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Opera CEO on Standards, Antitrust Complaint Against MS

  Submitted by Robert Kratky Opera 45 Comments

Opera Software’s CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner explains why they will not release the Opera browser as open source, arguing that open standards are more important than open source. Von Tetzchner also talks about the company’s antitrust complaint to the European Commission in which it accuses Microsoft of abusing its dominant position by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.

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45 Comments

  1. 2008-02-21 4:46 pm
    eggs

    “open standards are more important than open source”

    I can agree with that.

    • 2008-02-21 5:40 pm
      WorknMan

      Me too. As long as you’re using open standards, not really much of a chance for vendor lock-in.

      As for Opera, it’s really Firefox that’s eating its lunch and not IE.

      Edited 2008-02-21 17:41 UTC

    • 2008-02-21 7:45 pm
      TheBadger

      “open standards are more important than open source”

      I can agree with that.

      I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.

      I can see the benefit of open standards – it would be a stagnant Web browser scene if the only thing providing Web browser capabilities was the Mozilla code base and you had to go through and figure out what it was actually doing, but at least you could do that if it were open source (which it is, of course). Indeed, the power of verification is there for all to explore.

      I’d rather have open source, ahem, Free Software. The level of control is superior, the barriers to involvement are lower. Opera do themselves a disservice in several respects by insisting on remaining proprietary: the important GNU/Linux distros won’t touch their stuff unless it’s open enough (even Firefox only makes the grade rebranded in some cases); people who support Free Software don’t care as much about some proprietary vendor’s battles with Microsoft as they do about one of their own.

      What still amazes me is that Opera is still around. It’s not a tiny company, and it would appear that they’ve spread their focus in order to make up for the loss of revenue from selling the browser to end-users, even though there are some corporate licensees who haven’t yet switched to something else. The resulting strategy doesn’t seem particularly convincing.

      • 2008-02-21 9:12 pm
        Redeeman

        well..

        open standards ARE more important than the licensing of an individual piece of software.

        Who cares what license the software someone uses is, as long as its always possible to replace it, and freely compete, which a free and open standard ensures. I dont give a rats ass if your browser is opensource, as long as i can view the pages with my free browser..

        • 2008-02-22 12:14 am
          Doc Pain

          Who cares what license the software someone uses is, as long as its always possible to replace it, and freely compete, which a free and open standard ensures.

          I’d like to apply an example here to show why I primarily agree with your statement:

          I’m actually working on a software project in the healthcare sector. This application is closed source and costs money. But it only uses open standards (e. g. XML) for its files, and the file layouts are documented, too. So it’s easy to create free software that can make use of the files from the proprietary software (that’s what I’m doing at the moment), this is because of the open standards that allow it. I don’t need to have a license for the expensive product, but I can still “interoperate” with it – or replace it, as you’ve mentioned correctly.

          As long as an application is compliant to existing documented standards, it’s okay, in my opinion.

          As an addition, I’d like to express that I see the high value of open source / free software. Sadly, the commercial world seems to have the credo “If it does not cost anything, it’s worthless”, which of course isn’t true, but leads decisions which software to run. Of course, as you surely will know, these decisions are made by people who don’t have the neccessary clue, that’s politics as usual.

      • 2008-02-21 10:06 pm
        aesiamun

        Please don’t speak for me. Open standards, in my opinion, are much more important than Open Source.

    • 2008-02-22 1:42 am
      da_Chicken

      “open standards are more important than open source”

      I can agree with that.

      Then you also agree that it’s a valid choice.

      But I think it’s a bogus choice. If you use Konqueror or Firefox, you don’t have to make that choice at all because they support both open standards and open source. That’s why I prefer to use Konqueror and Firefox instead of Opera.

      • 2008-02-22 2:42 am
        pixel8r

        i second this!!

        They make it sound like if they went open source they would somehow have to break open standards…?!

        I think BOTH open standards AND open source are important, and most open source projects I know also support open standards. In most cases they support open standards better than their closed-source “equivalents”.

        So what is the point of saying open standards are more important? Its just an excuse for not opening up their code and I dont believe its a valid one.

        If they made opera open source it would still meet the same open standards it does today. So the question should be asked again, “Why wont opera go open-source AND remain open-standards compliant?”. Why?

        Edited 2008-02-22 02:43 UTC

        • 2008-02-22 9:26 am
          dagw

          So what is the point of saying open standards are more important?

          I think he’s right. I use a few closed source apps, because they perform better than the open source equivalents and I felt they where worth the money.

          However one thing I make very sure of is that all the apps follow an open standard so that I can get my important data out and replace the app with something else should it become necessary. That is why open standards are more important.

          So the question should be asked again, “Why wont opera go open-source AND remain open-standards compliant?”. Why?

          The real question is why should they go open source. What’s to gain? Don’t answer this question from the perspective of an OSS advocate or end user, answer it from the perspective of an Opera senior manager or shareholder.

      • 2008-02-22 10:28 am
        renox

        >>”open standards are more important than open source”

        >I can agree with that.

        >Then you also agree that it’s a valid choice.

        >But I think it’s a bogus choice.

        True, it’s not a choice but what Opera’s CEO was saying is that their browser is standard compliant which is more important than being opensource or not, and I agree with that.

        As for FF vs Opera: I prefer Opera as it’s more responsive.

        • 2008-02-22 6:25 pm
          da_Chicken

          But this Tetzchner guy is clearly talking about open source vs. open standards as a choice that is worth considering.

          Quote from the article:

          “If you have a choice between open standards and open source, our choice would always be open standards.”

          He could have just said that Opera doesn’t care for open source instead of setting up bogus choices. That would have been more honest, but it’s not good PR.

          I think his most sincere comment comes in the end of the same answer:

          “and there would be the risk that people would look at our code and run away with it.”

          That seems to be the real reason why Opera isn’t open source, and it has nothing to do with advocating open standards.

          • 2008-02-26 3:02 pm
            TLZ_

            They aren’t really claiming otherwise, are they?

            Opera live on making programs, and running the bussiness would simply not be sustainable with open source.

            (Remember that Opera isn’t say… Apple who have a lot of renevue allready and don’t have a problem with people using WebKit.)

            They need to make money to stay alive as a bussiness, nobody(including Opera) is denying.

  2. 2008-02-21 4:53 pm
    SlackerJack

    Come on Opera you can do better than that, you should have started your complained about IE many years ago, I dont see Mozilla taking MS to court.

    Netscape died because of IE at it’s hight, so why complain now when it’s at it’s lowest monopoly position for, what 20 years?

    • 2008-02-21 5:41 pm
      judgen

      Itnernet explorer did not exist 20 yeasrs ago. It was 1999 when IE managed to surpass Netscape for the first time, and the monopoly was not established untill 2002-2003 and since then it has been on constant decline and in most of europe its no longer in monopoly position, more like a duopoly of sorts. So saying 20 years is blatantly wrong.

      • 2008-02-21 6:07 pm
        SlackerJack

        Yes thats just me thinking we are in 2015 :p, you know I meant over 10 years ago when Windows 95 came with IE, thats were it all started

      • 2008-02-21 7:49 pm
        flanque

        I’m gonna +1 you just for the pretty girl as your avatar.

  3. 2008-02-21 5:17 pm
    TechGeek

    So just because we have endured 20 years of Microsofts monopoly we should be content to just keep on doing it? And I would hardly call Firefox sucesssful. Don’t get me wrong, its the only browser I use. But it only has 10-15 % market share and it became popular during a time when IE was really crap and had been pretty much abandoned by Microsoft. Even then they could do better than 20%. Why? Its all about the pre-installs. The only reason that is changing now is because of the many people putting Linux on the desktop. You can’t compete with just a browser. You need to have it be part of the entire OS package. Thats why firefox and Safari are anywhere on the map.

    • 2008-02-21 5:24 pm
      Kroc Silver Supporter

      Firefox is up to 40% in some European countries. It cannot be ignored.

      Firefox also proved that people will download a browser, even when one is bundled.

      Firefox basically proves you, and Opera wrong.

      Mozilla have not been crying afoul of IE, they have simply been getting on with doing the best job they can.

      Mitchell Baker, and the new CEO David Ascher are smart, driven people who care about end users, not market-share and politics.

      If Opera want to play a politics game, they will lose.

    • 2008-02-21 5:33 pm
      SlackerJack

      Well Opera would have to prove that it’s IE thats stopping them rather than Firefox, whats to say Firefox is not stopping them for getting more market share?

      • 2008-02-21 5:42 pm
        Arakon

        I use Firefox over Opera. Just didn’t care for the interface. I absolutely HATE the new IE interface. It feels like they are hiding all the damn buttons. I’ve had the unfortunate side affect of running across individuals using Vista and the new IE asking me to make it work like XP. The first thing I do is install Firefox, remove all the IE icons and replace them with the Firefox icons (labeled “The Internet” for the slow ones).

        So far every single person still uses Firefox; it updates itself, just like vista and its easy to use with fairly obvious interface.

      • 2008-02-21 7:54 pm
        flanque

        I think this is a very good point. There’s no way I would go for Opera whilst Firefox exists. Besides that, my decision to not choose Opera goes back well beyond Firefox’s existance.

        I simply do not like the way the browser looks and feels. I could probably get used to it (heck, I’ve gotten used to the OSAlert skins) but I really couldn’t be bothered.

    • 2008-02-21 6:55 pm
      Touvan

      It’s worth adding to that, that Netscape 2.x – 4.x used to come pre-installed on windows and mac machines, back when it was top dog.

      There is today good reason for OEMs to choose an alternative. The question is, why don’t they choose the alternative.

      My money’s on unfair licensing deals that Microsoft gets them into. There is the chance though that they simply have a better product in the eyes of most OEMs. Then again, when is the last time you saw any group of people always agree on anything – I mean besides conservative republicans (-ducks-).

      A good fair hearing should help to bear this all out, so Opera has my complete support.

      • 2008-02-22 4:47 am
        PlatformAgnostic

        Special deals with OEMs are specifically against the rules and probably aren’t happening. The reason OEMs don’t include anything other than IE is that adding something else would increase their testing burden. Right now, IE comes with the OS and is proven to work (some people differ on how well it works, but almost everyone will agree that it’s good enough). OEMs have nothing to gain from including something else.

        • 2008-02-22 9:31 am
          dagw

          The reason OEMs don’t include anything other than IE is that adding something else would increase their testing burden

          Most OEMs ship their computers with a whole bunch of extra software, this doesn’t seem to affect their testing burden too much. I’m sure adding firefox to the mix wouldn’t be any harder than adding, for example, the symantec antivirus demo they already ship with.

          • 2008-02-23 8:17 pm
            PlatformAgnostic

            It wouldn’t be harder.. especially if they were paid the same $5-$10 by Opera or FF that they are by Symantec.

  4. 2008-02-21 6:45 pm
    computrius

    Every OS ships a browser with it now. Various Linux distributions choose Firefox, apple chose their own safari, and Microsoft chose their own internet explorer. It seems to me that opera is just whining because they didn’t get chosen by anyone. They are like a kid complaining because he wasn’t chosen for a team in gym class.

    Edited 2008-02-21 18:46 UTC

  5. 2008-02-21 7:12 pm
    malcarada

    It does not matter if Opera is whinning because of this or that, they are right, Microsoft is abusing it’s stron position in the desktop to push their useless and insecure browser with it.

    • 2008-02-22 12:23 am
      tomcat

      It does not matter if Opera is whinning because of this or that, they are right, Microsoft is abusing it’s stron position in the desktop to push their useless and insecure browser with it.

      And the rebuttal is … so what? We’ve already covered this ground before, and it amounted to nothing. At the behest of RealNetworks, the EC forced MS to produce a version of Windows without Media Player. And do you know what happened? NOBODY wanted it. OEMs ignored it. Customers who wanted an alternative to Media Player had already downloaded one. So, the issue died with a pathetic whimper. What bothers me here is that we’re dealing with exactly the same issues — just a different tool — and we’re going to see the same result, if the EC forces MS to produce a version of Windows without IE. Granted, that would be a boon to the EC because they’d probably get to bilk MS out of hundreds of millions of Euros in punitive fines. But it would mean exactly ZILCH to the end-user. Which is supposed to be what this is all about. Of course, being rational adults, we realize that it’s really more about influence: Who has it, who wants it, who throws it around, and what it costs. My advice would be to drop the whole thing and advise Opera to get into a business that has better longterm potential than Web browsers. They’re so 1999, and Firefox offers better value.

      Edited 2008-02-22 00:25 UTC

  6. 2008-02-21 8:38 pm
    elsewhere

    The good thing about Firefox’s success is that web developers had it pounded through their skulls, for the most part, that it was not an IE-only world and developing as if it was could be restrictive.

    The problem with Firefox’s success is that web developers now tend to develop as if it was an IE or Firefox-only world. Google, of all companies, comes to mind for this.

    Apple’s momentum with Safari, and widerspread adoption of Webkit, will at least offer a third genuine alternative, but it’s still kind of a drag that users still have to select a browser based on what works best with the web, rather than what works best for them.

    I think the point he is making is that standards are pointless if a browser can earn enough marketshare to ignore them. I’d agree with that. I’ve always agreed that open standards are ultimately more important than open source.

    Though I’m a little disappointed that they’re running to the EU crying anti-trust. It’s ridiculous at this point to claim MS shouldn’t be including a browser.

    I suppose, too, that it must be a little frustrating to see a browser that you have worked so hard to ensure standards compliance with is still dismissed, because the web caters to browser marketshare rather than standards.

    Opera might be better off at this point to cut their losses and start working with Webkit, but it would be sad if that had to happen.

    • 2008-02-21 9:39 pm
      SReilly

      I’m very much in agreement on what you’re saying. Open standards are, at least for me, the IT holy grail. For a user to be able to use whatever product combination suits their particular need, be those products open source or not, sounds just dandy to my ideal of personal freedom.

      The thing is, more of a given product does not necessarily translate into open standards. Take the proprietary Unix scene of the ’80s and ’90s as an example. Unix today is considered by many to be the embodiment of open IT standards, but back in the day it was anything but the case. Yes, to an extent the systems themselves are open all the way down to the individual binary applications (obviously the binaries are just as open in the case of Linux and the BSDs) but inter Unix communication, hell even the divergence of the run levels and filesystem hierarchies, made cross platform interoperability, not to mention development, a nightmare. The last remaining relic of this era is arguably NIS+.

      It’s only really in recent years that the *nixs have started to really play nicely together and only because MS took the wind out of the sails of their workstation market with NT, not to mention the fact that, against all odds, BSD lives on. Hell, Linux eating into the Unix server market has done more to open the eyes of the last remaining proprietary Unix vendors then the lost market share due to NT’s encroachment.

      And there lies my point. In the end, the big boys figured the only way they where going to continue being able to sell their *nixs, products they have poured vast amounts of both time and money into, was to not only market they’re obvious power and versatility, but also they’re flexibility i.e. the ability to be able to swap one vendor’s system for another with a minimum of infrastructure change.

      Customer choice due to the utilization of open standards, something customers could already get from the free *nixs, was what enabled the big Unix vendors to keep their customers by letting their systems compete on a level playing field, at least in my opinion. For that to happen, open standards are a must.

      I doubt that anyone can successfully argue against the good that choice in general does for the consumer, but the granularity of that choice is where open standards really shine. Yes, we all have the choice not to use a given PIM application, but if the choice is between using that PIM application, and having to change the PIM server, that’s no choice at all.

      Mind you, that’s just my two cents worth.

      • 2008-02-22 4:59 am
        PlatformAgnostic

        I don’t know… I think the remaining proprietary Unix market has been pretty solidly defeated. The only reason these companies keep doing it is to sell a system that works better with their hardware than Linux can (I wager they wouldn’t want to build their hardware-specific stuff on Linux because they might have to reveal platform-specific information to competitors if their optimizations require kenrel modifications). The non-OSS Unix market as a software market is dead. It’s really just a hardware-OS bundle market because Unix OSes are too much of a commodity.

        I’d say the same thing about web-browsers as well. To use one of those godawful car analogies: trying to sell a browser is like trying to sell an aftermarket car radio… there isn’t much of a market for one unless it is many times better than the radios that come standard.

        • 2008-02-22 9:17 am
          SReilly

          What you are saying definitely applies to Sun but when it comes to IBM and AIX, the situation is very different. IBM helps enormously with the Linux PPC port, including hardware and development. In fact, they offer two Distros, SLES and RHEL, as well as AIX for their POWER based System P servers. Every component is supported, something you can’t say about many x86 devices.The reason for this is that IBM makes more money as a solutions provider then they could as just a hardware company with a nice Unix bundled.

          The thing is, considering Linux is so well supported on the POWER architecture, how come our customers want AIX installed on the vast majority of POWER systems we sell? It’s simple, AIX is more powerful, more flexible and scales better than Linux. It’s optimized for one platform, POWER, making it out perform Linux in every benchmark you can throw at it.

          So why don’t our customers by x86-64 based System X servers with Linux preinstalled instead of POWER based system? After all, Linux on commodity hardware is arguably cheaper than a proprietary Unix running on a proprietary architecture. The answer is actually quite simple. When it comes to big iron Unix servers, i.e. performance monsters for DB and storage/backup systems, you can’t beat these systems.

          Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Linux and the BSDs and I especially think they make excellent web servers, firewalls and application servers. But in the end, for sheer performance, they just don’t measure up to Solaris and AIX on proprietary hardware.

          I, and many other Unix admins, are of the opinion that this will change and that, given the amount of work that is going into developing Linux, it will change soon. But until that day, customers are still going to want to leverage every last bit of value out of the expensive proprietary systems they buy.

  7. 2008-02-21 11:54 pm
    leech

    That I think one of the main reasons why this is really the case, that Opera is crying anti-trust, is that Internet Explorer is literally shoved down the throats of everyone. Sure, Firefox is included with most Linux distributions, but even that is “most”. At least all KDE based distributions ship with both Firefox and Konqueror. Debian installs Epiphany and Iceweasel (Firefox) by default.

    The problem is that IE isn’t even removable! Look at any Linux distribution. Unless their packaging team are retarded, you can remove Firefox all you want, and install Opera, Epiphany, Konqueror, Midori, etc.

    Though it could be argued that you can’t really remove Konqueror from KDE either, but I think with KDE 4 that has more or less changed.

    I think that was the main problem with Windows before, Netscape was complaining that Microsoft had purposefully integrated IE so deeply within Windows 98 that it couldn’t be removed and Netscape installed instead by OEMs. Bill Gates himself had said that without IE, Windows 98 would have been useless.

    At least this is how I recall all of this happening, kind of amazing that this was all about 10 years ago now.

  8. 2008-02-22 3:47 am
    SpikeMcG

    Honestly Microsoft and Netscape both gave their product away for free, so how did they make any money on it.

    Personally I think things like protocols like HTTP, FTP, GOPHER, etc. are just that protocols that should be part of the OS. The fact that web browsers are applications that are just windows into them really doesn’t make them different to me than any other application with those protocols enabled.

    Most people that I know today use Firefox and while it’s renderer is different than IE, or Opera. The operating systems that host them MacOS, Windows, Linux, don’t really tell people you can’t install or can’t run them. Having one built in doesnt limit personal choice. Integrating these protocols to web enable other featurs isn’t limiting either. People got up about IE “channels” that you could subscribe to that were based on XML file feeds. Something similar to what we all call RSS feeds.

    I really disrespect the courts for removing subscription content, back then and then letting others “re-invent” it..

    This whole “I am wronged stuff has to go”. If you have a superior product people will use it, like Firefox..

  9. 2008-02-22 9:51 am
    waynej

    In my honest opinion open standards are crucial.

    I am a mechanical design engineer who uses solid modelling software and FEA software every day. Try sharing the models and analysis results with your customers and suppliers – it’s an absolute ball-ache.

    It’s practically the case that all the vendors have their own individual file formats to do the same job as everyone else and while there are interchange formats – iges, step, etc they all have quirks based on their individual implementation. With one standardised format things would be so much easier.

    This goes for documents – odf v doc v ooxml, spead sheets, web standards, everything.

    Standardisation is most important. Let the users decide how they create and access information – the information is open under the standard, how the user creates and reads the file is up to them (open source and free, closed source paid for – the users choice) and with an open standard there would be (probably) more choice.

    My tuppence.

    Edited 2008-02-22 09:53 UTC

  10. 2008-02-22 10:13 am
    OSGuy

    Well I use Maxthon 2.x and I really don’t care what engine it’s using. If Maxthon was using the Gecko rendering engine, I would have been using Maxthon again because I am used to the features. Between plain IE7 and Firefox, IE’s GUI is a joke and I can’t stand it. I prefer Firefox but between Maxthon’s UI and FF, I am sorry to say but FF’s GUI is no where near and don’t mention to me extensions please because with every release, the existing extensions refuse to install. So, IE here wins in market share because of great browsers such as Maxthon. The same applies for Opera, it’s lacking features that Maxthon has. If Maxthon had the Opera engine, I would have used it. It’s all about functionality and reliability

    Edited 2008-02-22 10:16 UTC

  11. 2008-02-23 12:25 am
    ashcrow

    Open Source and Open Standards are not opposites by any means. I’m not sure why he is thinking it is a choice between the two. It seems to me it’s more of a ‘We don’t want you to see our code’ either due to fear that people will ‘steal’ some of Opera’s good ideas or see how bad the code is.

  12. 2008-02-23 6:34 pm
    Syphadias

    OK, so I have no love what so ever for Microsloth, any of there products (except maybe an XBOX with a MOD for homebrew), and I can care less about the Gate’s family’s multi-billion dollar dynasty and all there friends that have the world in debit like the Rothschild family, Rockefeller family, Morgan, Chase, Bin Laden family , etc.

    On the other hand, I am tired of companies complaining about what Microsloth does with it’s own OS. OK I understand that it’s not there own OS, in that a lot of code and innovative ideas where stolen and duplicated in there OS, and they patted themselves on the back and called themselves pioneers, etc, but the point is that if they want to include a Web Browser with the OS, then great! I wish all OS’s came with a web browser. Heck back in the old school Amiga days you had to pay for the ability to use TCP/IP, you had to buy your Web Browser, you had to pay for IRC, you name it, so ya, freebies with the OS are great!

    Now where competition comes in is someone has to make something that is better than what is given to you with your OS. Then and only then will people take notice and begin to realize that there is something better than the free stuff Microsoft gives you.

    Common sense.

    Now if we let government control companies like this, well then we have Capitalist Socialism. In fact we are already there, but it must end, we must go back to the days before the Oil Barons, the Steel Barons, the Banker’s etc. Bought up all the politicians, and lobbyists and turned this globe into a plantation, into Brave New World.

    Shame on those who only promote it.