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Mozilla's 3 Big Bets To Keep the Web Open

Posted by Soulskill on from the mozilla-also-suffering-from-gambling-addiction dept.

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."

11 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. The "big" bets: by MrEricSir · · Score: 4, Informative

    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."
    1. Re:The "big" bets: by asa · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not quite as simple as that. A better bulleted list would be:

      1. An alternative to the proprietary mobile stacks which control the full vertical from hardware to app stores. An open Web stack based on real standards.
      2. An alternative to Facebook Connect, Sign in with Twitter, and Google Accounts. A web-wide ID system that doesn't depend on one particular provider.
      3. A set of standards for Web applications discovery, monitization, and installation and an implementation that will work across all platforms.

    2. Re:The "big" bets: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Try reading http://identity.mozilla.com/post/7669886219/how-browserid-differs-from-openid for the difference between BrowserID and OpenID.

      TLDR: OpenID is harder to integrate into the browser, and needed a third party for every login (meaning it just swapped Facebook, Twitter or Google with someone else that could potentially track you).

    3. Re:The "big" bets: by metrometro · · Score: 3, Informative

      The core innovation is that BrowserID does not require you to phone home to your certificate authority (say, Google) every time you want to look at a page. Instead, it passes certificates around in a way that allows the site (DonkeyPronz, or whatever) to check that the cert is valid, but does not reveal to Google (or Mozilla, or whoever is running the cert authorty) which of the many BrowserID users is opening the page. This is a fundamental difference.

  2. WSJ: $1 Billion Google Windfall for Mozilla by theodp · · Score: 5, Informative

    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."

  3. Re:What? by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  4. Re:Please STOP using the word "ironically" by schroedingers_hat · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's ironic how much people using the word irony bothers you.

  5. Re:What? by lennier1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's also in Google's interest because it keeps part of the anti-monopoly cries off their back.

  6. Re:Please STOP using the word "ironically" by cjb658 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  7. Re:dude! by shellbeach · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  8. Doomed because.. by goruka · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.