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Microsoft Mozilla The Internet

Microsoft and Mozilla To Collaborate for Vista 169

Posted by Zonk from the two-great-tastes dept.
ukhackster writes "Relations between Microsoft and the open source community may be thawing. The Mozilla Foundation has just welcomed the offer of help to get Firefox working properly in Vista, and Microsoft has also insisted it will help non-IE browsers work with Windows Live. Is this the start of better collaboration, or just a sign the Microsoft has learned its lesson from the antitrust battles?"
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Microsoft and Mozilla To Collaborate for Vista More

Microsoft and Mozilla To Collaborate for Vista

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  • Microsoft needs Firefox, etc. to run on Vista. Why? They don't want to delay Vista adoption the way Windows 2000 and Windows XP adoption was delayed in various companies, schools, etc. One way to do that is to make sure that popular applications run on it. Firefox is just one, and a somewhat minor one. Think about Autocad, SPSS, Photoshop, ArcGIS etc. These are applications that people and organizations really depend on. They want to remove barriers to adoption, make no mistake about it.

  • I bet it's integration and privileges work (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Having a Microsoft Support tech as a flatmate, and being involved in porting Perl to Vista, my bet is that they want to make sure Firefox works properly with all the new permissions and privilege escalation crap that's in Vista.

    I've so far had to disable it, since it's been buggy in the early betas, but with Vista installing things like Perl modules (in my case) or Firefox extensions or any other component-based installation process is going to be fiddly.

    Micrsoft is taking this whole signed releases and sec
  • Just face it, they don't care about your browser.

    As long as you use windows with that browser it does not matter if you use IE or Firefox. Better integration of Firefox into windows just means (in their eyes) that people should stil use windows.

    Besides, it's not like Microsoft makes any money with IE.
  • Why not get Mozilla, Opera and Microsoft together in a giant browser conference? We know that both Microsoft and Mozilla have something to learn about web standards. I mean, opera is the only one to have successfully passed the ACID test. And as for microsofts intentions...who knows what they're up to? And to be honest, if it makes either one of their products better, then it benefits us to some extent.
  • To rehash the old joke about banks and lending [1]:
    If your application is a tiny niche application and the OS mutates, you have a problem.
    If your application is used by many of the OS users and the OS mutates, they (the OS vendor) has a problem.

    M$ have a problem with Firefox and Vista.

    [1] If you owe the bank $10000 and can't pay it back, you have a problem. If you owe the bank $10000000 and can't pay it back, they have a problem.
  • With Microsoft as a friend, what could possibly go wrong?

    IE8 now works better, and can be configured through
    about:

  • Is this the start of better collaboration

    No. Microsoft is running out of compelling reasons for companies to continue upgrading. Their entire existence lies in convincing you and I to upgrade even when we don't need to. A slow uptake will be agravated if big apps don't run nearly flawlessly from the get go. If your favorite applications aren't there, and the OS itself is really only a minor improvement of the last release, (Albeit with new eye candy) then why bother?

  • Xbox Live is going to be a pay service. So why if someone who uses Firefox can't access their system would they give microsoft money.

    Easy answer? get Firefox to work with Xbox Live so everyone can give Microsoft money.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Osty ( 16825 )

      Xbox Live is going to be a pay service. So why if someone who uses Firefox can't access their system would they give microsoft money.

      What? Xbox Live already is a pay service (for the Gold level, anyway). Besides, it has nothing to do with browsers. Windows Live is a conglomeration of services, some for-pay (Windows Live Custom Domains), some ad-supported (Windows Live Messenger), some free that will probably be ad-supported out of beta (Windows Live.com).

      Interestingly enough, I can browse the Window

  • Hmm, why do I get the feeling that I have read this news before [slashdot.org]?

  • Developers taking more control? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by slapout ( 93640 ) on Thursday August 24, 2006 @04:22PM (#15973108)
    I think it's a sign that the developers in Microsoft are being more open. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing they've always wanted to be more open, but were prevented by upper management. But now they have blogs, videos (channel 9) and more (coding4fun). And I'm guessing it was the developers who pushed for the express editions to be free.
  • I would just like to point out that Firefox works _right now_ with the Vista beta... it was one of the first things I installed (as is always the case)....

    As for working with Live... isn't that Microsofts problem? Make them code to the standard like the rest of us are...

    Friedmud
  • Mozilla Foundation has just welcomed the offer of help to get Firefox working properly in Vista

    And just what does this say to you?

    What it says to me is that Vista is very different from 95/98/ME/2K/XP, and a whole lot of other existing applications may not work on it as expected. FF problems should hardly be news, however, given how long Vista betas have been out. There's nothing in the beta tester agreement prohibiting using FF on Vista, is there?

    Now if they want to get Windows Update working throu

    • Now if they want to get Windows Update working through FF, then it might become interesting.

      I'm envisioning some sort of apt-like repositories that Windows Live uses for software updates a la Ubuntu. I imagine that software companies might appreciate Microsoft helping with the distribution load of developer submitted software patches and the like. No idea if it's something Microsoft would do or not. Liability might be an issue if those third party software patches are ill designed.

  • Microsoft, like any OS, needs developers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nigham ( 792777 ) on Thursday August 24, 2006 @04:44PM (#15973313) Homepage
    Microsoft will certainly get money for Vista from new computers; however, those copies of Windows are likely to have lower margins, and whats more, a copy of Vista probably won't cost that much more than a copy of XP today, so they aren't going to make a huge killing out of that. They'd certainly want a lot more people to simply shell out $100 for an OS upgrade to the average (Home-equivalent) Vista version. If they don't have developers on their side who are willing to make use of cool Vista features, those upgrades may not happen. This may also be a nudge from Microsoft to try and ensure that new software is "best" run on Vista (hopefully with OSS it won't REQUIRE Vista to run) so that people with old versions of the OS upgrade. We've seen this a lot with Apple, they make sure they release a lot of new APIs with a new OS so that developers start using those right away. Leopard's preview didn't go down very well with users, but all the developers are gaga over it - because of Core Animation, Time Machine APIs and the like. All that translates to a lot of upgrade money (which is the ONLY way that Apple actually makes direct cash off its OS), because one year down the line a lot of cool apps will require Leopard to run at their best.
  • If Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are the Hiroshi Yamauchi of Microsoft, I'd love to see the Satoru Iwata of Microsoft come forward and start running the company -- someone who's all about innovation, friendliness, working with third-parties of every country, and all about perfection.
  • How about the Mozilla crew show MS how make a standards compliant fucking browser.

    Sorry for the expletive, but shit, man, how hard can it possibly be to not use some fucked up proprietary tags and actually render standards-based code correctly?!?!
  • If Firefox does collaborate, what will they do to avoid setting themselves up for an IP lawsuit?

  • behavior is all there is not corporations (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pyrrho ( 167252 ) on Thursday August 24, 2006 @05:43PM (#15973800) Journal
    "Is this the start of better collaboration, or just a sign the Microsoft has learned its lesson from the antitrust battles?"

    Corporations are not persons.

    That's a metaphor.

    There is no difference between "start of better" behavior and "just a sign that" MS has learned from it's battles.

    It's good to remember that Corporations are really groups of people, they have no moral body or cognitive center which is the "real" way they think as opposed to how they behave. They are their behavior.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cr0sh ( 43134 )
      It's good to remember that Minds are really groups of neurons, they have no moral body or cognitive center which is the "real" way they think as opposed to how they behave. They are their behavior.


      So - are you really certain that all corporations are non-sentient? How would we, the individual acting units which make up a corporation, ever be able to tell? Can a neuron know the mind? If so, what would the mind do if it found out?

  • embrace and extend.
    Mozilla you will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
  • I really don't understand why Microsoft is continuing IE, I just don't see what purpose it holds any more.

    People might cry "it's for lock-in", but that doesn't really make sense...
    1. Other browsers are now just as capable as IE for 99% of sites that Joe Public uses, the other 1% could be fixed, and for the sites that can't be, well there still is IE5 to 6 for those, they're mostly going to be intranet closed systems anyway. If other browsers can do the job, there is no lock-in left anyway.
    2. IE could buy O
  • This is all it is.

    1. MS scopes the part^H^H^H^opposition
    2. sees the best programmers
    3. invites them to Redmond on the interoperability pretext
    4. hires them
    5. they help to hire their buddies from the old days later
    6. part^H^H^Hopposition dies
  • Considering how familiar Microsoft is with Firefox, after ripping it apart to copy it as closely as possible for IE7, I would think they need to justify the techhours somehow.

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