back to article Opera cuts cord on first open-source baby

Opera has freed its first open source project, moving code for its Dragonfly debug tool onto the popular BitBucket hosting service. Dragonfly - a website debug tool similar to Mozilla's Firebug - was always intended as an open source project. From its inception in 2008, it carried an open source BSD license. But until this …

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  1. Justin Pasher

    Out of touch

    "The reason to do open source is for marketing purposes"

    I can see how knowledgeable they are about the open source community.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      He's right, though

      But he's absolutely right. What else would there be to gain for Opera? It would be a pure marketing move.

      You think he's referring to the open source community. He's talking about open-sourcing Opera!

  2. Lou Gosselin

    "The reason to do open source is for marketing purposes."

    Also,

    "We're doing mobile phones. We're doing set-top boxes. We're doing cars. We're doing game consoles. We're doing all these things. And handling that complexity is extremely hard. And I think that requires fairly good control over the piece of code"

    Does not sound like he understands open source very well. Opening the source code would result in more specialized experts on all platforms and likely even better support on diverse platforms. His notion that open source code cannot cope with diverse platforms is unfounded.

    Of course, if it's *control* they seek, then yes, open source does not give them much control.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Experts?

      REALLY! If open-source gives you all these experts, how come Opera as a closed-source browser is on more platforms than any other browser?

      1. Lou Gosselin

        @Experts

        "how come Opera as a closed-source browser is on more platforms than any other browser?"

        I'll take you at your word that this is the case, but this says absolutely nothing about the quality or expertise of the open source community. It's not a fair assessment since many of the devices where opera is installed are closed platforms where open source developers are not welcome. I would argue that if these platforms were open and unlocked, then we would see a great deal of open source development on them.

        For example, the iphone will likely never run mozilla or opera, but that's not because they don't have the expertise, it's because they're deliberately locked out.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          He's right, though

          The point the guy is making is not that OS is bad. It's that they as a company need extremely tight control over the code because it's running on a crazy amount of platforms. Open-sourcing Opera wouldn't give them tighter control, and that's what they need.

  3. bitten

    Not that I ever open sourced anything

    Losers, by open sourcing they would give Opera at last a chance for a decent SunSpider score.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Opera is #1 at Sunspider

      Except Opera 10.5 beats everything at Sunspider!

  4. uncredited
    Coat

    The silver bullet...

    "Opening the source code would result in more specialized experts on all platforms and likely even better support on diverse platforms."

    Now, how many times has this sudden flood of experts resulted in anything more than the "new toy" syndrome where the application is squeezed together on the new platform for minor functionality and then left to die because the original "expert" finds an even newer toy to play with for a while?

  5. The Original Steve

    Where do they get their money from?

    Seriously - how are these guys in business still?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      @ "Where do they get their money from?"

      I used to wonder that about Firefox.

      Maybe Firefox is data-mining my surfing (as boring as it is) if I have Firefox prefs set to "Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected attack site" and/or "Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery." It surely must have to send the IP address of everything I visit, to some central location to check against a database or something? So, how do any of us know what Mozilla (or whoever) is doing with that info?

      But conspiracy theories aside, I would presume that Opera probably makes their money the same way Mozilla does... by... umm... hmm... well... (my ignorance is showing)...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Simple

      1. Search revenue every time someone uses the search box

      2. Licenses when Opera is bundled on phones, consoles, and all sorts of stuff

      3. Revenue sharing for data traffic with Opera Mini

      etc.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Reason enough

        "2. Licenses when Opera is bundled on phones, consoles, and all sorts of stuff"

        Which is plenty reason for not releasing the code. The benefit to Opera-the-company would probably be negative if they open-sourced everything. The benefit to Opera-the-browser probably too, religious views on OSS notwithstanding.

  6. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    AI Muse in Search of Cleopatra Needles.

    Very Impressive, Jon von Tetzchner. Do you Server Cloud Host Advanced Operating Systems? A Virtually Transparent Underground Reality Drive Machine.

    Rock and Roll Cinderella RockerFeller Version Ready for BitXSSXXXXStream Loding/XTreme BetaTesting/Savouring in the Most Righteous and Incorrigibly Virtuous of Cases.

    And Apparently IT is QuITE Alien to Most All who are So Aware and Most Captivatingly Temptful to the Point of No Return and Complete Surrender to the Powers that Power Live Operational Virtual Environments. That's LOVE in Big Capital Letters.

    Now them Dudes Know IT like you Aint Gonna Believe, so they have done IT Themselves and would now Present you with an Option of Sees, should you wish to Dally and Dawdle/Trip and Fall in Old Establishment Ways.

    Meanwhile, just up ahead, are Virtually IntelAIgent Pioneers, with a Whale of a Whole New Operating System Running through ITs Paces and Touching Base with Deep Open Spaces in the Confines of the Mind.. ..... of the Mined. And that is a Very Pleasant Journey for the Pleasure Robot Minded and AIMagical Mystery Turing Trip to be Endlessly Servered to True AIMutual Satisfaction....... True AIMS are a Better Beta than World AID with its Feeding of Poverty rather than Spreading of Wealth and Security. ....... aka Peace and Tranquility in Other Worlds/ Head Spaces.

    And I think that is quite enough Green Room Chatter from him, for now, says I. The secret is of course, IT being Perfect Sense for Sharing even when read again Tomorrow. If it seems like GBIrish and you Fail to Understand the True and Deep Meandering Meanings Embedded in the Script Text, is an R&R Sabbatical, a Godsend Overdue .

  7. ender
    WTF?

    SunSpider score

    "Losers, by open sourcing they would give Opera at last a chance for a decent SunSpider score."

    Hmm...

    SRWare Iron 4.0.280: 472.8ms +/- 4.0%

    Opera 10.50 Beta Build 3261: 394.0ms +/- 3.5%

    I thought lower was better?

  8. RJ
    Go

    I am an open-sourcer

    However Opera do a very good browser. Personally I use Firefox but I previously used and still recommend Opera to my non-techie friends because they seem to be able to build a solid all-round browser which works on a load of platforms without too many security issues.

    @bitten - The latest JS benchmarks for Opera are very very good from what I remember reading recently (Possibly in El Reg).

    @The Original Steve - Their desktop browser is free but they also to browsers for many other devices, for example the Nintendo Wii etc. which all bring in licensing revenue. I think they might also have a search-engine deal like Mozilla.

    Heresy I know but Opera is one of the few pieces of closed-source software I really really think is good.

  9. magnetik

    OS

    I'm all for open source but few OS projects truly live up to open source ideals. It's all very well that a project can be visible to millions of experts but people need to earn money to put food on the table. Don't expect any experts to spend their time and energy on a project without a compelling reason to do so.

  10. Tippis
    Black Helicopters

    Does this explain…

    …why activating dragonfly has only given me the dragonfly main page for the last week or two, rather than the tool itself? The URL in the browser is the same as always and I haven't seen any announcement that they've changed it or why it redirects to the wrong page.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Dragonfly??

    oh come on - surely they could have checked the namespace before christening this baby!

    DragonFly is a fork of BSD - DragonFly BSD - a nice powerful platform - ideal for hosting more OS software :-)

    http://www.dragonflybsd.org/

  12. heyrick Silver badge
    WTF?

    "We're doing cars"?

    We're doing cars?

    Say what?

    Web browsers in cars?

    Am I the only one who sees problems with this idea?

    1. sandman

      Goes with the TV

      Probably works like the TV in some cars, only works when you're stationary. I'm told this makes traffic jams a bit more bearable. I've seen this in a BMW M6, uses the same screen as the sat nav. So, if you have more money than sense, I'd go for it ;-)

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