[sudhirj]

Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this.

Either way, an idea for a browser feature is hardly a huge industrial secret - Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed. How would this stand up in court?

Neither Google nor Opera have anything to gain from this - what could be the economic rationale?

[pornel]

I don't think switch to Google's engine is the cause, it's rather another symptom of the same thing — after Jon von Tetzchner has left Opera Software has changed their priorities.

Change of engine, downsizing (and old-time developers fleeing the company), and now the lawsuit to me indicate that Opera Software now favors profits over preserving company's culture, image and web standards influence.

Hippies have left, suits have taken over.

[toyg]

This. Opera is another SCO: failing in the marketplace, it will try to stay afloat with lawsuits.

[neonlights]

Financially, at least, they're doing fine; record revenue almost every quarter.

[rurounijones]

"Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this."

These two things are not linked, stop trying to make it so.

[mtrimpe]

They seem linked to me. Since cases like this are much harder to pull off under European law unless you can show actual copy-pasted code, this (like the WebKit move) looks like the symptoms of clueless non-technical management taking over and destroying the company by desperately trying to 'save it.'

[DannyBee]

There is nothing in the article that says anything about anything related to Google Chrome.

[mtrimpe]

I'm trying to say that they are linked through an underlying cause. Pornel says it much better than me in his comment though.

Jon's closing email is also quite telling:

    Dear All,

    It is with a heavy heart that I send this message. Next week will be my last 
    at Opera. It has become clear that The Board, Management and I do not share 
    the same values and we do not have the same opinions on how to keep evolving 
    Opera. As a result I have come to an agreement with the Board to end my time 
    at Opera. I feel the Board and Management is more quarterly focused than me. 
    I have always worked to build the company for the future. I believe the 
    foundation we have is very solid to build further upon.
    
    I do believe strongly in Opera as a company, and in all of you working here. 
    Our products actually make a difference for a lot of people in the world, and 
    I wish you all the best of luck moving forward. I will be following the 
    company closely and rooting for you all.

    Yours truly, Jon.

[Indyan]

In that email he was probably referring to the direction the board wanted to take Opera in. There has been consistent speculation that Opera's board wanted to make Opera better suited for sale, and was looking forward to getting acquired by someone with deeper pockets. JvT of course, wanted to stay independent and continue to innovate.

Related: http://techie-buzz.com/opera/opera-tetzchner-reacts.html

[pyre]

They don't have to. The parent postulated that they are linked because they are both the result of non-technical management. Stating that this is not mentioned in the article is meaningless as a rebuttal.

[sageikosa]

Would be nice to have the postulate backed by something other than proximity in the poster's posting, and the poster's speculation, however.

While such wild speculation probably can't get you in trouble in the US of A, some European libel laws probably would require a little more than "seemed like it to me" as a reason to publish an assertion of an association.

[pyre]

This is an issue that I have with European libel laws. It's almost like they don't want you to be able to have an opinion and share it with people unless you feel you can back that assertion in court.

[gcp]

What does that have to do with anything? They already admitted the switch to Chrome in past announcements.

[sltkr]

It seems at least tangentially related considering in that they probably wouldn't have sued Firefox if they had just decided to switch to the Gecko browser engine. (Or if Hansen had supposedly divulged trade secrets to the Chrome team).

[OGinparadise]

These two things are not linked, stop trying to make it so.

How do you know it? Please tell us or stop making such blanket but unsupported statements

[pavanky]

> Opera gets in bed with Google Chrome and then sues the other camp? I thought they were above all this.

They are suing their former employee, not Mozilla.

> Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed

The former employee is an artist and a musician. The article says he worked on UI related stuff. None of this has anything to do with the web engine the browsers run.

You are taking the simple fact of Opera suing it's former employee and trying to make it look like there is much more to it than there really is.

I wonder what other conspiracy theories you love.

[mistercow]

>I wonder what other conspiracy theories you love.

Is this really the tone of discourse we want here?

[papsosouid]

I'm amazed at how bad the comments are here. Pretty sad seeing only one sane, reasonable post in a sea of conspiracy theory bullshit and bitter resentment.

[fakeer]

Really? How do you know it's not a conspiracy theory? You don't know that and so does OP.

Hell, it's not even a conspiracy theory. OP just shared his point of view, you don't agree to it, it's fine. But please don't pick bs from a comment where there's no bs. It's almost as pathetic as name calling.

You are looking for a conspiracy theory? Here's one: Do you for sure know that Eric Schmidt didn't invite Opera board to a dark abandoned bungalow for a meeting and convinced them to pinch in Mozilla's hind in a proxy manner, promising to acquire(for a BIG sum) and kill Opera in return?

[pavanky]

I admit calling out OP for creating a conspiracy theory was a little bit too harsh.

That said, I did not understand a better way to put my point across. The article barely mentions Mozilla, doesn't mention Google at all. They talk about why a guy (a mozilla employee, a former Opera employee) was getting sued.

It does not talk about Opera suing Mozilla. Period. OP took that information and extrapolated it to Opera suing Mozilla because they are chums with Google now.

This is a huge jump in reasoning without any substantial evidence to point at. I am sure there is a Latin phrase for what kind of fallacy it is. I am unaware of it. But I have seen this happen in conspiracy theories, so I put it in the mildest way I could think of. If that offended anyone, I apologize.

[tripzilch]

I'm not sure, but the phrase "early browser innovations that first saw the light of day over at Opera Software, including tabbed browsing, speed dial, mouse gestures and integrated search" might be a hint. It's hard to imagine now, but Opera had tabs years before any other browser did (maybe even from the start? I started using Opera with version 5 or 6). Opera was also first with those other features, although (iirc) not by as large of a margin as with tabs.

[steven2012]

Google funds basically all of Mozilla's budget, something like $300M/yr. Google does not consider Mozilla a rival. If they wanted to destroy Mozilla, they would just need to not renew their funding agreement.

[ww520]

Google got the benefit of the search engine placement in Mozilla for the money. Bing would love to be in Google's place in relationship to Mozilla.

[marshray]

Do you have any idea how much money Mozilla has in the bank?

It's very hard to "destroy" a not-for-profit that has a substantial endowment.

[steven2012]

One of my close friends works for Mozilla. I was told by him that they need to spend most, if not all of their money every year. So I don't think they have a substantial amount of money in the bank.

[fakeer]

Google hugely benefits from Mozilla search deal. I am sure companies like Amazon, Yahoo and Bing shall jump to the opportunity.

Firefox, IMHO, is one real challenge to Chrome with IE to be outed the day most of the Internet is educated to better software and starts to learn making choices in a broad manner. Safari not counted of course. So, as I said that leaves Firefox and Chrome in the arena. And a Firefox wounded with a financial blow shall be meat for Chrome. Things that's keeping Firefox in race and that is innovation, freedom, privacy advocacy. Without much money in the bank or boggled with court cases it's going to be real hard.

[fakeer]

FastMail users might find this Opera a little less pleasant to the ears. Just an observation not related to the browser.

[hga]

Good point; from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5629255, if the sued employee is even vaguely telling the truth, unless Norwegian trade secret law is vastly different from US they don't vaguely have a case.

Then again, the cheapest way for him to win this battle is in the public arena; without the particulars of their complaint, which we'll hopefully soon learn about, it's hard to say.

But I can say it's never a good sign when a company starts to compete in the courtrooms.