Well, I can address it from a financial standpoint, since you don't seem concerned about the other dimensions. If advertisers believe Google has an unfair leg up on their own ads, they will stop advertising, and that will hurt Google's business. It was that concern which prompted Google to write this post.
> I didn't see Yahoo, MSN, or Ask pushing Firefox the way Google did.
And you believe those engines (with the exception of MSN, perhaps:) wouldn't similarly support Firefox if *they* were the default? We made Google the default in Firefox long before Firefox was popular because we believed Google provided the best service to our users. Perhaps that's why I'm upset with the company now. It was only once Firefox started getting big and driving significant traffic to Google that a deal was cut.
> Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
I criticize Google because I want to see them improve.
The support for the claim is linked directly from the post, but here it is again. If you'd actually like to verify the claim yourself, go to AdWords right now, try to create a U.S. ad containing "Picasa", and read the resulting error message.
Can't people give others the benefit of the doubt before attacking them? The quote on Wikipedia is taken out of context. Placed back in proper context, it is (emphasis mine):
As he describes it, from a user's point of view, Parakey is "a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do."
And I was referring to end-users like my mother, who don't know about the memory allocation, etc. facets of an operating system.
> I agree. And we've seen no proof that Google refuses to put others first.
Actually, that's the crux of the post: by taking itself out of its ad network, Google has guaranteed its own ad positioning--three weeks after reassuring advertisers that it played by the same rules they do. Did you read the post?
Some people seem to find it incomprehensible that a person might genuinely put others' interests above his own. This has nothing to do with Parakey, which won't even exist for some time. You would think this statement from the post would defuse conspiracy theorists: "I believe, for instance, that shipping Internet Explorer with Windows was a good move." Hmm, doesn't that hurt Firefox?
I wrote about the issue because I believe it's important. You are, of course, welcome to disagree.
In any case, with respect to your concerns about data lock-in: one of the driving principles of the system is that your data is always synchronized to at least one of your machines. If every datacenter on the planet exploded tomorrow, your data would be right there on your computer. You always own it.
If I wanted to capitalize on name recognition, I'd have released the world's 87 millionth bookmark sharing website a few months after Firefox launched. We've been working on this in silence for a very long time, and will resume doing so when this has blown over next week. This has nothing to do with fame or fortune; it's about improving the experience for things we do everyday.
The quote in the article is not correct. Parakey will be open source, as the article does say elsewhere ("Most or all of Parakey will be open source").
I am indeed primarily a Windows user. If you're going to make software for everyone, it helps to use the same computing environment as 95% of the world, so you can understand their problems better. However, my partner Joe is primarily a Mac user. There is no primary development platform; we develop on all platforms.
As for the business model, it's a new take on an old idea, and something we likely won't divulge until launch.
And finally, we are not offering any release dates at this time.
We're all about "one job, one tool." That was the concept that drove us to fork Firefox in the first place. What about the article suggests that we're deviating from that with Parakey? Perhaps I can clarify our intentions.
Thanks for your perspective. We've been at this for awhile now, so we've had plenty of time to think through the issues you mention. Of course, only time will tell whether we get them right.
As for the business model, we do have it figured out, but it's not something that will be made public until we launch (which is still some time off).
I'm well aware that a "web operating system" would not fulfill the same functions as a true web operating system, and I'm as tired of the "WebOS" rhetoric as anyone else. I did explain this to Spectrum, and it seems the magazine decided to leave the mention but explain that it's only an "operating system" from the average user's perspective--which is difficult to prove either way, since my mother probably thinks an "operating system" is some kind of surgical device.
As for the "how is this different from XXX?" comments, I understand that it may be difficult to differentiate Parakey based solely on the description provided in this early article. Rather than chase those sorts of questions here, I'd rather continue working towards putting the product in your hands so you can decide whether it's different and, ultimately, whether it's worth your time. Thanks everyone.
Apologies--if you were just criticizing the fact that "matching feature parity" is incomprehensibly redundant, then yes, I'll have to agree with that:) English is hard, especially when you're trying to formulate it over lunch.
Yes, most words look silly out of context. I thought this one was clear in the context of a discussion about browser religion. Moments earlier I said "We really are trying to make it less of a religious thing." Moments after I said "They are ripping off Firefox in a sense, but the truth is that when we started Firefox, we ripped off Internet Explorer because we wanted to make sure that people who migrated from IE felt comfortable in the Firefox world...I think in general, the community understands that this is kind of a collaborative process. There are always going to be people on the fringes who are just kind of zealots in either direction."
Language matters, especially in defusing a religious beliefs. I'm not interested in promoting the idea that Microsoft "ripped off" Firefox.
I appreciate the nod. Richter made a similar comment on the post itself. I attempted to respond with the following about an hour ago, but it seems it didn't make it past the moderation filter, so here it is:
"Hi Richster,
I'm not sure either. My post on Firefox Religion from this time last year did mention Ben. But to be fair, Ben's article does begin with a discussion of perspectives:) Sour grapes don't help anything, and like others here, I enjoyed this article as a persuasive essay on why software engineering doesn't have to be as dispassionate as most people think.
I haven't lost interest in Firefox by a long shot, but coding-wise I prefer to work in leaps and bounds in small teams on fledgling products. Firefox no longer fits that profile--which is mostly a good thing! So I've been working with Joe Hewitt (another of the original Firefox guys) on a new project that will complement Firefox.
I think when we release, it will become clear that I never actually strayed too far from the fox. But I also know that the kinds of things we're working on could never be achieved--or achieved quickly enough, at least--if attempted in a project that has grown as large and mature as Firefox. Thus, our new project is in many ways a realization of where I would take Firefox today were it still as pliable (and thus immature) as 2 years ago.
Given that there are only two of us on the project right now, it consumes about all the coding time I can muster...so I allocate my Firefox time on SpreadFirefox and its campaigns, such as our newest, Firefox Flicks.
The counter syncs with the "actual number" every 60 seconds, which means it will never be more than a couple hundred downloads off at any given time, and in fact it's usually very accurate once it's been running for a minute. Surely you don't expect us to poll our servers every tenth of a second, right?
Given the inherent margin of error with the "ACTUAL actual number," and the fact that we're dealing with a number as high as 50 million downloads and a delta as low as about 200, our consciences are quite clean labelling this the "actual number." We average around 240 downloads/minute.
Somehow I don't think we'd have linked to the page that describes exactly how the counter is implemented in the footer of the letter if we were trying to hide that information.
Slashdot Mirror
It has nothing to do with the browser. Sometimes Google shows ads at the top, and sometimes it doesn't.
> Firefox is controlled by a for-profit company
And that for-profit company is wholly owned and controlled by a non-profit company.
> I didn't see Yahoo, MSN, or Ask pushing Firefox the way Google did.
:) wouldn't similarly support Firefox if *they* were the default? We made Google the default in Firefox long before Firefox was popular because we believed Google provided the best service to our users. Perhaps that's why I'm upset with the company now. It was only once Firefox started getting big and driving significant traffic to Google that a deal was cut.
And you believe those engines (with the exception of MSN, perhaps
> Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
I criticize Google because I want to see them improve.
Okay, I'll take the bait: no, none of this is based on any atom of truth.
The support for the claim is linked directly from the post, but here it is again. If you'd actually like to verify the claim yourself, go to AdWords right now, try to create a U.S. ad containing "Picasa", and read the resulting error message.
Can't people give others the benefit of the doubt before attacking them? The quote on Wikipedia is taken out of context. Placed back in proper context, it is (emphasis mine):
And I was referring to end-users like my mother, who don't know about the memory allocation, etc. facets of an operating system.
> I agree. And we've seen no proof that Google refuses to put others first.
Actually, that's the crux of the post: by taking itself out of its ad network, Google has guaranteed its own ad positioning--three weeks after reassuring advertisers that it played by the same rules they do. Did you read the post?
> We can all tell the difference
There is opinion and then there is fact.
> An ad placed by google has opportunity cost associated with it.
A tip does not.
> Simple, Firefox didn't exist when the decision was made to bundle IE with windows.
"Shipping Internet Explorer with Windows" is not a moment in time. It is ongoing, and I still support it.
Some people seem to find it incomprehensible that a person might genuinely put others' interests above his own. This has nothing to do with Parakey, which won't even exist for some time. You would think this statement from the post would defuse conspiracy theorists: "I believe, for instance, that shipping Internet Explorer with Windows was a good move." Hmm, doesn't that hurt Firefox?
I wrote about the issue because I believe it's important. You are, of course, welcome to disagree.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, though I do feel more qualified to speak about my own motivations.
Who said anything about paying for the service?
In any case, with respect to your concerns about data lock-in: one of the driving principles of the system is that your data is always synchronized to at least one of your machines. If every datacenter on the planet exploded tomorrow, your data would be right there on your computer. You always own it.
If I wanted to capitalize on name recognition, I'd have released the world's 87 millionth bookmark sharing website a few months after Firefox launched. We've been working on this in silence for a very long time, and will resume doing so when this has blown over next week. This has nothing to do with fame or fortune; it's about improving the experience for things we do everyday.
The quote in the article is not correct. Parakey will be open source, as the article does say elsewhere ("Most or all of Parakey will be open source").
I am indeed primarily a Windows user. If you're going to make software for everyone, it helps to use the same computing environment as 95% of the world, so you can understand their problems better. However, my partner Joe is primarily a Mac user. There is no primary development platform; we develop on all platforms.
As for the business model, it's a new take on an old idea, and something we likely won't divulge until launch.
And finally, we are not offering any release dates at this time.
Thanks for your interest.
Profit and open-source are not mutually exclusive. We would never try to profit unfairly off the backs of others.
We're all about "one job, one tool." That was the concept that drove us to fork Firefox in the first place. What about the article suggests that we're deviating from that with Parakey? Perhaps I can clarify our intentions.
Thanks for your perspective. We've been at this for awhile now, so we've had plenty of time to think through the issues you mention. Of course, only time will tell whether we get them right. As for the business model, we do have it figured out, but it's not something that will be made public until we launch (which is still some time off).
"...as a true operating system...", that is.
As the article indicates, it works the same whether you're online or not.
I'm well aware that a "web operating system" would not fulfill the same functions as a true web operating system, and I'm as tired of the "WebOS" rhetoric as anyone else. I did explain this to Spectrum, and it seems the magazine decided to leave the mention but explain that it's only an "operating system" from the average user's perspective--which is difficult to prove either way, since my mother probably thinks an "operating system" is some kind of surgical device.
As for the "how is this different from XXX?" comments, I understand that it may be difficult to differentiate Parakey based solely on the description provided in this early article. Rather than chase those sorts of questions here, I'd rather continue working towards putting the product in your hands so you can decide whether it's different and, ultimately, whether it's worth your time. Thanks everyone.
Apologies--if you were just criticizing the fact that "matching feature parity" is incomprehensibly redundant, then yes, I'll have to agree with that :) English is hard, especially when you're trying to formulate it over lunch.
Yes, most words look silly out of context. I thought this one was clear in the context of a discussion about browser religion. Moments earlier I said "We really are trying to make it less of a religious thing." Moments after I said "They are ripping off Firefox in a sense, but the truth is that when we started Firefox, we ripped off Internet Explorer because we wanted to make sure that people who migrated from IE felt comfortable in the Firefox world...I think in general, the community understands that this is kind of a collaborative process. There are always going to be people on the fringes who are just kind of zealots in either direction."
Language matters, especially in defusing a religious beliefs. I'm not interested in promoting the idea that Microsoft "ripped off" Firefox.
Firefox is written by staffs of paid developers, so I'm afraid I miss your point.
Hi Berger,
:) Sour grapes don't help anything, and like others here, I enjoyed this article as a persuasive essay on why software engineering doesn't have to be as dispassionate as most people think.
I appreciate the nod. Richter made a similar comment on the post itself. I attempted to respond with the following about an hour ago, but it seems it didn't make it past the moderation filter, so here it is:
"Hi Richster,
I'm not sure either. My post on Firefox Religion from this time last year did mention Ben. But to be fair, Ben's article does begin with a discussion of perspectives
I haven't lost interest in Firefox by a long shot, but coding-wise I prefer to work in leaps and bounds in small teams on fledgling products. Firefox no longer fits that profile--which is mostly a good thing! So I've been working with Joe Hewitt (another of the original Firefox guys) on a new project that will complement Firefox.
I think when we release, it will become clear that I never actually strayed too far from the fox. But I also know that the kinds of things we're working on could never be achieved--or achieved quickly enough, at least--if attempted in a project that has grown as large and mature as Firefox. Thus, our new project is in many ways a realization of where I would take Firefox today were it still as pliable (and thus immature) as 2 years ago.
Given that there are only two of us on the project right now, it consumes about all the coding time I can muster...so I allocate my Firefox time on SpreadFirefox and its campaigns, such as our newest, Firefox Flicks.
Thanks,
Blake"
The counter syncs with the "actual number" every 60 seconds, which means it will never be more than a couple hundred downloads off at any given time, and in fact it's usually very accurate once it's been running for a minute. Surely you don't expect us to poll our servers every tenth of a second, right?
Given the inherent margin of error with the "ACTUAL actual number," and the fact that we're dealing with a number as high as 50 million downloads and a delta as low as about 200, our consciences are quite clean labelling this the "actual number." We average around 240 downloads/minute.
Somehow I don't think we'd have linked to the page that describes exactly how the counter is implemented in the footer of the letter if we were trying to hide that information.