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Mozilla's 3 Big Bets To Keep the Web Open
GMGruman writes "Savio Rodrigues writes that Google's latest agreement with Mozilla will ironically fund three new areas of competition between Google and Mozilla — areas that users and open source advocates should cheer on as they will make the Web both better and more open. The alternative, he says, is more control by the likes of Google, Facebook, and Apple."
Since the summary didn't provide this, the allegedly large bets are:
1. An alternative to Android
2. An alternative to OpenID
3. An App store
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Whoa, did I just step in a universe warp? I remember reading that previous article as them signing a contract with Microsoft and switching to Bing. Where did all the zeppelins go?
What Google and Mozilla declined to disclose, reports AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, is that Google will pay just under $300 million per year to be the default choice in Mozillla's Firefox browser, a huge jump from its previous arrangement, due to competing interest from both Yahoo and Microsoft. Sources said this total amount - just under $1 billion - was the minimum revenue guarantee for delivering search queries garnered from consumers using Firefox. Google's main rival in the bid, sources said, was Microsoft's Bing search service."
No, it's the fact that Apple has a damn-near monopoly on mobile purchases, which are done in their walled garden. This is a big area of user activity, and will become a much bigger area of economic activity. Apple, through iTunes, matters to the Internet. In a bad way, unfortunately.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It's ironic how much people using the word irony bothers you.
It's also in Google's interest because it keeps part of the anti-monopoly cries off their back.
It doesn't mean what you think it means. Please, "ironically" has been massacred enough already. Let's this word rest for a couple of decades, unless you are one of the two people in the world that actually uses it appropriately.
Ironically, by drawing peoples attention to the word without providing them an explanation of how it ought to be used, YA_Python_dev exacerbated the problem and increased his own suffering...
Plus he threw everyone who uses that expression under the bus. Literally.
dickbag move dude. dickbag move.
Quite the opposite, actually. It's often been argued that a major reason for Google's purchase and development of Android was to safeguard Google's search empire. Except from an ad-revenue-generating sense (and possibly also a kick-Apple-up-the-arse sense :) Google doesn't care whether you're using Android or not. What's of primary importance is that you're using their search tools to generate them income through advertising. Android is simply a very good means to protect that ad revenue castle.
A boot-to-Gecko OS that promotes Google search is a much better option (as far as Google is concerned) than a boot-to-Gecko OS that promotes Bing or somebody else. I'm sure they'd much rather Android stayed dominant, but it doesn't hurt them to have allies in their camp rather than enemies outside the gates.
Mozilla people have this strange vision that they can replace everything (OSs, Desktop, Apps, Cellphone and tablet UIs, etc) with HTML5, JavaScript and nothing else. While Im sure that many developers like JavaScript and that HTML5 brings several great features to the open web, most of us programmers definitely DONT want to use it to write all sorts of applications and games. JS+HTML5 are not a silver bullet or general purpose enough. The recent resurgence of native applications is proof of this.
Unless Mozilla releases its own advertising network or office suite, it isn't competing with Google. Frankly, anyone who even believed for a second that Google would let the search deal with Mozilla expire doesn't understand Google at all. Google has one main directive: Increase usage of Google **websites** to increase **advertising revenue**. Ending a deal with a major browser to provide the default search engine is completely adverse Google's business plan. You better believe that if Google could, they'd pay Microsoft to make IE's default search engine Google's.
Chrome isn't a business model. It is a tool Google is using to influence every other browser and the web. By making a fast, standards-based browser, and influencing other browsers to follow their example, they make general internet usage--and by extension ALL Google sites--work better. And if Google sites work better, users will spend more time using them.... will see more ads... will use Google Docs... will increase Google's revenue.
Comparing 2011's Google/Chrome to 1997's Microsoft/IE is a false dichotomy. Microsoft thought it could control the web to lock people into proprietary software. Google wants to speed up the web to get people to use it even more then they already do.
Nice try, but you're in the wrong. TFS actually uses "ironically" correctly.
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
irony
n 1: witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "he used
sarcasm to upset his opponent"; "irony is wasted on the
stupid"; "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do
generally discover everybody's face but their own"--
Jonathan Swift [syn: {sarcasm}, {irony}, {satire}, {caustic
remark}]
2: incongruity between what might be expected and what actually
occurs; "the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most
hated"
3: a trope that involves incongruity between what is expected
and what occurs
Google paying money to Mozilla that would quite obviously be used to further develop products that compete with Google's own is not something one might expect, thus an incongruity between what is expected and what occurs has been introduced.
I know that many people use "ironic" and "ironically" incorrectly, and that it is popular to jump on them for doing so, but TFS has not made that mistake. Contrast this with the well-known examples of misuse by Alanis Morissette, and see that the situations she identifies do not have the same incongruity. Those situations are unfortunate and coincidental, but there is no incongruity between what is expected and what occurs. Direct your hate at that kind of incorrect usage and support the correct usage of a valuable tool of our language and humor.
A new push for "apps" just when HTML5 was going to lower the boundaries between applications and web sites?
An easier way for web sites to identify me?
I know I'm grossly over-simplifying, and there are positive aspects for each of the three "bets" that I'm not listing here, but still I don't know if I'm 100% sold to those ideas. Or to the fact that they should be a priority for open source developers.
Notice you had to post AC, that is pretty much all you can do with all the flag waving fangirls around here. And I was talking about their ORIGINAL mission, the one they announced when they switched from the suite to Firefox? Forget that one? hell their whole selling point was "to make the browser leaner and meaner, to get rid of cruft and old code, to make a truly great browser".
Parent is right. The mission of the Mozilla Foundation is to promote standards. You are talking about one product of the Mozilla Foundation: Firefox. Back when it was still called Phoenix it was a pet project of David Hyatt (now the safari guy) and then Ben Goodger. The goal was to have a simple browser with an XML language to define the UI combined with javascript and XPCOM. Compared to the Mozilla Suite (which had everything but the kitchen sink) Firefox back then was really lean, fast and configurable/extensible.
Cheers,
-S