Open Source vs Closed Source
Sunday, 22. April 2007, 18:00:50
Sometimes I hear people saying how Firefox is such a great browser because it is "open source." Really, all this means is that the code written for the browser is visible to the public, so that the public may create spinoffs and compile their own browser using the Firefox core. This is a great idea, and encourages expanding the web with many alternatives.
But when using "open source" as a feature, it's a little difficult to see how the browser is made any better or any different if someone doesn't use a spinoff, or make their own spinoff. Without personally making a spinoff, Firefox would be no different if it were closed source.
So why do Mozilla users continue to emphasize Open Sourceness as a feature? Because really... the browser doesn't have a ton to offer. It's built upon the idea of extensions. I got to thinking lately how many feature requests there are over in the MyOpera Wishlist forum, and wondered if the Opera devs feel like they are bloating their code, writing hundreds of lines to implement all the new features being requested. And it makes you wonder when only a fraction of Opera's users are using some of those features.
It really is a great idea to build upon extensibility, but making a browser that is useless when you download it doesn't make sense. Nor does it make sense to have to restart your browser to install updates, or to constantly check the web for newer versions of the extensions.
Also, extensions break, because they are made by people who don't fully understand the interworkings of the browser, or test their extension with every other extension that exists. This creates a problem, as it moves the incompatibility issue from the trained developers to the untrained users. This problem is worsened by the thousands of extensions available, which makes testing any extension nearly possible.
So Opera's got the right idea. Make a few Dev-made, very powerful tools that add functionality to the browser that would be bloat for most users, but essential to a few. I'm talking about Opera Developer Tools.
Opera keeps the extra features hidden away, not using too much system resources, unless you need the features. I don't know how they do that, but it really is a great solution, one that I find superior to a browser based on the extensibility model.
Overall, the browsers are built for different people. I just want people to stop using "Open Source" as a reason to use Firefox, unless they actually edit the code themselves. And I think that far more people would use Opera if everyone was better informed about what Opera has to offer, and how it keeps its footprint lower than Firefox while matching every one of Firefox's built-in features and extensions.
But when using "open source" as a feature, it's a little difficult to see how the browser is made any better or any different if someone doesn't use a spinoff, or make their own spinoff. Without personally making a spinoff, Firefox would be no different if it were closed source.
So why do Mozilla users continue to emphasize Open Sourceness as a feature? Because really... the browser doesn't have a ton to offer. It's built upon the idea of extensions. I got to thinking lately how many feature requests there are over in the MyOpera Wishlist forum, and wondered if the Opera devs feel like they are bloating their code, writing hundreds of lines to implement all the new features being requested. And it makes you wonder when only a fraction of Opera's users are using some of those features.
It really is a great idea to build upon extensibility, but making a browser that is useless when you download it doesn't make sense. Nor does it make sense to have to restart your browser to install updates, or to constantly check the web for newer versions of the extensions.
Also, extensions break, because they are made by people who don't fully understand the interworkings of the browser, or test their extension with every other extension that exists. This creates a problem, as it moves the incompatibility issue from the trained developers to the untrained users. This problem is worsened by the thousands of extensions available, which makes testing any extension nearly possible.
So Opera's got the right idea. Make a few Dev-made, very powerful tools that add functionality to the browser that would be bloat for most users, but essential to a few. I'm talking about Opera Developer Tools.
Opera keeps the extra features hidden away, not using too much system resources, unless you need the features. I don't know how they do that, but it really is a great solution, one that I find superior to a browser based on the extensibility model.
Overall, the browsers are built for different people. I just want people to stop using "Open Source" as a reason to use Firefox, unless they actually edit the code themselves. And I think that far more people would use Opera if everyone was better informed about what Opera has to offer, and how it keeps its footprint lower than Firefox while matching every one of Firefox's built-in features and extensions.
WIDGETIZE
zoligrg89 # 10. June 2007, 08:55