Posted on 05/25/2004 7:10:09 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
Microsoft agreed to pay Norway's Opera Software $12.75 million to head off a threatened lawsuit over code that made some Web pages on MSN look bad in certain versions of Opera's Web browser, CNET News.com has learned.
Opera disclosed the payment last week in a terse press release that omitted other details, including the name of the settling party and the nature of the dispute.
But a source indicated that the payment came from Microsoft in order to close the books on a clash over obscure interoperability problems. On at least three separate occasions, Opera has accused Microsoft of deliberately breaking interoperability between its MSN Web portal and various versions of the Opera browser--charges that the software giant has repeatedly denied.
A Microsoft representative said the company does not comment on rumors.
Reached by phone, Opera executives refused to name the company involved in the settlement or describe the nature of the legal claims, citing a confidentiality agreement.
"We forwarded a few facts to a big international corporation and settled before we took legal action," Opera Chief Technology Officer Hakon Lie said Tuesday. "This resolves an issue very close to my heart."
The deal marks the latest in a string of settlements from Microsoft, which is seeking to simplify its business by clearing up potentially damaging legal claims. In the past year, the company has agreed to pay billions of dollars to wrap up litigation with Sun Microsystems, digital rights management developer InterTrust and Time Warner's Netscape Communications division, among others.
While the Opera payment is relatively tiny, it underscores ongoing ripple effects in the browser market that stem from the overwhelming dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Having used its desktop operating system monopoly to help trounce its primary rival Netscape, Microsoft has effectively abandoned significant browser development efforts. That's left companies with negligible market share such as Opera and Netscape's Mozilla open-source project to lead innovation in the field.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
usually I use tabs withing sites, and different windows in other places (on FR I use tabs withing threads when replying so I keep my place)
Could apple set their site to erase the harddrives of windows boxes??
Leave it to you to twist my words and run off into never never land. I've always said MS copied Apple and I wasn't happy about it, I think Apple should have won something in their lawsuit but it was pretty poorly organized and late. But these were two US businesses fighting it out in the marketplace, not a bunch of apparent socialists such as from Finland trying to disrupt the US software industry completely by making everything free.
I hope thats true I would pay 200$ to run OSX on my PC but I wont pay for the hardware Apple sells (It is far better than the i86 stuff but I dont need it).
Actually it will suck big time because not only will we have reduced a former icon to it's dying breath but the US needs to maintain our industrial base as it's almost all gone already.
Exactly my point. It's not as if Microsoft set out to destroy Opera browsers all over the world. They simply kept a competitor from viewing their sites.
Which may or may not be ethical, depending upon how they went about doing it.
And if ford paird the top five oil companies to put something in gasoline that would prevent it from working with fords competitors would that be ok??
As a matter of fact, it WOULD be OK, if America's oil policy was indeed a free market. There would be a quick and loud outcry from consumers, Ford would suffer dire consequences, and the market would correct itself. Unfortunately for the Microsoft competitors, their only source of reprieve seems to be whining to the government, and demand the Microsoft monopoly be smashed.
Because it clearly showed an attempt by the monopoly holder to wrongly discredit a minority marketshare holder by making a site visited by millions purposely not work for the competition. Basically, they got caught at their FUD game again.
Not a good analogy.
And, logic says, why would Microsoft go and try to slam dunk Opera,
Netscape was already marginalized, and Opera was an upstart that was getting very popular quite quickly. Better to nip these things in the bud.
It was all factual. It is not standards compliant, can't render CSS even close to properly, often sees security updates, computer newbies can easily find their home page changed and system infected with spyware. It's so bad that until recently I could crash any IE instance with a simple bad form tag or eject all your CD-ROM drives with a bit of JavaScript (fixes are now out though). It also has fewer features than the competition.
Interesting. So they directly copied an IE feature, down to the exact keystroke?
Yep. I think they also use Alt-F4 to close the application, too. Those thieving bastards!
I run full screen, don't like tabbed browsing.
And I like tabs and hate full screen. But the feature is there for all who like it, and I guess MS likes it because they're copying it. BTW, it's great for FR because you can go down the list and middle-click all the topics you want to read real quick, and they all load in background tabs, never taking you away from the main page.
Security has never been a problem for me with IE.
For you. Go back and look at all the security patches for IE since XP.
Again no problem, I block them all except where I register, especially the "third party cookies" meaning spyware can't install either.
A very cumbersome way of doing it. You can set Mozilla to work that way too, but then you're stuck enabling them all the time when you need them. In Mozilla you can block third party ones, then also go through the cookie list and delete all the site cookies you don't want -- and specify that those sites can no longer do so.
. I HATE third party download utils, I like one consistent interface
And others hate full screen or having multiple windows open. It's still a popular feature, although one I don't use either. IIRC, IE will get this too.
Caching of passwords is actually a security issue.
IE does it too, but Mozilla has a good feature to manage those saved passwords and form information. Getting to that feature can require you first enter a master password.
I usually run through the annonymizer.com proxy that blocks ALL that crap
What were you saying about not having to use third-party stuff? It's all built into Mozilla, even the way things can pop up, plus you can see any popups if you want. In the popup controls, you can also specify to allow popups in certain sites that require them.
You can configure what Java functions run in IE
Not to this level and definitely not this easily.
Notice you passed over the faster, smaller part. I know the concept is alien in a Microsoft world, so it might take a while for it to settle in.
Anonymizer is a fairly unique service. The rest of your features I don't really need. You'd think if it's superior and free as you say, there'd be a few more people using these other browsers on windows. Guess not.
If you don't want them or proper CSS rendering, no problem for me, well, unless you're using Outlook, which by use of IE libraries likes to propagate worms to my inbox.
You'd think if it's superior and free as you say, there'd be a few more people using these other browsers on windows.
By that logic, you'd think that McDonald's serves the best, most nutritious food in the world since they have the highest volume. The only reason IE is so popular is because it is included in the majority operating system. Millions out there think that IE is the way you access that Web thing and don't know any better.
I don't understand your analogy, McDonald's is free in your neighborhood, yet they're still "outsold"?
Uh, no. XHTML, HTML, HTTP, HTTPS, CSS and others are the set standards and, yes, Microsoft had a hand in developing some of these standards. People like you may think IE is the standard because that's what you see all day, but that's just because you don't know any better or are loyal Microserfs.
Some standards Microsoft must adhere to just to be functional, such as HTTP. Others they can disregard, but that makes their browser broken. If IE weren't included in Windows it would likely have almost no marketshare.
Betamax rocked over VHS, but VHS won. McDonald's sells billions of burgers each year worldwide, far more than Hardees, but their burgers suck in comparison. Windows was always the technically worst operating system of its day, yet it owns the low-end market, and it's not even the least expensive.
The analogy is that the best doesn't always win in the marketplace.
And quit trying to compare intellectual property with real property. Without a major source of donated funding, it's impossible to distribute millions of physical widgets for other people to use or eat, such as to compete with McDonald's. You need design, manufacturing, packing, shipping, etc. And with each widget shipped, costs go up. With software, once it's created by volunteers (or companies that think they can make some money off it), distribution of millions of copies can cost almost nothing.
As you may have been able to deduce, I prefer to use a keyboard shortcut whenever possible because I don't like having to remove a hand from the keyboard to move the mouse once I get going... :)
I don't know whether they COULD or not. Since this isn't the least bit relevant, what's your point?
Yea because its not like they have used used a monopoly on the OS market to push their browser, I mean that would lead to a lawsuit or something /sarcasm
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