So Bill Gates is on a media tour (including an interview with Gizmodo). Apparently he’s progressed from hinting that Free Culture types are like Communists to actually calling us Commies.
How nice. Here’s a flag, then, from Xeni Jardin.
Also, in a CNET interview, Gates says,
In terms of our agility to do things on the browser, people who underestimated us there in the past lived to regret that.
Look who picked up the gauntlet! Asa Dotzler of the Mozilla foundation responds:
We will continue to provide choice and innovation, a better, faster, and safer browsing experience, and we will grow our community and continue to lead open source software into the mainstream.
Realistically, I don’t think Mozilla will sustain momentum in the long term because of the browser itself—anyone can clone a feature. Mozilla’s strength lies in their software’s richness as a development platform, such as Firefox’s extreme customizability.
Another issue is that when alternative browsers gain enough momentem, IE’s pathetic standards-support is going to start haunting MS. When it comes to core technology, IE’s broken rendering engine is going to be playing catch-up with Mozilla, Opera, Safari & co. for at least three years to come.
Personally, if I may have the temerity to comment on behalf of the alternative browser community, I’d just echo the words of Ben Goodger, lead firefox engineer:
Bring It On
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