Mozilla Unveils Plans For A New Web Browser For Mobile Phones

Nancy Gohring

After a couple of experiences dipping a toe into the mobile market, Mozilla said it plans to get serious about developing a mobile browser.

Mozilla has recently hired two new developers to help work on the project and plans to release Mobile Firefox some time in the next year or two.

The iPhone, Apple's popular new mobile phone, in part contributed to the renewed interest in mobile browsing at Mozilla. "The user demand for a full browsing experience on mobile devices is clear," Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering at Mozilla wrote in his blog this week. "If you weren't sure about this before, you should be after the launch of the iPhone."

As Mozilla continues to develop Mozilla2, the second version of the platform on which Firefox is built, it will add mobile devices as a category. That means developers of Mozilla2, which is expected to be complete in early 2009, will keep mobile phones in mind as they build the new platform, Schroepfer wrote.

He didn't get more specific on a release date for the mobile browser other than to say "not before 2008." Schroepfer also said Mozilla hadn't yet decided which mobile phones the browser would work on.

Depending on compatibility, Mozilla could face competition from companies such as Microsoft and Apple that include their own browsers in phones running their operating systems, as well as from third parties such as Opera Software ASA that have been fine-tuning their mobile browsers for years now.

The announcement comes after the release earlier this year of a new version of Minimo, a Mozilla-based mobile browser for Windows Mobile devices. A few months prior to the release, the lead developer of Minimo said he wouldn't be spending much time on the project in the future. This week, Schroepfer said that there are no plans to further develop Minimo.

Mozilla also offers Joey, a project in development that lets users clip and save text, photos, videos and other content while using a PC and then access that content through a browser on a mobile phone.

Mozilla is also involved with a group of companies including Arm and MontaVista Software that is developing an open-source Linux-based platform for devices that are bigger than a cell phone but smaller than a laptop. Mozilla is developing a browser for the platform and has already built one for a similar device, the N800, from Nokia.

The new Mozilla hires who will contribute to the mobile Firefox initiative are Christian Sejersen, who recently worked for Openwave Systems, and Brad Lassey, who worked for France Telecom R&D, which has been very active in mobile Linux initiatives.

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A Linux Version Of Nero Launched

Nero has launched a Linux version of its digital media software, together with the eighth iteration of its digital multimedia suite, at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.

Nero Linux 3, the latest version of the firm's software for Linux users, also includes Blu-ray and HD-DVD burning support across all of the high definition formats.

A new internet upload function lets users exchange photos and videos with other users with a single click, and to burn discs with just one click and stream multimedia data to every room in the house across the network.

The latest version also provides a variety of features for increased data security and backup, offering protection for important data should the backups be stolen.

Nero's booth at the IFA show has been set up with a beach theme where visitors are photographed while testing their abilities on a surfboard simulator.

They then have the option of uploading the photo to their personal blog in the My Nero community.

The company is also showcasing its own Nero Digital video format which supports resolutions up to Full HD 1080p, based on MPEG-4 audio and video codec technology.

This allows users to compress audio and video files to a fraction of its original size without a significant loss in quality.

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Goobuntu - Google Version Of Linux, In The Making

Google is preparing its own distribution of Linux for the desktop, in a possible bid to take on Microsoft in its core business - desktop software.

A version of the increasingly popular Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution, based on Debian and the Gnome desktop, it is known internally as 'Goobuntu'.

Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project called Goobuntu, but declined to supply further details, including what the project is for.

It's possible that it's just one of the toys Googleplex engineers play with on Fridays, when they get time off from buffing the search engine code or filtering out entries about Tiananmen Square.

It could be for wider deployments on the company's own desktops, as an alternative to Microsoft, but still for internal use only.

But it's possible Google plans to distribute it to the general public, as a free alternative to Windows.

Google has already demonstrated an interest in building a presence on the desktop. At CES Las Vegas this month, it announced the Google Pack, a collection of desktop software bundled together for easy downloading.

The pack includes many apps which compete directly with the Windows bundle, such as Google Talk, Google Desktop, Mozilla Firefox, the Trillian instant messenger client, RealPlayer, and Picasa photo management.

Going the whole hog and distributing a complete desktop software suite would merely be another step down the same path.

However, entering the desktop software world would be a huge step. Making Goobuntu as easy to use as XP will require a lot more development. It's unlikely to be ready for showtime any time soon, and it's possible Google itself hasn't finalised where the project should go.

Whatever Google's intentions, the input of Google engineers and developers, writing new features and fixing bugs, will be a huge boost to the Ubuntu project.

Ubuntu, funded by the South African internet multimillionaire and occasional cosmonaut Mark Shuttleworth, is already emerging as a leader in the desktop Linux world.

It has built considerable momentum in the Linux community, and is starting to appear more widely. Shuttleworth is seeking to persuade white-box PC manufacturers to start shipping machines with Ubuntu preinstalled.

It is top of the Distrowatch download chart, is installed on up to six million computers, and doubling every eight months, according to estimates from Shuttleworth's company, Canonical.

It has spawned a number of different offshoots, including Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu (for schools).

The word Ubuntu means "humanity to others" in several African languages, including Zulu and Xhosa. It's one of the founding principles of post-apartheid South Africa. The origin of the word 'Goobuntu' is not clear, though it does not appear in online Zulu dictionaries.

The Goobuntu.com domain has been registered in the past couple of days, though presumably not by Google. It now redirects to a Cuban portal. Perhaps Google will have to think of a new name for the system before they launch it to the wider public.

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Open-Source Softwares Violate Patents Says Microsoft

Aaron Ricadela

Microsoft Corp. has for the first time said it believes 235 of its patents are being violated by the free- and open-source software, or FOSS, movement. The Redmond, Wash., software company said the system infringed on 42 patents; its graphical user interface violated 65. The Open Office suite infringed on 45, email programs another 15 and other assorted free and open-source software amounted to 68 patent violations. Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel, and Horacio Gutierrez, head of intellectual property and licensing, revealed the figures in an interview with Fortune magazine. Microsoft is trying to steer users toward versions of open-source software provided by Novell Inc., a networking company with patents that it struck a deal with last year. Fortune reported that Eben Moglen, longtime counsel to the Free Software Foundation and the head of the Software Freedom Law Center, contends that software is a mathematical algorithm and, as such, not patentable.

Now that the computer industry has its first accounting of how many patents Microsoft says are violated by open-source software, the question for many tech vendors is how aggressively the software giant will begin enforcement. And judging from the reaction in the blogosphere, the new disclosures inspire fear.

Microsoft has already begun collecting payments and gaining access to the patent portfolios of companies that use the open-source Linux operating system in their products. The list includes Novell (NOVL), Fuji Xerox, and Samsung Electronics.
License to Code

Microsoft sees those agreements as templates for future cross-licensing deals, and it's rattling a legal saber to gain an edge. When it comes to compensating Microsoft for its intellectual property, discussion is less painful than litigation, according to Horatio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice-president of intellectual property and licensing. "The alternatives to licensing are alternatives that aren't very attractive for anyone," he says.

Microsoft contends that the Linux operating system and other open-source software programs violate 235 of its patents. The company plans to use that intellectual property to collect royalties from companies that make, distribute, and use Linux. Microsoft's plans were disclosed in a May 14 article in Fortune.

Linux and other open-source software are covered by the General Public License (GPL), which lets users modify programs' source code so long as they redistribute their changes to other users. Microsoft says the Linux kernel, which controls the software's most basic functions, as well as other elements of Linux and open-source productivity and e-mail software infringe on its patents, Fortune reported.
Let's Make a Deal

Now, the question is how will Microsoft collect. The GPL prohibits companies that sell or use Linux from paying royalties for technology embedded in its code. But a licensing deal Microsoft struck on Nov. 2, 2006, with Novell, distributor of the Suse version of Linux, appeared to circumvent that restriction by enacting a pledge by the companies not to sue each other's customers for potential patent infringements (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/3/06, "Linux Linkup for Microsoft, Novell").

As part of the deal, Novell agreed to pay Microsoft a portion of its Linux revenue worth at least $40 million. But Joe LaSala, senior vice-president and general counsel at Novell, says none of his company's software violated Microsoft's patents, and that the agreement was about technical compatibility between the companies' products. "We're quite explicit about that," he says. "We've heard their arguments."

Nevertheless, Microsoft has pursued deals that incorporate similar legal principles. Among these are licensing deals Microsoft struck on Mar. 22 with Fuji Xerox, a joint venture between Fujifilm Holdings (FUJI) and Xerox (XRX); and on Apr. 18 with Samsung. Gutierrez says the arrangements resemble aspects of the Novell agreement. Those companies received licenses from Microsoft for technologies used in Linux and other open-source software contained in products they sell. "Nobody thought it was possible to build a bridge between the worlds of commercial and open-source software," Gutierrez says. Microsoft is also considering other means of compensation for its Linux-related Internet protocol, he adds.

But a new version of the GPL due in July could prohibit Linux distributors from entering such deals. The current draft of the license's third version would add restrictions against patent-protection deals like the one Microsoft entered with Novell. That could close avenues for those companies that include Linux in their products to make patent peace with Microsoft. The issues could come to the fore again when Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and former chief counsel for the Free Software Foundation, which controls the GPL, gives a speech at an open-source software conference May 22 in San Francisco.
Bloggers Demand Details

On the blog front, the new revelations from Redmond sparked calls for the company to disclose just which of its patents it thinks Linux violates.

Ex-Microsoft employee Robert Scoble wrote in his Scobleizer blog that "Microsoft has more than 800 lawyers and it looks like they are going to make sure that they remain relevant through legal action." Its actions could affect Google (GOOG) and other companies that make heavy use of Linux, Scoble notes.

Larry Augustin, an angel investor and former CEO of onetime stock market superstar VA Linux, wrote in his Weblog that Microsoft is bullying other companies by making vague threats. "If Microsoft believes that free and open-source software violates any of their patents, let them put those patents forward now, in the light of day," he wrote.

Mary Jo Foley said in her ZDNet blog that Microsoft has "ended any illusion that it planned to try to build bridges with the open-source community." The company's decision to go public with the number of patents it thinks Linux violates "shows Microsoft must think the GPL v3 has teeth," she wrote.

And Matt Asay, vice-president of business development at Alfresco, a Britain-based open-source software company, wrote in InfoWorld's Open Sources blog that Microsoft "wants to kill open source through whisper campaigns." He added, "It's hard to get excited about paying Microsoft's poll tax when Microsoft refuses to substantiate its claims."

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