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Education The Internet Software IT

Opera Offers Free Licenses For Educational Use 283

Posted by timothy from the opera-licenses-are-a-dangerous-idea dept.
Opera Watch writes "Opera Software today announced that it would offer free licenses to higher education institutions. This is a change from the previous cost of $1000 (US) for unlimited licenses. It remains to be seen, however, whether Opera will allow schools to give standard Opera licenses to students to use on personal computers/laptops within campus at no additional cost, that came with the $1000 license fee. This comes after a respected university advised its students not to use Internet Explorer, for its lack of security. Opera Software said they are doing so in an effort to meet the student and university need for security on the Internet."
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Opera Offers Free Licenses For Educational Use More

Opera Offers Free Licenses For Educational Use

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  • Free as in beer (Score:3)

    by slashnutt ( 807047 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @09:42AM (#11334662) Journal
    Software isn't free unless you have specific rights over the source code to basically do what you want with the code.

    GNU defines [gnu.org] free software:

    The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)

    The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this

    The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2)

    The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this

    The only sticky part is the licensing of free software - total freedom would allow me to fork the source for profit yet that would then restrict the freedom of others in using said free software thus making the software not free anymore. So to remain free I cant do certain things to software restricting my own freedom.

    As for Opera thanks but no thanks I have the desire to keep using as much really free software as possible promoting further development.

    • Re:Free as in beer (Score:2, Insightful)

      by target ( 97212 )
      Ah, a prototypical /. reaction. Some company does something nice, like offers free licenses to schools, and what's the first post? Criticism for not going far enough.

      It would sure be nice if everything were free, source were available, nothing had bugs, and everyone got woken up by a blowjob, but the world just doesn't work that way.

      We should be congratulating those companies that look beyond their immediate bottom line to try and make the world a better place, even if it is a loss-leading marketing exp
      • Stereotypical-A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.

        Prototypical-An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages.

    • Re:Free as in beer (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Coneasfast ( 690509 )
      The definition of free was used 'as in beer' well before 'as in speech'. Just because RMS uses 'free' in such a sense doesn't mean everyone must. Actually it was a mistake of RMS by using the same word (he could have used 'liberal' instead).

      As a suggestion, please don't preach such a lecture onto slashdot.

      • Re:Free as in beer (Score:2, Insightful)

        by slashnutt ( 807047 )
        Why should RMS have to redefine what free means to him and what a lot of people of recognized by the meaning free? Wouldn't it make more sense for people touting that their software is free to put the actual meaning in to it by saying it may be free but you have give up your soul.
        • My god those must be powerful drugs you're taking.

          They are offering "free site licenses". And even if they just called it free, we english speakers have been using the term free, for things you don't have to pay for, for quite some time now.

          And then the soul giving... Well you're a fucking nutcase! If willing paying for something that someone has created is selling your soul, then we all did it a long time ago. They are not forcing anyone to buy it, they are not bundling it with some essential part of a c

    • Re:Free as in beer (Score:2, Insightful)

      by aichpvee ( 631243 )
      No one said they were making Opera "Free". It says they are offering "free" licenses to universities and such. It seems pretty obvious to me that "free" in this instance is referring to the pre-existing license that they usually charge for, that being the license to USE the software. This isn't even related to GPL as it's an end-user license to use the software. If you don't like it, by all means go ahead and don't use it. I don't think you qualify anyway since you aren't a university or higher eductio
    • Where does it mention the software being free? The article clearly states that it's license which is free and we can safely presume that in this context, (even on /.) it means free as in beer. Please drink your free coffee before posting.
    • Perhaps you should consider The GIMP vs. Photoshop. The GIMP is free and works well, but the comercial version of the software is better because they have greater funding for R&D. All the makers of the GIMP can do is try and copy and keep up. Firefox and Opera are similar. Opera creates innovations and Firefox copies them through extensions. If you want Joe Average to switch browsers AND use all these nifty new features he has never even considered from using IE, you can't expect him to go out and

    • Re:Free as in beer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by killmenow ( 184444 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @10:17AM (#11335077)
      Geesh, I was just going to do some moderating; but, I have to respond.

      There are several replies to this post with the "wah! typical /. wah! why are you so critical wah! they're a commercial company wah! get over yourself ... WAH! WAH! WAH!"

      Look, nowhere in this post did he bitch about Opera. He said he desires to keep using as much "really free" software as possible... and simply, "thanks but no thanks" and frankly never did he say Opera sucks or FSCK Opera! He never even suggested they should open source their product.

      Listen, I loved the Opera browser. I'm sure it's still wonderful. But it is precisely this reason that I no longer use it.

      I bought and paid for Opera. I even asked my wife for a new license for Christmas a few years back...and she got it for me. I was a huge Opera fanboy. Whenever some story about browsers came up on /. I'd be one of the first saying, "Hey, you should use Opera. It's sweet!" and such.

      But, at some point I realized that as cool as Opera is, and as much as I think the company is a fine company, it's still not software that is terribly concerned with freedom. And there are two perfectly acceptable (if not arguably better in some ways) browsers that are. Opera wants to give gratis licenses to schools, good on them. But any school that takes that gift should look at it for what it is and weigh carefully their options. Firefox is a damn fine browser on par with Opera in most ways that the majority of their users would need...and it's not just gratis, it's free. If Opera goes under, what then?

      To me, Opera and Mozilla/Firefox...it's like six of one, half-a-dozen of another. And functionality (for my concern) being equal, I choose to use Mozilla/Firefox now. Because they're free, not because they're gratis. And I want to support this.

      I find it amazing somebody points out that he makes the same choice on slashdot (of all places) and not only gets flack about it but gets modded down for it.

      Anomaly...does not compute.

      • Re:Free as in beer (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Jugalator ( 259273 )
        I find it amazing somebody points out that he makes the same choice on slashdot (of all places) and not only gets flack about it but gets modded down for it.

        I think the moderation was done not because of his software preference, not because of which software development model he supported, but because of the (in my opinion as well) completely redundant rambling on about the GPL, what it implies, and how Opera shouldn't be called free software. I quote:

        Software isn't free unless you have specific rights

    • Maybe you're different from the rest of the world. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @10:19AM (#11335103) Homepage
      As for Opera thanks but no thanks I have the desire to keep using as much really free software as possible promoting further development.

      ...but I use GNU/free software when it empowers me. Having GIMP empowers me to make a choice about buying Photoshop. But if you can't use software because it's not GNU/free, then you're not freed - you're enslaved to only use the software people are willing to give away for GNU/free.

      I'm not going to force myself to use inferior software (not claiming that this is the case here) for no reason. To me, Opera delivers a better product. So other products are OSS. But if that can't deliver, does it matter? No. If you want to preach to anyone but the fanatics, you have to show that this leads to better qualities. Faster. More stable. More secure. More standards-compliant. Great extensions. More flexible.

      If the can't argue price (or TCO), you can't argue features, if you can't argue quality, if all you have is that it is GNU/free, noone cares. RMS can preach all he wants. People don't use OSS software because it is OSS, they use it because it is better. Perhaps that's the OSS process, perhaps it's just a bunch of brillant people who could have done the same with a commercial product. But if you can't deliver, it's a dud either way.

      Kjella
      • I don't currently have mod points so let me just say +1.

        I don't get the whole FLOSS thing, to me the only benefit I see from it is that it is free. If a commercial company or hell, anyone gave me something for free that is similar in capibilities, I see it the same.

        I even know some C++, but I certainly couldn't get into the code to do anything. Both are black boxes to me.

        I agree with the idea that you are needlessly limiting yourself (severley as I see it) if you will only use FLOSS.
    • Software isn't free unless you have specific rights over the source code to basically do what you want with the code.

      Definitions of words can and do change over time, but in the current world a "free" product still means "doesn't cost money" for the vast majority of the population (and by those, I mean people who don't read slashdot, don't know how to code and don't have any desire to learn how to do so either).

      Maybe in the future when people describe a product as being "free" it will be more synonymou

    • Ah, a GNU groupie confusing the terms free (beer) and free (freedom). Opera is free/gratis, but not free/freedom.

      By the by this move by Opera reeks of desperation in their losing the battle against Firefox. Wouldn't it be ironic if Firefox only slightly dented IE but killed Opera and Safari?

    • Software isn't free unless you have specific rights over the source code to basically do what you want with the code.

      They obviously meant in the meaning of beer, you know what you typed in the title.
      We don't need yet another rambling post about the GPL.
      It's not the law, and free as in beer is a perfectly valid usage of the word, even when speaking of software.
    • Software isn't free unless you have specific rights over the source code to basically do what you want with the code.

      BULLSHIT!

      I love open source, use it, enjoy it, support it (take time out of busy day to report firefox bugs, and donated money) and I cheer RMS on and on....

      But your little quote is bullshit. I think what they are doing is great. Free = don't pay $ so yes, it IS free.

      If Mercedes gave you a car for free, but said "don't open the engine hood at all, otherwise drive the car as much as y

    • Not everything has to be a F/OSS debate, does it? He never said it was FOSS, he said they were giving it away for free, which is different, and oddly enough a supported usage of the word.

      As for Opera thanks but no thanks I have the desire to keep using as much really free software as possible promoting further development.

      OK. Go for it This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, however. Troll elsewhere.

    • Man I almost gagged when I read this post.

      This guy is the ideological opposite of 'The defenders of IP' (RIAA,MPAA,BSA, Bill Gates)

      You are forgetting the main thing the GPL, like any other license is the choice of the developer. By whining that all software isnt 'free', you are in essence advocating the removal of the choice of the developer.

      I also really wish people would stop using 'free' in this manner. In the realm of dealing with a product most people equate 'free' to mean 'without monetary cost'. I
    • Beautiful copying and pasting, but I think you'll find that GNU is an operating system and I would advise you consult the services of a psychiatrist (or the GNU Emacs doctor) ASAP.

  • great (Score:3, Funny)

    by jthayden ( 811997 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @09:43AM (#11334677)
    Great, now I won't have to pay for FireFox. Oh wait, nevermind....
  • I think it's funny that the developers are now going to beat IE with the same tactic that MS used to get market share for IE... free browser.

    Of course this one it a bit more secure. ;)
    • Opera won't get rich by giving it away for free... MS had something to gain by giving away a free browser.

      As for security, it's worth noting that many of the security risks from IE come from the features they toss in - ActiveX, specialized (read: non-compliant) JScript - that you won't find in other, more secure browsers. It's not excusable, it's just part of the game. They shouldn't have released the browser at all without more thorough testing and review.

      Like they say, you can't make a system secure unl

  • stability? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I really thought Firefox was perfect after switching from IE sometime ago around the mid-Firebird stage. Loved it and with addons such as Gmail Inbox in the taskbar and Adblock it's obviously great, but it still has some major stability issues. Regardless of OS or computer I've used it on sometimes it'll just crash for no reason (kinda like gaim) and it's simply annoying when you have 10 tabs open and have to go to each again.

    At very least it should remember the tabs you had opened (is there an extension f

    • Re:stability? (Score:2, Informative)

      by xy ( 49954 )
      Yes, there is an extention that does this, I use it all the time. It's called SessionSaver. For some reason it's hard to track down the version that works with firefox 1.0, but I've gotten it from:
      http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic =166 [extensionsmirror.nl]
    • I've been using FireFox quite a bit since it's way initial releases, and the only time it's randomly crashed is when it tries to load Windows Media Player on a webpage. This is annoying, but I don't fault FireFox for it. I think there's either something wrong with my codecs, or the way WMP is integrating into FireFox. Maybe I just need to reinstall WMP; who knows.

    • Re:stability? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bhtooefr ( 649901 )
      Keep the number of tabs down, and you should be fine. Opera's main problem is that over time it starts freezing, but then unfreezes. Close it out, and restart, and you should be fine.

      Now, as for 8.0b1, it has NASTY memory leaks, especially if you install over a 7.6 Preview. However, GMail only works with 7.6 previews and 8.0b1.
  • Why not all education? I looked on their site, but it appears that educational sites, while getting a discount, do not qualify for a free, no-adware version?

    Guess it doesn't matter much.. the sites I admin are using Firefox and will continue to do so.
    • Are you looking at the old prices that are still on the site? The very ones linked to in the story summary as "previous cost"?
    • You are probably looking for http://distribute.opera.com/donations/ [opera.com], the Opera Donations page. Here's who is eligible:

      Who can apply for donations?
      Schools, primary through secondary (K-12). Web designer schools, organizations, or companies, as well as Internet cafes. Organizations for the physically and mentally challenged.

      <offtopic>FWIW, I found something very interesting and scary about Opera Software (it's a rather old press release, from 2000. The ad system in Opera 5.x through today is powered b

  • The other reason... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gerv ( 15179 ) <gerv AT gerv DOT net> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @09:54AM (#11334799) Homepage

    Opera Software said they are doing so in an effort to meet the student and university need for security on the Internet.

    ...and to try and compete with Firefox, which is spreading like, er, wildfire in educational institutions, who have low IT budgets, a traditionally open-source-friendly culture, lots of fairly clueless users and a lack of desire to spend their time cleaning up spyware.

    Gerv

  • Opera missed it's chance (Score:3, Insightful)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @09:54AM (#11334814) Homepage Journal
    as a desktop browser. It had a clear lead on Mozilla and IE for a while but it just goes to show that most people won't pay money for "great" when "good" is free.

    Now they have made some inroads in the embedded market, but it looks like the Mozilla team has their sites set on this as well. My prediction is the same will apply (why pay when you can get it for free), except the gap between Opera and Mozilla has closed significantly.

    • It had a clear lead on Mozilla and IE for a while but it just goes to show that most people won't pay money for "great" when "good" is free.

      Ummm, there has been a per-gratis edition ever since Version 5?

      Now they have made some inroads in the embedded market, but it looks like the Mozilla team has their sites [sic] set on this as well.

      I don't know if you know this, but before discovering the Symbian market (and discoverin g Google), Opera was actually making a loss. Look at it this way:- there has ne

    • It had a clear lead on Mozilla and IE for a while but it just goes to show that most people won't pay money for "great" when "good" is free.

      Better late than never, better free than expensive, I suppose.

      I think you're right, Opera blew an opportunity for market share by not doing this, and more, much earlier. Is market share a big deal to them, though?

      Opera has set their sights on making money by selling software or ad-ware. Libre software doesn't make much sense with that business model. I suppose

    • Sights, not sites. And I think Mozilla has a long way to go before it can stand up to Opera in the embedded market. Just try running both on a pentium 1 if you have one knocking around, to get an idea of how good they are for embedded performance.
    • Eh... Mozilla isn't close. Opera's targetting all the way down to cell phones, Moz is targetting high-end PDAs, and is having trouble getting that low (primarily RAM usage).
  • Are this free licenses available for any higher institution in the world?

  • If they're smart, they'll allow students copies (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Maestro4k ( 707634 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @09:58AM (#11334870) Journal
    It's be best for Opera to allow schools to distribute it to their students. It's very possible that Universities may start forbidding IE usage, and if Opera's available to the students too, they may just get lifelong users. After all you get used to a program after 4+ years of use.

  • Now I'm not saying Firefox isn't a terrific browser (because it is), but when someone suggests a browser that isn't IE or Firefox, why is there an uproar? You may think Honda (Firefox) makes the best vehicle, but does that mean Toyota (Opera) vehicles shouldn't be on the road?

    Keeping with that analogy, the oil burning, cloud spewing, Gremlin with brakes that don't work (IE), *should* be off the road.

    • Another point - how bad would Honda start to suck if it didn't have competition from Toyota? I'll tell you - as bad as GM cars were in the early 80's.

      Competition produces innovation, lack of competition only produces stagnation. Certainly there is room for IE, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Galeon, Edgar-ware Surfer (coded in Mom's basement! for Lappy 486's), etc.

      Personally, I *love* Opera. I got hooked on it when I got sick of IE vulnerabilities, and when I switched Firefox was still a gleam in a

    • In particular, I'd rather have more competition in the browser market place. While Firefox being the most widely used browser is better than IE, IMHO (mostly because I'm fed up working around IE bugs), having a good spread of web browsers means:

      1. Browser developers are more motivated to think of nifty new features.
      2. Security holes in one are unlikely (but I'm aware there are exceptions) to turn up in a different browser. This reduces the impact of such security holes.
      3. Web developers are more inclined t

  • Different Holes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Flamesplash ( 469287 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @10:07AM (#11334953) Homepage Journal
    So 'we' say Opera, FF etc are all secure and IE isn't. How true is this? I'm seriously asking, not trying to flame.

    It seems to me that some are defining 'secure' as 'doesn't have the same security issues as IE'. IE is the biggest browser and obviously should be the target of a hackers energy, but is there anyway of putting a finger on the exploits that will come when Opera, FF etc are big enough to warrent hacker time?

    Is there a way to evaluate this? It seems like simply something you have to wait and see. That the security is only available to the minority, by partial fact that it is the minority.
    • Well, we can be pretty confident that Mozilla is more secure than IE because Netscape was in the same market position as IE is now for a long time, and yet didn't see the same problems we now have with IE. As for opera etc., we can just compare them to Mozilla and see that they don't seem to have many more vulnerabilities than it.
      • By definition of the monopoly ruling hasn't Netscape been out of the picture for a long time as far as the net is considered?

        As for opera etc., we can just compare them to Mozilla and see that they don't seem to have many more vulnerabilities than it.

        Compare how though, if no one is actively targetting it with hacks et al. then how do you know?
      • Well, we can be pretty confident that Mozilla is more secure than IE because Netscape was in the same market position as IE is now for a long time, and yet didn't see the same problems we now have with IE.

        Back then, Netscape didn't use the same HTML rendering engine. It was rewritten so you can't make this assumption with the "modern" Netscape 7.

    • Re:Different Holes (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jp10558 ( 748604 )
      Well, so far I cannot remember a vuneralbility in Opera that allows attackers write access to your drive, or allow arbitrary code execution.

      The recent vunerabilities have been Java issues(really Sun's issue, and affects all browsers) and phishing issues. AFAIK fixed now.

      Also, unlike IE, Opera doesn't integrate into the file system - file:// links fail from websites.

      Furthermore, Opera doesn't run ActiveX, and javascript is very sandboxed.

      Opera also goes beyond firefox in not allowing third party extensio
    • No software with the complexity of modern browsers is secure. What is more interesting than counting the number of vulnerabilities, is watching how seriously the vendors treat the vulnerabilities in their products. IIRC, Opera has been very quick in fixing the wholes that have been found in their browser. Compare that to the many months Microsoft have spent NOT fixing critical stuff in IE, and you will understand which one of those products I would use if Mozilla/Firefox wasn't around.
    • So 'we' say Opera, FF etc are all secure and IE isn't.

      "Secure" is relative ;-)

      So far, it seems like Opera and Firefox is more secure than IE, but neither have been without their quirks.

      Neither of those support ActiveX objects like IE does, and neither are integrated in the OS. So a bunch of problems are fixed already on a software design level. But that's basically all we can say about it. All your mentioned browsers have had their shares of severe security exploits, some more than others.

      Is there a w

  • I love Opera. (Score:3, Informative)

    by lythander ( 21981 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @10:11AM (#11335010)
    I like Firefox, too. Firefox is an easier transition for IE users, since the interface is very similar, and on the whole it plays nicer with sites which are very IE-specific. Opera is very standards compliant, but doesn't try as hard to play nice with those who aren't.

    Opera's multiple document interface is better, IMHO. It's also more featureful out of the box (I know firefox has a gazillion extensions available, many of them damn fine, but you have to go get them).

    Opera has also (allegedly, I don't use it this way) taken substantial time to make it customizeable and manageable in an enterprise sense. I think it would be easier to roll out Opera to 150 machines than to roll out Firefox with the same capabilities (i.e. lots of extensions) to the same machines.

    Firefox is truly FREE, Opera just doesn't have a cost for use, but for most users (the unwashed masses who care not at all about F/OSS) it doesn't matter.

    Now, if Sunbird works out...

    • Re:I love Opera. (Score:3, Informative)

      by brownpau ( 639342 )
      Opera's wonderfully functional immediately on install. I'm a very keyboard-centric CSS designer on home dialup:
      • Just press G, and images are toggled on/off/cached for slow connections.
      • Ctrl-G, and styles are toggled on/off to see page structure on CSS layouts. (Also great for unreadable white-on-black 9px Verdana websites)
      • Ctrl-Alt-J, and IRC is there to distract me from design.
      • 1 and 2, and I can switch between tabs.

      I love this browser's functionality via keyboard alone (I don't even use mouse gesture

    • Opera is very standards compliant, but doesn't try as hard to play nice with those who aren't.

      I seem to recall that Opera has two rendering modes, which are selected based on the user agent string selected. If you set it to Opera then it uses a standards compliant rendering engine. If you set it to IE it uses a broken-in-the-IE-way layout and JavaScript engine. I found a few sites that looked wrong (or had broken JavaScript) when the UA was set to Opera, but worked fine when it was set to IE.

      • I think that's more the source site sending different style information based on user-agent strings than Opera having multiple rendering engines. The "Bork!" browser that Opera released was a play on this; MSN was specifically targeting Opera browsers and feeding them mangled CSS.

  • Opera vs Firefox (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ceeam ( 39911 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @10:12AM (#11335015)
    I used to be heavy Opera user. Now I'm exclusively FF user. Not 100% happy with both. You've heard about their selling points, here's what pisses _me_ off (BTW - I use either a dialup line or traffic limited b/b line. If you have a fat free pipe you may not care about this):

    Opera:
    1) No option to ban loading images from third party sites. (In FF it's "Load Images.. for originating sites only").
    2) No option to "Block images from this site".
    3) Some versions are more buggy than others. A bit of a checkered pattern.
    4) I miss history for forms. I like when I can type a couple of letters on Google search and search again for that stuff in FF.
    5) I dunno, v8 kinda fixes it but I can't help feeling that the rendered page feels somewhat watered down or something. Can't explain it better.

    FF:
    1) Image-less browsing is rudimentary and is a PITA. Please - can I have a button on taskbar to toggle - "show all images / show cached images / no images" like in Opera! Also - when I right click on an image to show it - feel free to show it inline. Also - don't ignore the (known) image size for image placeholders.
    2) Since 1.0pr(?) this "You need a plugin" popup bar SO pisses me off! NO! I won't fucking install Flash!!! Shove your ads....
    3) Back button is slow sometimes.
    4) Tabbed browsing / MDI does not hold a candle to Opera. I tried TabBrowser Extensions but they help only so-so. And they are buggy.
    5) It loses a cache all too often. With "modern" pages having hundreds of kb's of images it's an annoyance sometimes. Not to say that offline browsing suffers.

    Both:
    1) I _SO_ crave for an option to disable iframes "from other sites". Combined with image blocking it would've killed stupid ads dead.
    2) Option to save a web page with images and CSS to a single MIME file is a killer feature (in MSIE, gah) when you need to have something after doing your web research. A matter of convenience of course but imagine that Linux kernel would've been distributed as a set of *.c.bz2 files.
    • I don't know how much you like installing other software (or whether you are on windows), however I think some of either can be fixed with external proxies.

      I personally find the best solution for me is Allegrosurf(caching proxy - non free, but I would figure squid would work here as well, I just found this first years ago, still using ancient 4.4 lol) chained to proxomitron for uber site specific settings (I can do ANYTHING to a site with this). Now, proximodo is on sourceforge... OSS clone of proxomitron,
    • 3) Some versions are more buggy than others. A bit of a checkered pattern.

      I used a beta of Opera for a while (nice, since it was ad-free), and found I really didn't mind the crashing. When Opera loads a page, it saves the browser state. This means after it crashes and I restart it the only thing I've lost is about 10 seconds of time. I don't believe FireFox does this. The same thing happened with {Star,Open}Office - when it crashes it restores the document when you restart it.

    • I am an Opera user, mainly because of a few features that FF hasn't gotten right (for my taste) yet.

      Tabbed browsing just feels better to me in Opera

      "Continue from last time" rocks

      Customizing just feels better to me in Opera

      Mouse gestures in Opera are better

      Now FF may have these in some form or another, but I like Opera's implementation better. If I close my last tab in Opera (usually via mouse gesture), the browser doesn't close. Last time I checked FF, it did. I can double-click in a blank (no

  • Has everyone here lost all perspective? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @10:31AM (#11335276) Homepage
    Has everybody on Slashdot lost all perspective on how much of the software out there gets made? Some guy in a basement somewhere, usually Norway or Denmark, starts coding up something. Other people respond to the idea, and encourage them. They polish it and release it as shareware, which people decry as buggy junk. They then get more people, polish it up as much as they can, and the public starts to respond. They get more funding, hire more people, and repeat until you have a nice little independent company owned by a coder with an idea and lots of work ethic.

    The people work on the software full-time because they don't have to have a primary job. Working on the software is their job. And isn't that what most people want to do?

    I see a ton posts here about "F*ck them, they should have made it Open Source and looked for other ways to make money." What would be the point of that? That's saying they should have given up on the browser and done something else. They're doing something nobody thought possible: Surviving selling an independent browser in a hotly contested market. They're an independent company taking on a behemoth on their terms and shaking things up in the process. Give up on the fanboyisms and get a little perspective on what they've done.

    I hate to break your illusions, but a lot of the development effort (and all of the full-time coders) for the Mozilla / Firefox rendering effort has been funded by large non-free software corporations. GASP Oh the horrors!

    I'm not saying that free software is good or bad or dead. But I am saying that the software ecosystem is a lot more complicated than the pundits here are making it out to be. Stop taking such a simplistic view of things, it makes it harder for me to convince people that the OSS movement isn't a bunch of raving loonies. I had to live with an Access database for several months last time that happened.

  • I used to use Opera (I even paid for it) but have went to Firefox. The reason that I dropped Opera and went to Firefox was because Opera's JAVA implementation (with Sun Java) did not work properly with the web site that I administer for work. I really miss being able to automatically open the tabs that I had open when it was last shutdown (or crashed) and I cannot find a Firefox plugin that mimics this behavior.

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