nanogui: OT TROLL: Re: What is the status of porting Opera to MicroWindows ?
Subject:
Re: OT TROLL: Re: What is the status of porting Opera to MicroWindows ?
From:
####@####.####
Date:
21 Mar 2000 17:01:03 -0000
Message-Id: <20000321092223.D3104@www.easysolutions.net>
On Tue, Mar 21, 2000 at 03:47:25PM +0100, Richard Kvalsvik wrote:
> > Too bad there are still people who think like this. Actually
> > what _will_ most probably destroy the company is the choice of
> > _not_ releasing the source, since Mozilla is right around the
> > corner and is AFAICS a better browser than Opera. And, I'm
> > sorry to be so rough, but if the company goes on with this kind
> > of thinking, I hope destruction comes quick and painless.
>
> I have no problems at all with that. You won't hear me say that any
> browser is better than the other, each has it's quality.
> I am not going to talk company strategy, though. I would be wrong
> whatever I say because I am clueless in such things. I am just another
> programmer - doing what I do best.
> And I can for sure not say anything about mozilla, I have never used
> it. I have used opera for nano-x though, and I love it ! :)
> I am addicted to scrolling by dragging windows around with the mouse (or
> use the pagedown shortcut of course) !
> oh well, can't really understand what you would need the source for
> though. Our target is, last time I checked, the regular user. They
> won't understand the source.
>
> For additional commands, e-mail: ####@####.####
I agree with Alan that it is your choice, and frankly having a browser
for Nano-GUI will be nice, open source or not. I'm not RMS, and most
people in the community are not. That being said, I will not rest
until there is an open source GUI browser that is open source for
NanoGUI. That is more or less the reason why I'm working on
Microwindows in the first place.
However, software from where I'm coming from is about learning...,
software that is not open source does not allow you to learn new
techniques. If it weren't for the fact that NanoGUI was open source
it probably would have taken a lot more effort for you to bring Opera
to NanoGUI, and certainly you can appreciate that. The value of
Mozilla as is being learned now is the fact that anyone can publish
their own version of it. While this is not good for Netscapes pocket
book in the short term, it will be very good in the long term.
Recognition overall of the brand is already quite high, and it will
grow more and more.
Some companies "get it" others do not, it's really more or less a
matter of time. I can clearly see why Opera is doing what they're
doing, and it's actually "GREAT" for the community in terms of
bringing more people to the Microwindows/NanoGUI platform. Having
Opera there for an embedded device maker for NanoGUI will make the
descision about what platform to use a no-brainer. Which brings the
potential of a lot more people who just go out and buy a "Yopie" or
whatever into the Microwindows/NanoGUI fold. In the short term this
will probably mean a lot of profits for Opera. In the long term the
surge of open source developers for Microwindows will mean we will
have the capability to bring any browser to our platform. (Hell with
the number of developers we have now we're not too far from that
anyway, I would say at most a couple of months)
As it stands I'll be quite happy to pay $40 or whatever to run Opera
on my Workpad. Just as I've been happy to fork over money to Loki
games, mostly just to support vendors that are pushing the envelope.
(Okay, and yes and to pretend I'm Bill for a day with Railroad Tycoon)
Commercial software is very important to the future of Linux in the
short term, and we cannot chase away potential software makers.
Thanks,
Shane.
