Firefox Lead Now Working For Google 457
zmarties writes "In a very
low key announcement on his blog, Ben Goodger, lead developer for
Firefox, has announce that effective from a couple of weeks ago, he has become a Google employee. In practice his day to day job won't change that much, in that he will still lead Firefox through its forthcoming releases, but with Google paying his wages, we can be sure that new and interesting overlap between the Mozilla Foundation's browsers and Google's services are sure to develop."
This is bad (Score:1, Interesting)
Trust me Google are the new evil.
so open source programming (Score:3, Interesting)
Infiltration (Score:2, Interesting)
All this google good news (Score:5, Interesting)
How can Google get more integrated? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well congrats to Ben. All the best at Google. But I do wonder how Firefox could be MORE integrated with Goggle?
I mean.. you start it up.. you have google at the top right, and if you use the default home page, you will link to the google search engine. There are google toolbar plugins available. What else can there be?
Should be interesting to see what they come up with...
What if it were Microsoft? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I'm wondering, is how would the Slashdot community respond if it were Microsoft doing the hiring, and THEY were promising Ben's day to day tasks wouldn't change much.
How would people react?
What would be the theories of WHY Microsoft would be supporting a Firefox developer?
Let's set aside the arguments about why this is an implausible scenario and the obvious Microsoft bashing and ask, aside from the exceptions above, what would be the reaction to such an announcement?
Re:Free Time (Score:3, Interesting)
Orkut was born this way, as well as Google Sets and likely numerous other projects.
Google: The info warehouse (Score:2, Interesting)
When google takes over our web browsers, they will also be able to collect info on more than just what we are searching for -- they will know how we are finding desired content.
Pretty soon google will know everything about everyone. People won't have to bother with the trouble of defining ourselves in the real world anymore -- inspection and introspection of humans can be done through tomorrow's google. I presume it will be utopia.
I am wearing a tinfoil hat right now. What they are doing is perfectly legal. But I still think it is a bit scary.
Re:All this google good news (Score:3, Interesting)
However, with all the hype piled up on Google, and when it's trading at a P/E larger than 100, institutional investors will have a LOT of explaining to do on their proforma on why they invested in GOOG in the first place.
eBay already tanked 18% upon a single quarterly earnings report, and eBay was only trading at maybe P/E of 110.
Re:How can Google get more integrated? (Score:4, Interesting)
Entirely possible, and could be very cool if done well, but to be honest I see it as unlikely.
Jedidiah.
Re:Hummm... (Score:5, Interesting)
So this means the Google will get the features it wants and to hell with everyone else, including standards compliance which seems to be taken a back seat these days.
I've never done so before, but this comment prompted me to run the basic main Google page through the w3c validator; the results [w3.org] were suprising. It's such a simple page; why not take the (minimal!) time necessary to code proper HTML?! Yikes. I didn't expect that level of sloppiness.
(Yes, my personal page validates [w3.org] just fine, thanks (though some subpages may not, given the age of a lot of the code, and the multiple generations of sites the content pages have churned through... After I graduate and pass the Bar, maybe I'll have time to go back and fix them...)
Oh please do no evil... (Score:4, Interesting)
I REALLY hope they stick to the "Do no Evil", because with this sort of move, they have the oppertunity to be either very very _good_ or just as easily be very very _evil_.
Then again.. its Open Sourced... so if google try anything even slightly askew, the code will be forked or better yet just plain rejected.
Re:I'm... (Score:1, Interesting)
If they encounter opposition in the Mozilla framework, they'll fork, and the GoogleBrowser will be born (and Mozilla will die, at least as far as market share goes).
Re:Corruption of FireFox Development? (Score:3, Interesting)
Good for some, not for others (Score:2, Interesting)
proof in the pudding (Score:5, Interesting)
Companies are starting to hire people who make a name for themselves while working on open source projects. This makes sense on several levels.
The developer has proven themselves in an environment where capability is obvious, transparent, and peer reviewed. Try getting that out of a resume. They are hiring a known.
The company gets to use that person's *fame*/name as a marketing tool.
The developer is probably more willing to put in the extra hours because they must enjoy coding to spend so much spare time doing it.
This helps the open source movement a well. If new developers get out and try to earn a name, they'll probably start putting more effort if they think their code might get them a good job. They might take the peer review more seriously.
as well, I'll keep dreaming...
Re:Maybe he was just bitter (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is bad (Score:2, Interesting)
People LIKE them. They associate google with good thoughts because it's they provide a service that works well, and doesn't force them to use it. Google, amazon, and ebay may some day have most of the control over the internet, but it's a hell of a lot better than MSN or Yahoo being the ones setting the standards. If they ever turn into a crappy company which fails to offer anything unique, somebody else will hopefully step up to challenge them and start stealing their market share. Personally, I don't give a damn as long as I'm getting the services I need at no price to me. (Though I'd be willing to pay $1/month to turn off advertising on searches)
Re:How can Google get more integrated? (Score:2, Interesting)
I really think it's in both interests to be in a position to work together like that. Gmail is highly interactive html, and XUL is way cool, but is limited to the moz platform.
But gmail's work with dynamic html coupled with working on the browser, they get both perspectives, the server-side of the application provider, and the client-side browser, and with both views, they can lay out the right way to break up the work.
Developing both interfaces at the same time is much better than guessing what the other will need in the future.
Re:This is bad (Score:5, Interesting)
To remove Google as the default search engine in the search bar you have to manually delete the files, whereas adding engines is integrated.
And to remove Google as the engine that is used when you use the "Search Web for" context menu option you have change some config file that is not easy to find. I've searched through the Firefox directories(install and profiles) for occurences of "google," and there are many occurences, but I could not find something that looked like it would be it. I can not find information on how to do this from the "Mozilla KnowledgeBase," although I don't deny that it may exist. The help files are of course totally useless.
Why this assumption that no one would use anything but Google for searching? I my opinion Alltheweb [alltheweb.com] is a far superior search engine.
I'm not suggesting this has anything to do with Google pushing for these features. Saying merely what I said.
Re:This is bad (Score:1, Interesting)
As for the rest, Linux has good programs already that handle those.
Re:I'm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Your evidence for this remarkable claim?
Seriously, I don't think Google have ever asked me for any marketable information. Not even when I signed up for GMail. If that's really what they're "all about", they're doing a pretty dire job of it.
You mean..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hummm... (Score:3, Interesting)
also it always looks right no matter what your useing so its all good.
Re:A new job (Score:2, Interesting)
Because there is more to it than the naked eye can see, you would be naive if you see this move from Google as just another hire. Think.
Re:This is bad (Score:3, Interesting)
IBM, anyone? There is a good way and a bad way to mix open source and a big corporation. IBM does it right, Apple does it right. I don't know what you're so worried about.
Err... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How can Google get more integrated? (Score:2, Interesting)
(or for the lazy people: something like this [google.com] maybe?
This changes nothing. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:So.. (Score:3, Interesting)
google may want to establish browser based applications eventually. The gmail, google suggest [google.com] and blogspot [blogspot.com] are examples of browser based applications.
Some people may want to say, "Ah... the javascript is so slow!" But if we can run perl on a headless server and handle thousands or even millions of request per day, why can't we run javascript applications on client side efficiently?
But what the advantage? The advantage is easy management and share of data. Instead of store files on different computers, data could be stored on several servers, protected and backuped by professional operators. Users use the data tranparently via the Internet.
Google will run thousands of servers, and sell the computing and storage power on the server side. Also, google will use their search engine to search different "functions" provided by different "application providers", just as they are search "information" provided by different "content providers" now.
As format of document files and vector graphs, xml with the help of CSS and javascript of course.
But there is a problem here. The support of this sort of "high technology" on the browser used by most people is lamed. So to facilitate the adoption of high level technology, google will bring the browser war on again.
After this war, the rich function web application may become easier for web developers, but learning curves will become harder.
If the days of browser based computing come eventually, desktop is not big business anymore, server will become the center again.
Re:This is bad (Score:2, Interesting)
While I don't fully agree with this A.C. poster, I do concur that this isn't really good news. I mean, I love Google and all that -- it's just that I have been counting on the Mozilla/Firefox "brands" to stay above being tied to one specific technology company.
Is this going to mean that Firefox becomes even more Googlefied? Who knows. Personally, even though Firefox comes with Google configured as its default search engine, I like the fact that the choice isn't being crammed down my throat.
Mozilla Googlebar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone else also mentioned Google Desktop Search, which will search through your IE cache in its scan of your hard drive but ignores Firefox's. Google has a bit of catching up to do to support Firefox as well as it does IE with extra features....
Re:All this google good news (Score:3, Interesting)
Your not seeing the big picture.
This is news that potentially could make the Google search engine more attractive, both to geeks and others.
This would lead to more usage and eventually more advertisments. If the financial market would grasp this the stock price would rise, but it doesn't.