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Opera Open Sources Dragonfly
netux writes to mention that Opera has released Dragonfly, their answer to Firebug, as an open source project under the BSD license. The release features a complete architectural overhaul using a modern version of the Scope Protocol (STP-1), a Mercurial repository on BitBucket, and a Wiki to get the ball rolling. "This is Opera’s first full open source project, so there will be a learning curve. We ask you to bear with us while we get everything up and running and policies in place. Coming from a closed source background there are some hurdles to overcome, such as the current bug tracking system being on a closed server. We hope to migrate to an open bug tracking system as the project gets on its feet."
Dragonfly? Well, guess the FreeBSD fork by Matt Dillon (not the actor) that was named Dragonfly will now have to be referred to as Dragonfly BSD to avoid confusion. That was one of the first live Linux distributions I played around with and what comes to mind when I hear the name "Dragonfly" in software.
...
It boggles my mind why people pick project names that are not more original. You're basically shooting yourself in the foot as far as domain registration, marketability and search rankings are concerned.
Opera was originally a Norwegian company, right? They should have went with the Norwegian word for Dragonfly: "Øyenstikker." Which literally means "Eye Poker." Well, okay, maybe not
My work here is dung.
Would someone be so kind as to provide a mirror?
I tried to RTFA, but my office has my.opera.com blocked under the Forbidden Category "Intimate Apparel/Swimsuit". Who knew?
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
Great! Now I can read usenet and email. Too bad Verizon has stopped carrying Usenet groups and providing POP email. They also refuse to give me the password on my modem so I can open the incoming ports. My Internet Service Provider has slowly-but-surely turned a WWW-only Provider. :-(
Anyway...... this is great news. I love Opera and Opera Dragonfly sounds like a great product. I wish them much success with their new open source plan. I hope the users are patient enough to withstand the transition from closed source to open source.
Aside -
Remember when Opera was ad-supported? That model has faded-away but there are still some that support it, like the ad-suppported Free Netzero.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Last week I bought some DRAM for my aging Vista PC. Can you believe it? Vista just came out a couple years ago and it's already gotten to the point that the original amount of RAM is completely used up by the OS. XP didn't get that way until SP3!
Anyway, I digress. There was RAM from many different companies, in many different configurations, with different speeds and all sorts of things that I never thought about when I bought my first computer way back in the old days when dinosaurs roamed the Albuquerque halls. Things have changed so much that I now have more RAM than my first computer had hard disk space!
So all these different standards for RAM made it a pain in the ass, because not only was my computer only compatible with certain models, there was a different model for each RAM manufacturer.
In the same way, using a debug tool to determine whether a webpage is working correctly is a crapshoot. Should I go with the best browser (Opera)? How about the most wide-spread browser (IE)? Or should I target the browser most likely to gain the most marketshare (Webkit, aka Chrome and Safari)? Or what about the old stalwart (Netscape)?
They all purport to do the same thing, provide great debugging tools. But how can I trust them when they work so differently from each other and have such different levels of standards support?
Opera is great to release these tools, but I'm afraid such low usage makes it useless for most purposes.
netux writes to mention that Opera has released Dragonfly, their answer to Firebug, as an open source project under the BSD license. The release features a complete architectural overhaul using a modern version of the Scope Protocol (STP-1), a Mercurial repository on BitBucket, and a Wiki to get the ball rolling.
But would it be too much to ask that the summary contains at least once sentence about WTF the Scope Protocol is and what it can be used for?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Sigh.
--- Matt starts working on Opera Viruses.
-Matt
I propose a new betting pool: How long until an Opera fanatic claims Opera developed Dragonfly first, and Firebug is just a ripoff.
Actually before Dragonfly opera had a different set of developer tools, called Developer Console
Opera Developer Console
Opera now includes a developer console that can be added into the browser with many new features. The developer console includes new tools including DOM inspector, JavaScript inspector, CSS editor and HTTP header inspector.
Which were released 15 Nov, 2006, and on my research that is a year or so before firefox.
Link: http://dev.opera.com/tools/
... for finally being a man (figuratively) and actually open-sourcing something, rather than trying to squeeze blood from a stone (or money from a browser). Admittedly, this is only a peripheral part, but hopefully this will start a gradual transition.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
The EU fines Firebug 3.5 billion euro and demands a web development tool ballot screen in 3...2...1...
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
...crickets...
There's a lot of stand alone email providers (even google) that offer POP3 (though I prefer IMAP4). There's a handful of free Usenet providers as well (no binary groups in most of the free usenet servers). Not to mention that I've used Easynews in the past, mainly because they supported SourceForge downloads, and are a company that's local to me.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
It is not like they make any money by selling it to Nintendo and others, they should opensource their code just because.
Opera is the perfect example of how closed source and opensource can exist next to each other AND show you the advantages and disadvantages of both models.
Firefox vs Opera has some interesting differences. Firefox is more adjustable especially with its extensions, Opera feels more solid like someone actually was in charge of all its different features and insisted they work together. Take mouse-gestures and tabbed browsing. Firefox gives more choice but it feels very clear that these things are bolted on, while in Opera they come as they are but are how the browser has been designed to work from the start.
No, keep Opera closed source, competition from different suppliers is a good thing.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So I was trolling, eh? Mozilla Firebird had DOM Inspector in 2003. It was in development as early as 2001. Sheesh! Will you Opera fanbois never give up? Opera even copied the name from Mozilla!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
The fact that Opera fanboys keep modding me down for speaking the truth just makes Opera look desperate to be noticed. Do you think pretending that Opera develops all new features before any other browser makes people want to use it? Or does it make you look desperate for attention?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I propose a new betting pool: How long until an Opera fanatic claims Opera developed Dragonfly first, and Firebug is just a ripoff.
Actually before Dragonfly opera had a different set of developer tools, called Developer Console
Opera Developer Console
Opera now includes a developer console that can be added into the browser with many new features. The developer console includes new tools including DOM inspector, JavaScript inspector, CSS editor and HTTP header inspector.
Which were released 15 Nov, 2006, and on my research that is a year or so before firefox.
Link: http://dev.opera.com/tools/
That's not a comparison for Firebug, it's their version of the Web Developer extension. Also, that's not a "year or so" before Firebug: oldest post in Firebug group is 18th Nov, 2006