No, Opera is reporting money loss. The Slashdot article title is confusing because it's contrasting a loss (as opposed to a profit) at Opera vs. an increase in the usage of Firefox. Opera usage might well be increasing, too -- they need to sell enough new copies and upgrades of Opera each quarter to make up its operating expenses for nearly 200 employees.
The money-delta between using Mozilla on Windows and IE on Windows is $0.00. It's free enough for the purposes of this discussion.
Zero money delta is not the defintion of the term "free". According to Cambridge Dictionaries Online, "free" means "costing nothing; not needing to be paid for." If I have a computer without Mozilla, I can install Mozilla on it at no cost. That is, Mozilla is free. If I have a Windows computer without IE on it, I have to pay money to get the latest version of IE. That is, IE is not free.
I believe the version of IE that comes with Windows XP SP2 isn't available for any other platforms. This version supports major new features such as popup blocking. You must pay money to get it. That isn't free.
Additionally, when Longhorn is available, users will have to pay for that to get the latest version of IE. IE was free, but isn't any more and will not be in the future.
IE was free. Now it isn't free. It's not like you can get IE for Windows without spending money. Even getting major upgrades cost money. Users will have to upgrade to Longhorn to get the latest version of Windows.
Having to spend money to get something is contrary to it being free.
Re:I don't mind FireFox but...
on
Firefox 1.0 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
It's not that themes are so complex. It's that a trivial change to Firefox code can break all themes. That requires a new release of the theme, resulting in point releases.
It's just like adding a new UI element with text can break a localization. Localizations without a translation for the new text won't work properly.
Now that Firefox 1.0 is out, the themes can be frozen and won't break for Firefox 1.0.x.
Even if it adhered to the HTML 3.2 specification (which it doesn't), that wouldn't make Slashdot standards compliant. HTML 3.2 isn't a standard.
As long as we're going to get pedantic, according to the Wikipedia definition of a standard a standard is a "specification against which all others may be measured." In what way does HTML 3.2 not meet this criterion?
When people talk about "web standards", they are either ignorant or are trying to elevate the W3C's specifications as more authoritative than they actually are.
OK, I'll bite. In what practical way are W3C's specifications "less authoritative" than standards such as the C++ standard? For that matter, how is The Java Language Specification less authoritative than an ISO standard? The answer clearly isn't that the ISO enforces their standards, because I don't see any C++ compilers being recalled because they don't adhere to the standard.
By the way, according to the Wikipedia definition of standard, even the C++ standard isn't a standard. It seems to me that if we talk of a "C++ standard", then any widely accepted specification of a language can be referred to as a standard. And in that sense, XHTML and CSS are standards.
And then Joe, well-known developer of the UMO extension, gets arrested. I suppose then he writes a book about his escapade, and that's how he eventually gets money from this scheme?
The biggest difference is that Mozilla is a development PLATFORM
This is a common misconception. Mozilla-the-browser is not a platform. Mozilla-the-browser happens to be built using Mozilla-the-platform, which uses XUL as a language to implement a cross-platform user interface. Other applications that use Mozilla-the-platform are Firefox and Komodo.
I found bug 57882 which describes a situation that causes Mozilla to not render a page as well as IE. However, I can't find a case where Mozilla's rendering of HTML causes a page not to work, as you originally described. Can you give just one example of this?
OK. I'll ask again. Can you give a specific, concrete example of HTML or XML that renders properly in other browsers that doesn't in Mozilla? An example means typing out the code that demonstrates the problem. All you gave was a vague set of directions for generating code that demonstrates the problem. That is not an example.
I find it infuriating that Mozilla/Firefox are so stuck up on perfectly standard HTML that they just don't work with some web sites that are perfectly usable in IE anyway
Can you give an example of some HTML from a "perfectly usable in IE" website that doesn't work in Mozilla or Firefox?
In my experience, nearly the only sites that don't work in Mozilla are ones that are clearly designed for IE and IE only. For Mozilla to render all those pages as well as IE does would mean reverse-engineering the huge number of extensions and quirks (including outright bugs) in IE. It's really just not worth all the effort. It's less work for web developers to just code their sites better. And when they do that, their sites tend to work better in other browsers, such as Opera and Safari, too.
Slashdot Mirror
No, Opera is reporting money loss. The Slashdot article title is confusing because it's contrasting a loss (as opposed to a profit) at Opera vs. an increase in the usage of Firefox. Opera usage might well be increasing, too -- they need to sell enough new copies and upgrades of Opera each quarter to make up its operating expenses for nearly 200 employees.
Ok. Unless the White-Box PC didn't cost any money, you still can't use IE for free.
Well, that's 2% among web developers. Opera has closer to a 1% share among the general population.
That's IE 6 SP1. Show me where I can get IE 6 SP2, which I paid good money for, without spending money.
Additionally, when Longhorn is available, users will have to pay for that to get the latest version of IE. IE was free, but isn't any more and will not be in the future.
New versions of Opera have text-based ads (provided by Google!) which are much less noticeable than the graphic ads.
IE was free. Now it isn't free. It's not like you can get IE for Windows without spending money. Even getting major upgrades cost money. Users will have to upgrade to Longhorn to get the latest version of Windows.
Having to spend money to get something is contrary to it being free.
silverorange
It's not that themes are so complex. It's that a trivial change to Firefox code can break all themes. That requires a new release of the theme, resulting in point releases.
It's just like adding a new UI element with text can break a localization. Localizations without a translation for the new text won't work properly.
Now that Firefox 1.0 is out, the themes can be frozen and won't break for Firefox 1.0.x.
You can use SVG with IE today with an SVG plugin. Why wouldn't that be a solution for an enterprise that needs SVG support?
Look at the source of the web page that contains the applet. The URL of the applet is right there.
OK, I'll bite. In what practical way are W3C's specifications "less authoritative" than standards such as the C++ standard? For that matter, how is The Java Language Specification less authoritative than an ISO standard? The answer clearly isn't that the ISO enforces their standards, because I don't see any C++ compilers being recalled because they don't adhere to the standard.
By the way, according to the Wikipedia definition of standard , even the C++ standard isn't a standard. It seems to me that if we talk of a "C++ standard", then any widely accepted specification of a language can be referred to as a standard. And in that sense, XHTML and CSS are standards.
And then Joe, well-known developer of the UMO extension, gets arrested. I suppose then he writes a book about his escapade, and that's how he eventually gets money from this scheme?
On the other hand, that would hurt evangelism, which is perhaps more important than increased usage to the Mozilla Foundation.
Why not use Camino? It's a version of Mozilla specifically for Mac OS X and weighs in at less than 7 MB.
And Joe makes money how?
And in other news, North Korea has just started work on its new defense -- fringed rugs!
I found bug 57882 which describes a situation that causes Mozilla to not render a page as well as IE. However, I can't find a case where Mozilla's rendering of HTML causes a page not to work, as you originally described. Can you give just one example of this?
OK. I'll ask again. Can you give a specific, concrete example of HTML or XML that renders properly in other browsers that doesn't in Mozilla? An example means typing out the code that demonstrates the problem. All you gave was a vague set of directions for generating code that demonstrates the problem. That is not an example.
Can you point to where that's stated in the Mozilla Security Bug Bounty Program Reward Guidelines? I certainly don't see it.
In my experience, nearly the only sites that don't work in Mozilla are ones that are clearly designed for IE and IE only. For Mozilla to render all those pages as well as IE does would mean reverse-engineering the huge number of extensions and quirks (including outright bugs) in IE. It's really just not worth all the effort. It's less work for web developers to just code their sites better. And when they do that, their sites tend to work better in other browsers, such as Opera and Safari, too.