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AOL Patent Deal Means Microsoft Now Holds Vestiges of Netscape
inode_buddha writes "It's part of the $1 billion AOL patent deal, and it's something that would have made many minds explode back in the 1990s. It still makes my mind explode today. Marc Andreesen points out that MS now has a significant chunk of the old Netscape. What are the ramifications for Mozilla?"
All alternate browsers must use the Safari rendering engine - in short you can get a fancy front end, but not a new backend (like say Firefox's backend, or Opera, etc) Note that Opera's Mini browser gets a pass since most work doesn't occur on the device, but Opera's backend servers. You can't get the "real" Opera browser on the phone.
Unless somethings changed in the last year, I can't port Opera or Firefox or Chrome over, etc
I'm supposed to care about this because? Firefox used to run like absolute CRAP on OS X for a number of years, Opera is used by almost nobody and Chrome's engine is only different in the javascript engine as the main renderer is webkit.
I don't want the bloated mozilla codebase on my iOS devices and I have no interest in Opera. Much of what chrome offers is duplicated with third party browsers that still use the same renderer and javascript engine as safari but offer additional features like a persistent "desktop-like" tab bar, file downloads and extensions. iCab is one example with extended functionality.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Has anyone else noticed how irrelevant Microsoft, Internet Explorer and (sadly) Firefox are in 2012?
If this were 2001, I would agree that this is a big story.
Let Microsoft fight over the dredges of the desktop market. That's a declining market.
No one will take your Firefox away from you Linux desktop, so untwist your knickers.