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Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

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Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#41

Post by pavanky »

sudhirj wrote: post #2

Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this. Either way, an idea for a browser feature is hardly a huge industrial secret - Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed. How would this stand up in court? Neither Google nor Opera have anything to gain from this - what could be the economic rationale?

> Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this.

They are suing their former employee, not Mozilla.

> Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed

The former employee is an artist and a musician. The article says he worked on UI related stuff. None of this has anything to do with the web engine the browsers run.

You are taking the simple fact of Opera suing it's former employee and trying to make it look like there is much more to it than there really is.

I wonder what other conspiracy theories you love.

Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#43

Post by icebraining »

yareally wrote: post #39
icebraining wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the event you describe was possible, because Mozilla had tabs before Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox even existed. In any case, Opera copied the tabs from other browsers too, so I'm not sure what's your point with that story. By the way, it wasn't just about the OSS license. Back in the day Opera had a big honking ad right in the main window. They only released an ad-free version in 2005, when Firefox already…

I think he perhaps means tabs with a true document interface[1] (i.e multiple web pages can be opened within the same application window and be resized, moved, tiled, and cascaded like normal application windows in the operating system). Edit: Seems Opera added tabs slightly before Mozilla after looking it up out of interest[2]. Also just some random history on tab integration in web browsers. Mozilla 0.9.5 added the…

I don't think so, Mozilla browsers never had MDI[1], so they couldn't have copied it from Opera.

[1]: There's a feature request since 2000, but it was never implemented: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60775

Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#44

Post by yareally »

icebraining wrote: post #43
yareally wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he perhaps means tabs with a true document interface[1] (i.e multiple web pages can be opened within the same application window and be resized, moved, tiled, and cascaded like normal application windows in the operating system). Edit: Seems Opera added tabs slightly before Mozilla after looking it up out of interest[2]. Also just some random history on tab integration in web browsers. Mozilla 0.9.5 added the…

I don't think so, Mozilla browsers never had MDI[1], so they couldn't have copied it from Opera. [1]: There's a feature request since 2000, but it was never implemented: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60775

Oh, I wasn't talking about Mozilla (the precursor) in regards to that, just Firefox after ditching the Netscape legacy. Sorry for the ambiguity.

Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#45

Post by OGinparadise »

rurounijones wrote: post #4
sudhirj wrote: post #2

Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this. Either way, an idea for a browser feature is hardly a huge industrial secret - Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed. How would this stand up in court? Neither Google nor Opera have anything to gain from this - what could be the economic rationale?

"Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this." These two things are not linked, stop trying to make it so.

These two things are not linked, stop trying to make it so.

How do you know it? Please tell us or stop making such blanket but unsupported statements

Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#46

Post by DannyBee »

mpyne wrote: post #27
fosap wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider even the NFL is non profit, non profit hardly means anything.

The NFL leaque headquarters organization is a non-profit. The actual teams , on the other hand, are all profit-seeking entities and pay taxes accordingly.

False: The green bay packers are also a non-profit.

The whole thing is a fairly weird set up designed to avoid antitrust scrutiny and taxes.

The NFL org just plows any profits back into the teams.

Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#47

Post by toyg »

pornel wrote: post #16
sudhirj wrote: post #2

Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this. Either way, an idea for a browser feature is hardly a huge industrial secret - Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed. How would this stand up in court? Neither Google nor Opera have anything to gain from this - what could be the economic rationale?

I don't think switch to Google's engine is the cause, it's rather another symptom of the same thing — after Jon von Tetzchner has left Opera Software has changed their priorities. Change of engine, downsizing (and old-time developers fleeing the company), and now the lawsuit to me indicate that Opera Software now favors profits over preserving company's culture, image and web standards influence. Hippies have left, s…

This. Opera is another SCO: failing in the marketplace, it will try to stay afloat with lawsuits.

Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#48

Post by DannyBee »

homosaur wrote: post #36
fosap wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider even the NFL is non profit, non profit hardly means anything.

I feel what you're saying on this since the pro leagues being nonprofits seems silly on the surface but you could say that about any trade organization really. The US has a real problem with what's allowed to define itself as non-profit (scam religions like crack churches and Scientology, fake athlete charities, etc) but I don't think Mozilla falls in that camp.

This is mostly true, and note that the NFL is not a 501(c)(3), they are a 501(c)(6) which is a very different kind of non-profit.

Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#49

Post by steven2012 »

sudhirj wrote: post #2

Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this. Either way, an idea for a browser feature is hardly a huge industrial secret - Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed. How would this stand up in court? Neither Google nor Opera have anything to gain from this - what could be the economic rationale?

Google funds basically all of Mozilla's budget, something like $300M/yr. Google does not consider Mozilla a rival. If they wanted to destroy Mozilla, they would just need to not renew their funding agreement.

Re: Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

#50

Post by ww520 »

steven2012 wrote: post #49
sudhirj wrote: post #2

Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this. Either way, an idea for a browser feature is hardly a huge industrial secret - Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed. How would this stand up in court? Neither Google nor Opera have anything to gain from this - what could be the economic rationale?

Google funds basically all of Mozilla's budget, something like $300M/yr. Google does not consider Mozilla a rival. If they wanted to destroy Mozilla, they would just need to not renew their funding agreement.

Google got the benefit of the search engine placement in Mozilla for the money. Bing would love to be in Google's place in relationship to Mozilla.
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