8 ms·

Opera claims ex-employee took trade secrets to Mozilla, sues him for $3.4M

104 points by sverrejoh 13y ago

sudhirj 13y ago
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?
- rurounijones 13y ago
  "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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      There is nothing in the article that says anything about anything related to Google Chrome.
      - gcp 13y ago
        What does that have to do with anything? They already admitted the switch to Chrome in past announcements.
      - mtrimpe 13y ago
        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 13y ago
        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 http://techie-buzz.com/opera/opera-tetzchner-reacts.html
      - pyre 13y ago
        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 13y ago
        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 13y ago
        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.
        mtrimpe 13y ago
        Don't worry. I'm European and I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that this won't get me anywhere near trouble under European libel laws. (Apart from the fact that there is no such thing as a 'European law') First of all, European libel law requires a demonstrably false statement which 'seems to' by definition isn't. Secondly, libel would be a civil offense so even if I were to be charged it would be the damage I caused to Opera at minimum (lowest value the judge deems to certain to have occurred.) So basically only if I made a categorically false claim and it caused a demonstrable amount of loss (e.g. a contract with defined monetary value falling apart) would I be seriously affected by European libel law.
        sageikosa 13y ago
        0) I didn't mean European as a sovereign legal title, more of a categorical concept in jurisprudence; especially in those who have less of a lengthy run-rate with civil liberties (mileage or kilometerage may vary). 1) While the qualifying comment used "seemed linked to me", the original post had no such qualifiers and asserted its points without anything backing it. I admit its a bit pendantic, and in American usage easier to "get away with" on a comment board. If you were a US TV news or print outlet, you'd have to pre-frame the comments with "editorial" or "opinion", to cover your legal bases. 2) Yes. 3) Probably :-)
  - OGinparadise 13y ago
    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
  - sltkr 13y ago
    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).
- pornel 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    This. Opera is another SCO: failing in the marketplace, it will try to stay afloat with lawsuits.
    - neonlights 13y ago
      Financially, at least, they're doing fine; record revenue almost every quarter.
    - Joe_Knapp 13y ago
      They have 300 million users. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/13/opera-300-million-users-webkit/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/13/opera-300-million-u... Not exactly SCO.
- pavanky 13y ago
  > 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.
  - papsosouid 13y ago
    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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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.
- steven2012 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
  FastMail users might find this Opera a little less pleasant to the ears. Just an observation not related to the browser.
  - hga 13y ago
    Good point; from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5629255 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.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  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.
eliasmacpherson 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire Surely work for hire applies?
- claudius 13y ago
  Last time I checked, Norway was not really part of the US, so the law might actually be different…
  - eliasmacpherson 13y ago
    It's not just a US concept. Norway seems to have fairly strong protections on the expression of ideas - i.e. you can't copyright ideas in many cases. I wonder do they have special laws for trade secrets. Opera are going to have difficulty hiring people if they are suing former employees.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      Pretty sure you can't copyright ideas anywhere.
      - homosaur 13y ago
        Be sure to let the US Patent Office know about that.
        whafro 13y ago
        The USPTO is likely well aware that they have nothing to do with copyright, just the Patents and Trademarks mentioned in their name.
- hga 13y ago
  This is a trade secret case. If he genuinely had trade secrets (the bar for that is pretty high in the US), things like work for hire, non-competes (which are officially allowed in the US outside of California to prevent the "first bite of the apple" of trade secret disclosure), etc. are irrelevant.
easytiger 13y ago
Hard to say anything without hard details, but in Europe this stuff can be hard to make stick. Also this kind of actioning is distrubing from a company like opera. Death throes?
- Osmium 13y ago
  There's nothing disturbing about protecting trade secrets, if this is what it is. Now if this was about a non-compete clause, I might agree with you...
- Indyan 13y ago
  He has denied the allegations (as expected). But, at the same time, he also told this to Digi.No. "When I left the Opera, I did not feel my ideas bore fruit, and I also notified management about. I am a very creative person and I feel that my ideas had value. I would like that my ideas were to reach users". Source: http://www.digi.no/915782/opera-saksoker-eks-ansatt http://www.digi.no/915782/opera-saksoker-eks-ansatt
  - at-fates-hands 13y ago
    This is probably closer to the truth. Seems like Opera is acting more like a jilted lover than anything else. Guy has some good ideas and in the interest of profit, they get buried. He goes across the street where Mozilla sees the potential and implements them and now Opera wants he to pay up for them? I'm all for keeping trade secrets, but this more along the lines of abstract ideas, not the sort of thing you'll have an easy time in a court of law proving.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  > Also this kind of actioning is distrubing from a company like opera. > Death throes? Yeah .. I've been an avid Opera fan for many years (since version 5 or 6), but recently a lot of things they do are turning a bit smelly ... Sad to see this happening, they're the only European (or non-US) browser. Not that I'm particularly "(euro-)nationalistic" about that, but I think diversity is a good thing.
smoyer 13y ago
Their lawsuit claims that "Opera Software ASA is an innovative company which has developed software and technology which have proved to be successful internationally". The article talks about features which aren't really IP. Perhaps their trade-secrets relate to coding and construction methods that make their product superior, but these really can't be protected unless they're so esoteric that no one would logically come up with them independently. So they sue a non-profit to stifle competition in their industry ... show me more innovation (and market-share) than Mozilla and then maybe I'll believe you're the innovator.
- magclock 13y ago
  They did not sue a non-profit. RTFA.
  - DannyBee 13y ago
    Not to mention, Mozilla corporation is not a non-profit :)
    - jfoster 13y ago
      Technically true, but they are 100% owned by a non-profit. (Mozilla Foundation owns Mozilla Corporation)
      - fosap 13y ago
        Consider even the NFL is non profit, non profit hardly means anything.
        mpyne 13y ago
        The NFL leaque headquarters organization is a non-profit. The actual teams, on the other hand, are all profit-seeking entities and pay taxes accordingly.
        13y ago
stefantalpalaru 13y ago
Was the trade secret "switch to webkit"?
- pavanky 13y ago
  Did you even read the article ?
  - stefantalpalaru 13y ago
    I did. Here's the relevant section: "For the record: we have not yet had the chance to look at the lawsuit documents or discuss the specifics of the allegations and size of the claimed damages with Opera management or its lawyers, but we’ll update this post as soon as we have."
gcp 13y ago
Interesting that the claim is "took trade secrets to Mozilla" when apparently Mozilla wants to have nothing to do with that Junior prototype.
revx 13y ago
Definitely read that as "Oprah" and was very confused.
- Shorel 13y ago
  Definitely beating a dead horse.
iTrollFreely 13y ago
kind of sad they think their trade secrets are worth only 3.4m
ttrreeww 13y ago
Guess it's time to stop using Opera

104 points by sverrejoh 13y ago

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?

rurounijones 13y ago
"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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    There is nothing in the article that says anything about anything related to Google Chrome.
    - gcp 13y ago
      What does that have to do with anything? They already admitted the switch to Chrome in past announcements.
    - mtrimpe 13y ago
      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 13y ago
        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 http://techie-buzz.com/opera/opera-tetzchner-reacts.html
    - pyre 13y ago
      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 13y ago
        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 13y ago
        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.
        mtrimpe 13y ago
        Don't worry. I'm European and I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that this won't get me anywhere near trouble under European libel laws. (Apart from the fact that there is no such thing as a 'European law') First of all, European libel law requires a demonstrably false statement which 'seems to' by definition isn't. Secondly, libel would be a civil offense so even if I were to be charged it would be the damage I caused to Opera at minimum (lowest value the judge deems to certain to have occurred.) So basically only if I made a categorically false claim and it caused a demonstrable amount of loss (e.g. a contract with defined monetary value falling apart) would I be seriously affected by European libel law.
        sageikosa 13y ago
        0) I didn't mean European as a sovereign legal title, more of a categorical concept in jurisprudence; especially in those who have less of a lengthy run-rate with civil liberties (mileage or kilometerage may vary). 1) While the qualifying comment used "seemed linked to me", the original post had no such qualifiers and asserted its points without anything backing it. I admit its a bit pendantic, and in American usage easier to "get away with" on a comment board. If you were a US TV news or print outlet, you'd have to pre-frame the comments with "editorial" or "opinion", to cover your legal bases. 2) Yes. 3) Probably :-)
- OGinparadise 13y ago
  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
- sltkr 13y ago
  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).
pornel 13y ago
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 13y ago
  This. Opera is another SCO: failing in the marketplace, it will try to stay afloat with lawsuits.
  - neonlights 13y ago
    Financially, at least, they're doing fine; record revenue almost every quarter.
  - Joe_Knapp 13y ago
    They have 300 million users. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/13/opera-300-million-users-webkit/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/13/opera-300-million-u... Not exactly SCO.
pavanky 13y ago
> 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.
- papsosouid 13y ago
  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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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.
steven2012 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
FastMail users might find this Opera a little less pleasant to the ears. Just an observation not related to the browser.
- hga 13y ago
  Good point; from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5629255 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.
tripzilch 13y ago
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.

eliasmacpherson 13y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire Surely work for hire applies?

claudius 13y ago
Last time I checked, Norway was not really part of the US, so the law might actually be different…
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  It's not just a US concept. Norway seems to have fairly strong protections on the expression of ideas - i.e. you can't copyright ideas in many cases. I wonder do they have special laws for trade secrets. Opera are going to have difficulty hiring people if they are suing former employees.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Pretty sure you can't copyright ideas anywhere.
    - homosaur 13y ago
      Be sure to let the US Patent Office know about that.
      - whafro 13y ago
        The USPTO is likely well aware that they have nothing to do with copyright, just the Patents and Trademarks mentioned in their name.
hga 13y ago
This is a trade secret case. If he genuinely had trade secrets (the bar for that is pretty high in the US), things like work for hire, non-competes (which are officially allowed in the US outside of California to prevent the "first bite of the apple" of trade secret disclosure), etc. are irrelevant.

easytiger 13y ago

Hard to say anything without hard details, but in Europe this stuff can be hard to make stick. Also this kind of actioning is distrubing from a company like opera. Death throes?

Osmium 13y ago
There's nothing disturbing about protecting trade secrets, if this is what it is. Now if this was about a non-compete clause, I might agree with you...
Indyan 13y ago
He has denied the allegations (as expected). But, at the same time, he also told this to Digi.No. "When I left the Opera, I did not feel my ideas bore fruit, and I also notified management about. I am a very creative person and I feel that my ideas had value. I would like that my ideas were to reach users". Source: http://www.digi.no/915782/opera-saksoker-eks-ansatt http://www.digi.no/915782/opera-saksoker-eks-ansatt
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  This is probably closer to the truth. Seems like Opera is acting more like a jilted lover than anything else. Guy has some good ideas and in the interest of profit, they get buried. He goes across the street where Mozilla sees the potential and implements them and now Opera wants he to pay up for them? I'm all for keeping trade secrets, but this more along the lines of abstract ideas, not the sort of thing you'll have an easy time in a court of law proving.
tripzilch 13y ago
> Also this kind of actioning is distrubing from a company like opera. > Death throes? Yeah .. I've been an avid Opera fan for many years (since version 5 or 6), but recently a lot of things they do are turning a bit smelly ... Sad to see this happening, they're the only European (or non-US) browser. Not that I'm particularly "(euro-)nationalistic" about that, but I think diversity is a good thing.

smoyer 13y ago

Their lawsuit claims that "Opera Software ASA is an innovative company which has developed software and technology which have proved to be successful internationally". The article talks about features which aren't really IP. Perhaps their trade-secrets relate to coding and construction methods that make their product superior, but these really can't be protected unless they're so esoteric that no one would logically come up with them independently. So they sue a non-profit to stifle competition in their industry ... show me more innovation (and market-share) than Mozilla and then maybe I'll believe you're the innovator.

magclock 13y ago
They did not sue a non-profit. RTFA.
- DannyBee 13y ago
  Not to mention, Mozilla corporation is not a non-profit :)
  - jfoster 13y ago
    Technically true, but they are 100% owned by a non-profit. (Mozilla Foundation owns Mozilla Corporation)
    - fosap 13y ago
      Consider even the NFL is non profit, non profit hardly means anything.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        The NFL leaque headquarters organization is a non-profit. The actual teams, on the other hand, are all profit-seeking entities and pay taxes accordingly.
        13y ago

stefantalpalaru 13y ago

Was the trade secret "switch to webkit"?

pavanky 13y ago
Did you even read the article ?
- stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  I did. Here's the relevant section: "For the record: we have not yet had the chance to look at the lawsuit documents or discuss the specifics of the allegations and size of the claimed damages with Opera management or its lawyers, but we’ll update this post as soon as we have."

gcp 13y ago

Interesting that the claim is "took trade secrets to Mozilla" when apparently Mozilla wants to have nothing to do with that Junior prototype.

revx 13y ago

Definitely read that as "Oprah" and was very confused.

Shorel 13y ago
Definitely beating a dead horse.

iTrollFreely 13y ago

kind of sad they think their trade secrets are worth only 3.4m

ttrreeww 13y ago

Guess it's time to stop using Opera