25 August 2006 | Author: R. Green

The browser cold war thaws as Firefox accepts an offer of assistance from Microsoft

Earlier in the week, Sam Ramji, the director of Microsoft's open-source software lab, posted an interesting invitation on an online Mozilla discussion blog. The invitation was directed towards the developers of the Firefox open source browser, which is the main competitor to Microsoft's own Internet Explorer browser, and offered one-to-one support from Microsoft to get Firefox and Mozilla's e-mail client, Thunderbird, to work properly on the Microsoft Vista operating system, which is due for release at the start of next year.

The offer seems to be part of a fundamental change which appears to be taking place within Microsoft. Ramji said of the offer:

"In the past the company has only invited commercial software developers to these labs. I'm committed to evolving our thinking beyond commercial companies to include open source projects, so I went to the non-trivial effort of getting slots for non-commercial open source projects."

The offer includes one-on-one time with Microsoft workers and support staff on the Vista project as well as: "secure office space for 4 people, hardware, [and] VPN access," at a new facility at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond.

While many members of the open source community have been wary about the offer, Mike Beltzner, a Mozilla spokesman, has now replied by saying that while Firefox and Thunderbird had already been tested using Vista, they would "definitely be interested in getting some one-to-one support [in order to] ensure that we get the proper integration issues looked at for Firefox 2 and Thunderbird 2".

One of the main problems for open source projects like Mozilla has always been ensuring full integration with existing proprietary software, especially with the operating system platform being used, so integration and support right from the start is bound to be a huge boon to the open source industry. This offer does not, however, stop many in the industry from being wary of Microsoft's full intentions and speculation is rife over whether the offer of access to the Vista Readiness ISV Lab, which was previously only open to commercial software developers, will be extended to other open source organisations.

Prior to the release of the new Vista system, Microsoft have asserted that they are turning their attentions towards ensuring applications are compatible, so that Vista users will experience seamless integration with all of their applications. This is essential if users are to be encouraged to upgrade from their existing operating systems. Although Firefox is the main browser competitor to Explorer, the volume of Firefox users has made it one of the top third-party open source applications, and rather than alienate the legions of Mozilla fans, Microsoft has decided to work with them rather than against them for the benefit of Vista.

Beltzner has already brought up a list of areas that he feels should be investigated, including "the effects of running in the new application security mode, interacting/integrating with InfoCard, integration with the common RSS data store and services, integration with the Vista calendar and address book". Additionally, Microsoft will look to integrate their services with a new 'Default Program' infrastructure which helps users decide which programs should execute which jobs or open files.

Whether the new spirit of co-operation will lead to a reduction in the number of cross browser display problems is extremely doubtful as the developers include their own proprietary support for different tags, but this may at least be a step in the right direction to allow all users to be able to universally view all sites correctly using the browser of their choice, without inter-company feuds creating unnecessary additional barriers for their customers.

Home | Careers | RSS | Contact Us | Newsletter

International sites: