Why Opera isn’t planning to go open source
Suppose there was a software category so ubiquitous that virtually everyone used it and anyone could get the software for free. Suppose, also, that the software was highly standards-based, so much so that it did not require any patented or proprietary technologies to work. That software would be a perfect candidate for open source, right?
That description fits web browsers perfectly. And yet, despite seemingly having everything in its favour, Opera Software isn’t planning to open source its browser code.
“We support open source in that we offer a better browser for Linux,” Opera CTO Hakon Wium Lie told me in a recent meeting at the InfoWorld offices. “But we haven’t found a business model that allows us to go fully open source.”
On first take, that might seem surprising. Browser circles are abuzz with news of Firefox, which is, of course, open source. To compete with Firefox’s momentum you’d think that any other contenders would also have to be open source.
If you look at the market, however, it turns out that the majority of web surfers still use closed source browsers. Internet Explorer is of course the leader, but even Apple’s Safari, which is built around an open source core, contains proprietary components.
Opera competes in this market.
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