Thanks to CNET ("any news we feel like printing, we can find a way to turn negative"), the folks who write opera say they're upset that Apple did safari, because now their browser isn't competitive. they threaten to leave the Mac market completely.
the twelve people who actually use Opera are horrified.
Here's the reality: opera had about a 2 year head start (the first public release of opera (5.0 technology preview 1) was in May 2001. If they can't turn the browser into a finished, usable product and convince people to use it in two years, why do they feel they have the right to complain that Apple got tired of waiting adn went and did it themselves?
The opera project, bluntly, is a failure. And they're whining about it. Tough. 2 years is forever in the tech world -- and besides, does saying you plan on doing something someday give you the right to demand a monopoly on that? sheesh.
Is Apple a 500 pound gorilla in the mac market? can be. Has it stepped on a few toes? Yes -- emphasis on few, and when it does step on a toe or two, it usually opens up even more opportunities for others in other areas, things like effects plug-ins for iMovie.
the browser is a core technology for the success of any computer these days, and mac users have complained for years, and put up with bloated, buggy builds of Mozilla or incomplete ports of Chimera just to try to get something moderately useful, because the state of the browser on the mac sucked, and pretty much every browser project either didn't have its act together, didn't take the mac platform seriously, or both.
so now apple finally does it right (work in progress notwithstanding, safari already kicks everyone's butts), and the folks who's butts got kicked are whining about it.
tough. two years is forever. If you don't have your act together in two years, it's not apple's fault for giving up and thinking you never will. Especially not with a piece of software increasingly fundamental to the usability of the platform as a browser.
Update: another compatible opinion to mine.
