Mozilla doesn't need an EU bailout
As reported by CNET, Mozilla has been granted "third-party status" in the European Commission's antitrust case against Microsoft. This gives Mozilla a bird's-eye view of the proceedings, with the ability to raise objections.
Mozilla, however, will be unlikely to raise its objections any louder than Mozilla chair Mitchell Baker already did on her blog:
I've been involved in building and shipping Web browsers continuously since before Microsoft started developing (Internet Explorer), and the damage Microsoft has done to competition, innovation, and the pace of the Web development itself is both glaring and ongoing.
There are separate questions of whether there is a good remedy, and what that remedy might be. But questions regarding an appropriate remedy do not change the essential fact. Microsoft's business practices have fundamentally diminished (in fact, came very close to eliminating) competition, choice, and innovation in how people access the Internet.
So what to do about the problem? Baker is careful to avoid putting forward a suitable remedy, but Firefox architect Mike Connor doubts that forcing Microsoft to bundle rival browsers like Firefox and Opera would be the right outcome. For a lot of reasons, I agree.
As Connor points out, Firefox has managed to achieve 20 percent market share against Microsoft, as measured by Net Applications, despite Microsoft stacking the deck against competition by bundling its own Internet Explorer (IE) browser with Windows.
It has achieved this in part by partnering with Google, and in part by creating a browser that is significantly better than IE in terms of performance, security, extensibility, and just about any other metric, including price (IE is not free--it requires the purchase of Windows to use it or an emulation technology like WINE).
Yes, Baker correctly points out on her blog that Firefox may well be the only example of forcing Microsoft to retrench after it has staked its claim to monopoly market share, but this doesn't obviate the fact that Firefox has, in fact, taken 20 percentage points from Microsoft's share.
Firefox doesn't need an EU handout. It has the market share to prove it. What it does need is expanded partnerships with other consumer technology companies that can introduce it to consumers. Google was perhaps the first, but why not Apple (assuming someone can convince Apple to stop wasting development cycles on Safari)? Or Amazon/eBay/Craigslist (perhaps an optimized shopping experience with Firefox)?
Government is not the answer, as Ars Technica's Ryan Paul opines:
The popularization of the open source development model arguably emerged as a response to Microsoft's monopoly. Developers had to find innovative ways to compete with an entrenched product. If the government had intervened in the software industry at an early stage and those conditions hadn't existed, the browser market could arguably be a lot less rich and competitive than it is today.
It's risky to let the government perpetually equalize the market, because sometimes the greatest innovations appear when inventors have to face tougher odds.
Firefox is disruptive. Force-feeding customers to use it through government fiat is Microsoft-esque, and will be the wrong path for Firefox. Firefox doesn't need favors. It just needs disruptive new routes to market, similar to what it has done with Google and its Get Firefox campaign.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
What about Chrome which is based on the same engine?
And while I use SeaMonky and Firefox all the time I can't imagine Apple becoming dependent on the Mozilla foundation for browser support. Especially on the iTouch/iPhone setups. For example to date there isn't a working PDF plug-in from Adobe for Reader on FF on a Mac.
Apple would be hurting themselves a lot if they stopped Safari.
Yikes! folks, grammar please. "Mozilla has proven . . ." or "Mozilla proved . . .", please. Not this ugly hybrid!
- by forever4now February 11, 2009 4:29 PM PST
- There are a couple of easy steps that could be taken, to make the browser market more "fair":
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by tm_anon February 11, 2009 5:53 PM PST
- Why not take it a bit farther? No software may be installed on more than 50% of machines manufactured and distributed. Even if the number was limited to 75% of machines this would allow a more fair and balanced software world.
- Like this
-
- by forever4now February 12, 2009 4:16 AM PST
- @tm_anon
- Like this
-
(6 Comments)1. Require that IE be uninstallable (or at least the UI made inaccessible) using Add/Remove Programs.
2. Have PC vendors limit ANY installed browser to say 25% of all new machines. That way, no company with deep pockets (Microsoft, Google, etc.) can "buy" 100% of the machines.
This solution would also promote open web standards, since websites could no longer assume that IE is installed on 90% of PCs.
I've read where many Linux users have ordered a machine and have to jump through hoops just to be able to purchase it with no OS installed. Most give up and just buy it with Windows and then put their favorite Linux distro in place.
If 25% of machines were shipped and sold without Windows at a lower cost (due to lack of licensing fees) I'm willing to bet we'd see a much higher number of people running Linux (at least, a higher number reported as Linux only machines).
Without Windows, IE would not be installed for the majority of people buying those machines and since Firefox is already installed on so many Windows machines, coders might actually pay more attention to following web standards.
As for me, I plan on building my next PC and installing Ubuntu. At least I can still buy an empty hard drive.
Perhaps smartphones are leading the computer industry into the future, where you essentially get a "thin" OS (Android, OS X, Symbian, Blackberry, WinMo, Ubuntu Mobile, etc.) and you "build" the functionality you want on the device from an app store and/or cloud services.
This would certainly make for a VERY competitive market for devices, OSs, applications & web services and move most/all of Microsoft's monopolistic practices into the past.