apple's definition of victory is totally different.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Why is ease of use only for computer illiterate people? Power users want ease-of-use too, so they can be more productive, and get more work done.
Anyway, how do you explain the vast proportion of Mac users who have been using their machines professionally in cutting-edge industries for years? Heck, for a long time, it was one of the few serious machines for digital imaging and publishing, because only Macs had Photoshop and coulor management. They are also popular in the scientific computing field. These are users who are so demanding of their machines that they don't have time to screw around.
Also, how do you explain the vast number of computer illiterate Windows users? You don't seem to have much experience of the Mac world, you are just making assumptions based on marketing. In my long experience of both sides, the proportion of technically knowledgeable Mac users is higher. That's probably because it's usually an informed decision, to choose a "different" option. Wheras someone who knows nothing about computers will usually just accept what the salesman pushes, or what is used at work - which is a Windows machine 99% of the time. They literally put no thought into their purchase.
Another thing I'vbe noticed with Windows users, is that they are generally much more confused about technology and terminology. For example, they think that Internet Explorer is the internet. Wheras most Mac users, even the biggest newbies, understand that a browser is just an application used to access the internet. There also seems to be a better understanding of the filesystem. Windows users often say "I saved the file in Word" - thinking that Word is where the files are stored, where a newbie Mac user is likely to understand it's on a disk, or in a folder separate to the application.
Anyway, enough of the explanation. I do find it amazing that you honestly believed what you said, because it is so contrary to how the Mac world actually is. Maybe you should go out and look at how it actually is, rather than just projecting your stereotypes onto a group you know nothing about?
... and then they built the supercollider.
P.S:
Such a person would not be the type to download and install Firefox on their own.This also shows some ignorance. Not only is Firefox very popular on the Mac, the market for shareware and independent applications is much healthier on the Mac than on Windows. If anything, Mac users are much more avid downloaders of new and different software than the average Windows user. You can ask some software developers who started developing for the Mac after years of Windows development to testify to this. They usually find that their downloads of demos and trial versions skyrocket when they port their product to Mac, and they find an enthusiastic user base.
In contrast, the average Windows user rarely ventures outside the standard Microsoft applications, except perhaps in the case of games. I wouldn't be surprised is Firefox actually had greater marketshare on the Mac platform than on Windows - because Windows users are so habituated to IE. There is also a thriving market of alternative text editors, word processors, and page layout apps on the Mac, which doesn't really exist for Windows, because everybody just uses Word.
... and then they built the supercollider.