Nokia uses open-source browser for Series 60 platform [LWN.net]

Nokia has announced that it will use open-source web browser code in its Series 60 smartphone platform. "A key component of this development has been Nokia's cooperation with Apple, as the Series 60 browser will use the same open source components, WebCore and JavaScriptCore, that Apple uses in its popular Safari Internet browser. Based on KHTML and KJS from KDE's "Konqueror" open source project, this software has enabled Safari to achieve industry-leading features and performance. Nokia intends to continue its collaboration with Apple and actively participate in the open source community to further develop and enhance these components, contributing Nokia's expertise in mobility."

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Nokia uses open-source browser for Series 60 platform

Posted Jun 13, 2005 22:55 UTC (Mon) by Zenith (subscriber, #24899) [Link]

This will most likely be a blow for Opera, having been a supplier of a very capable browser to Nokia's phones previously. I'm sure this is a step away from their dependency on Opera (and having to pay them) and instead going for something open, using it as a testbed until they are sure enough of it to use it on all their phones.

Good for KHTML and OSS, but bad for an otherwise innovative, friendly and open company. I'm torn in this issue as I use Opera myself :-)

Open companies and free software

Posted Jun 14, 2005 0:09 UTC (Tue) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link]

> This will most likely be a blow for Opera, having been a supplier of a very
> capable browser to Nokia's phones previously. [...]
> Good for KHTML and OSS, but bad for an otherwise innovative, friendly and
> open company. I'm torn in this issue as I use Opera myself :-)

The friendliness of the company doesn't alter the unfriendliness of their software license. The company is distributing software under non-free licenses; regardless how friendly they might be, I'm perfectly happy to see free software win their customers.

Open companies and free software

Posted Jun 14, 2005 13:56 UTC (Tue) by Zenith (subscriber, #24899) [Link]

Having closed software under a proprietary license does not make for an evil company. They are very open to their users, have great feedback on their forums and reply to whatever the users ask. They often implement features that are wanted (of course, they want us to buy their software, yes? ;-P) and have made it easy to modify the browser to your liking.

It's not fair to have them look like another evil-empire company, especially not with their miniscule user base. So excuse me, if I don't cheer if things go down hill for them. They've done a great deal of innovation with regards to browser, and I hope they stick around for a long time to come.

Open companies and free software

Posted Jun 16, 2005 7:41 UTC (Thu) by tao (guest, #17563) [Link]

No, but having closed source makes it a lot more complicated for us to
fix the browser performance, since the only thing we can do is profile
it, point Opera at the bottlenecks, and fork up a load of money to have
them (perhaps) fix it.

It's not really a matter of good vs evil in the case of Opera, but a matter
of source vs no source. And what'd happen if Opera went out of business/
was bought by some direct competitor of Nokia? Yes, it's a bit far-fetched,
but from a business point of view it makes sense to keep as much control
of the platform as possible. Hence using free software makes sense,
using own proprietary software makes sense (well, personally I don't think
so, but I can understand how Nokia as a company sees that it makes sense),
but using externally developed software makes less and less sense as
the complexity of the software grows.

Open companies and free software

Posted Jun 17, 2005 0:12 UTC (Fri) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link]

> Having closed software under a proprietary license does not make for an
> evil company.

That's what I said. The company may be evil, the company may be friendly. None of that affects the fact they're offering software on unfriendly terms; and it is those terms, *not* the present-day friendliness or evilness of the company, that define what the user may or may not do with the software.