Head of Opera Jon von Tachner answered questions from Russian users
Last week, many news agencies were quick to announce the start of a new “browser war” initiated by the Norwegian company Opera Software, which filed a complaint with the European Commission about the software giant Microsoft, which the creators of the Opera browser accused of unfair competition and violation of W3C web standards. Opera Software’s requirements include removing Internet Explorer from Windows or adding alternative browsers to the installation, as well as asking the Edmond giant to improve support for W3C web standards in Microsoft software.
These requirements have caused a storm of emotions in the Internet community, and, the estimates have diverged from vigorous support to the complete rejection of Opera Software initiatives. It was also voiced many questions regarding these actions of the Norwegian company, in connection with which representatives of Opera Software were quick to give some explanations of their position. In particular, the creator of CSS style sheets and part-time technical director of the company Hakon Wai Lie [Håkon Wium Lie] published an open letter to web developers on the web, calling them to support the initiatives of Opera Software. Also, the Opera Community website has published answers to the most frequently asked users questions about the Opera Software complaint to the European Commission. In this regard, it would be interesting to hear the opinion of the head of the company - Jon von Tachner, and today we are publishing an exclusive mini-interview, which was given by the permanent head of Opera Software for our publication.
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Q. Tell me, Yon, are these company actions the result of lengthy preparation or a kind of impromptu, catalyzed by recent developments in the software market (in particular, the decision of the European Commission to exclude the WMP media player from the Windows operating system)?
A. In fact, the idea of such a complaint has long been discussed by the management of the company, but the final decision was made in connection with the latest rulings of the European Commission concerning the WMP media player. I will say right away - for us it was a difficult decision. We know that such statements carry certain risks, but in fact the problems voiced in our complaint are too important to remain inactive. Open standards and freedom of choice are, in our opinion, the most valuable things today.
Q. Why do you think the developers of other browsers (Mozilla Foundation, Apple, and others) remain silent and are not in a hurry to declare support for your initiatives?
A. It is probably better to ask them themselves. But I believe that they certainly share our view on the importance of open standards.
Q. What results do you predict in connection with your complaint: Microsoft will remove Internet Explorer from the operating system, include alternative browsers in the installation, simply improve support for web standards in its software products, or do nothing?
A. It all depends on what decision the European Commission takes. We offered solutions that, we are sure, could significantly improve the situation on the software market and in the field of web development. They boil down to two simple things: providing a more free choice to users and adhering to web standards.
Q. Are you not afraid that Microsoft will start a “big war” with Opera Software, putting all its forces on your small company, and, in the end, simply destroy an inconvenient competitor?
A. We have been competing successfully with Microsoft for many years and I do not think that our initiatives will have any particular detrimental effect on the work of Opera Software. But we will be grateful for any support of our undertakings, which will come from those who agree with our point of view.
Q. Good. Let's imagine that Microsoft decides to fix and release, for example, Internet Explorer 8, which will fully support web standards. But most of the websites were made under the "wrong" standards of Microsoft and it is possible that all of them will start to display incorrectly. Is this a kind of catastrophe for the Internet?
A. I do not think. It would be great if Internet Explorer 8 fully supports open web standards. Currently, web designers are forced to include adjustments in their code specifically for the correct display of websites in Internet Explorer, and they do this in addition to the code written according to generally accepted standards. If Microsoft improves standards support in IE, then web developers will only decrease the work.
Q. If Microsoft doesn’t pay attention to your requirements and is able to maintain the previous state of affairs in the browser market, what are your next steps?
A. Microsoft may ignore our opinion, but cannot ignore the decisions of the European Commission.
In any case, we will continue to do what we have always done: we will continue to pay maximum attention to improving the quality of our software products, speeding up their work, reducing size, increasing security, adding new functions, etc. Naturally, we will promote open standards. And we will continue to work closely with the user community. These are the above tasks that are most important to us. In fact, it is only thanks to these priorities that we have been able to increase the number of users of our browsers by more than 50% over the past year. This proves that we have chosen the right direction and we not only do not intend to change it in the future, but we plan to further focus our attention and resources on these tasks.
Original here
These requirements have caused a storm of emotions in the Internet community, and, the estimates have diverged from vigorous support to the complete rejection of Opera Software initiatives. It was also voiced many questions regarding these actions of the Norwegian company, in connection with which representatives of Opera Software were quick to give some explanations of their position. In particular, the creator of CSS style sheets and part-time technical director of the company Hakon Wai Lie [Håkon Wium Lie] published an open letter to web developers on the web, calling them to support the initiatives of Opera Software. Also, the Opera Community website has published answers to the most frequently asked users questions about the Opera Software complaint to the European Commission. In this regard, it would be interesting to hear the opinion of the head of the company - Jon von Tachner, and today we are publishing an exclusive mini-interview, which was given by the permanent head of Opera Software for our publication.
')
Q. Tell me, Yon, are these company actions the result of lengthy preparation or a kind of impromptu, catalyzed by recent developments in the software market (in particular, the decision of the European Commission to exclude the WMP media player from the Windows operating system)?
A. In fact, the idea of such a complaint has long been discussed by the management of the company, but the final decision was made in connection with the latest rulings of the European Commission concerning the WMP media player. I will say right away - for us it was a difficult decision. We know that such statements carry certain risks, but in fact the problems voiced in our complaint are too important to remain inactive. Open standards and freedom of choice are, in our opinion, the most valuable things today.
Q. Why do you think the developers of other browsers (Mozilla Foundation, Apple, and others) remain silent and are not in a hurry to declare support for your initiatives?
A. It is probably better to ask them themselves. But I believe that they certainly share our view on the importance of open standards.
Q. What results do you predict in connection with your complaint: Microsoft will remove Internet Explorer from the operating system, include alternative browsers in the installation, simply improve support for web standards in its software products, or do nothing?
A. It all depends on what decision the European Commission takes. We offered solutions that, we are sure, could significantly improve the situation on the software market and in the field of web development. They boil down to two simple things: providing a more free choice to users and adhering to web standards.
Q. Are you not afraid that Microsoft will start a “big war” with Opera Software, putting all its forces on your small company, and, in the end, simply destroy an inconvenient competitor?
A. We have been competing successfully with Microsoft for many years and I do not think that our initiatives will have any particular detrimental effect on the work of Opera Software. But we will be grateful for any support of our undertakings, which will come from those who agree with our point of view.
Q. Good. Let's imagine that Microsoft decides to fix and release, for example, Internet Explorer 8, which will fully support web standards. But most of the websites were made under the "wrong" standards of Microsoft and it is possible that all of them will start to display incorrectly. Is this a kind of catastrophe for the Internet?
A. I do not think. It would be great if Internet Explorer 8 fully supports open web standards. Currently, web designers are forced to include adjustments in their code specifically for the correct display of websites in Internet Explorer, and they do this in addition to the code written according to generally accepted standards. If Microsoft improves standards support in IE, then web developers will only decrease the work.
Q. If Microsoft doesn’t pay attention to your requirements and is able to maintain the previous state of affairs in the browser market, what are your next steps?
A. Microsoft may ignore our opinion, but cannot ignore the decisions of the European Commission.
In any case, we will continue to do what we have always done: we will continue to pay maximum attention to improving the quality of our software products, speeding up their work, reducing size, increasing security, adding new functions, etc. Naturally, we will promote open standards. And we will continue to work closely with the user community. These are the above tasks that are most important to us. In fact, it is only thanks to these priorities that we have been able to increase the number of users of our browsers by more than 50% over the past year. This proves that we have chosen the right direction and we not only do not intend to change it in the future, but we plan to further focus our attention and resources on these tasks.
Original here
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/17715/
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