Comments on: IceWeasel – Why proprietary software will always win out

By: engtech

engtech — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:21:17 +0000

@khismett:

Right. Because it’s a bad thing for an open source project to be profitable.

http://markpincus.typepad.com/markpincus/2005/05/firefox_foxy_ca.html

By: Khismett

Khismett — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 13:34:34 +0000

IceWeasel is a good idea for one simple reason, it doesn’t have a contract with Google. Firefox is paid to keep Google at the top of the search box, and to have the address bar search google when an invalid URL is given. Great. “Google isn’t evil” is looking more and more like a lie. So in steps IceWeasel and we’re all free to use the browser how we want without the corporate ties.

By: Prasad » Blog Archive » Mozilla and Firefox forked?

Prasad » Blog Archive » Mozilla and Firefox forked? — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 09:47:05 +0000

[...] An article discussing this was slashdotted today. [...]

By: cobolhacker.com » The Mozilla Brand, and Why It’s Not Wrong

cobolhacker.com » The Mozilla Brand, and Why It’s Not Wrong — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:29:08 +0000

[...] Despite the salacious title of the article, some good coverage and discussion about the whole affair is offered by the engtech blog. Read the comments for a while and you’ll find comments like the one below from poster GK: I think people are missing the broader picture in all this talk about open source software. Why is Mozilla trying to protect its image and its trademark? Because merchandising has become a significant way it raises income. So naturally they want users to associate the Firefox brand with their icons. The code itself? Wide open — otherwise Debian couldn’t make changes to it and develop their own branch (and brand) of browser. [...]

By: Gogodidi

Gogodidi — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 09:33:01 +0000

By introducing another webbrowser to the market, one can only divert attention from IE7. In the start, those who try IceWeasel as their first non-IE browser, may then switch the firefox, as it is “the original” and thus “better”. This will incrase Firefox’s mkarket share for a while. (_not_ bad!)
When opera released its browser for free, there was a short burst of increase of people using Opera, but not much has happened since. The Open Source solutions Firefox, Galeon, IceWeasel, Konqueror etc are all different, but the main point is that they are NOT proprietary browsers. Sooner or later the market share will even itself out over those solutions.

By: Turbans and Turbo Pascal — Is he a Programmer or Terrorist? « //engtech

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:06:05 +0000

[...] My sister has fallen victim to stereotyping of the worst kind, when all that was needed to put her fears to rest was to ask her poor tenant if he ever plays World of Warcraft [2]. Geeks are too busy participating in holy wars over programming languages, operating systems, web browsers and text editors. They have no time for a proper jihad. I apologize to the bomb building cellar dweller on her behalf, knowing from this description he may very well be one of my regular readers. [1] He would have slept through 9/11. [...]

By: Turbans and Turbo Pascal — Is he a Programmer or Terrorist? « //engtech

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:03:53 +0000

[...] Mass media perpetuates a culture of fear where anyone could be the next Kimveer Gill, Mohammed Abdullah Azam, or member of the Trench Coat Mafia. Turbans and Turbo Pascal meet Mazes and Monsters (without the youthful charm of Tom Hanks). Interest in computers and electronics? Socially awkward? You could be dangerous. My sister has fallen victim to stereotyping of the worst kind, when all that was needed to put her fears to rest was to ask her poor tenant if he ever plays World of Warcraft [2]. Geeks are too busy participating in holy wars over programming languages, operating systems, web browsers and text editors. They have no time for a proper jihad. I apologize to the bomb building cellar dweller on her behalf, knowing from this description he may very well be one of my regular readers. [1] He would have slept through 9/11. [...]

By: Class of ‘65 « Dinges’ Blog

Class of ‘65 « Dinges’ Blog — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 13:56:43 +0000

[...] DRM Sucks! But who didn’t know that. Build your own Mario! Bloglines just updated their RSS Reader. ESPN announced who is going to be in the booth next year covering NASCAR. As long as it isn’t Darrell Waltrip, I don’t care who it is. The dude thinks closed-source apps are the way to go. You cannot install MS Vista in a VM type of manner. Why did digital kill the analog star? The new economics of Counter-Strike. Green screen gaming with the Colbert. This is one wacky Merc. Now this is a manly vehicle. Manly goodies! A demo of the new HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360. I was skeptical about these at first, but now I think I may need to get one. A very cheap projector. They are going unwired in Singapore! A dude wants to go to jail! Carbon-free processors, I didn’t think it was that big a deal. If grandma can use it, whoopty-freaking-do! The judge wants to game. Bye, bye the remnants of TechTv, but it has been gone for a while. [...]

By: Matt Lee - Vegetarian geek boy comedy writer - Blog - Free Software, Free Culture

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 09:13:19 +0000

[...] read more | digg story [...]

By: Firefox vs. IceWeasel; open source is still the winner « Shuaib’s Weblog

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 15:50:34 +0000

[...] What surprized me is that some people are speculating that during this whole run, it’ll be the open source movement that will suffer as a whole. But I don’t see that happening. The reasons given for the speculation are that two open source browsers will create enough confusion among the users that they will quit using any of them. But does that make sense? I don’t see people saying, “oh, check this out, we have got yet another open source browsers. I am quiting open source software, they confuse you so much.” The only thing that is going to happen is that the people who might ever had some problems with Firefox in the past, might get converted off the Internet Explorer, and on to IceWeasel. Those who think Firefox was the best candy they ever had, will still stick to it. [...]

By: Robert Krawitz

Robert Krawitz — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 16:57:32 +0000

Everyone who’s unhappy with Debian about this — please read a bit more carefully what happened and think about Debian’s mission.

Debian had an agreement with Mozilla, which Mozilla abrogated. Mozilla is putting restrictions on what can be distributed as “Firefox” which are flat-out unacceptable to Debian — Debian can’t modify the source, and downstream users can’t modify the source, and then distribute the result as Firefox. These restrictions cut to the heart of Debian’s mission, which is to provide a truly free distribution, per the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Debian isn’t interested in the commercial (or otherwise) success of Open Source. It never has been. Issues of market fragmentation carry zero weight with the Debian decision-making process.

Nothing prevents Debian users from installing Firefox. Nothing prevents downstream distributors of Debian from removing IceWeasel and installing Firefox. If Debian makes an exception here, it’s going to have a much harder time refusing other packages that aren’t free by its guidelines.

By: Iceweasel..? « Archu’s Cyberspace…!

Iceweasel..? « Archu’s Cyberspace…! — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 15:30:30 +0000

[...] This is much more cooler post.. [...]