![Education Education](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/education_64.png)
![The Internet The Internet](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/internet_64.png)
![Software Software](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/software_64.png)
![IT IT](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/it_64.png)
Opera Offers Free Licenses For Educational Use 283
Opera Watch writes "Opera Software today announced that it would offer free licenses to higher education institutions. This is a change from the previous cost of $1000 (US) for unlimited licenses. It remains to be seen, however, whether Opera will allow schools to give standard Opera licenses to students to use on personal computers/laptops within campus at no additional cost, that came with the $1000 license fee. This comes after a respected university advised its students not to use Internet Explorer, for its lack of security. Opera Software said they are doing so in an effort to meet the student and university need for security on the Internet."
Free as in beer (Score:3)
GNU defines [gnu.org] free software:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2)
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this
The only sticky part is the licensing of free software - total freedom would allow me to fork the source for profit yet that would then restrict the freedom of others in using said free software thus making the software not free anymore. So to remain free I cant do certain things to software restricting my own freedom.
As for Opera thanks but no thanks I have the desire to keep using as much really free software as possible promoting further development.
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2, Insightful)
It would sure be nice if everything were free, source were available, nothing had bugs, and everyone got woken up by a blowjob, but the world just doesn't work that way.
We should be congratulating those companies that look beyond their immediate bottom line to try and make the world a better place, even if it is a loss-leading marketing exp
Stereotypical not Prototypical (Score:3, Informative)
Prototypical-An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages.
Re:Free as in beer (Score:3, Interesting)
As a suggestion, please don't preach such a lecture onto slashdot.
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2)
They are offering "free site licenses". And even if they just called it free, we english speakers have been using the term free, for things you don't have to pay for, for quite some time now.
And then the soul giving... Well you're a fucking nutcase! If willing paying for something that someone has created is selling your soul, then we all did it a long time ago. They are not forcing anyone to buy it, they are not bundling it with some essential part of a c
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2)
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Free as in beer (Score:5, Insightful)
There are several replies to this post with the "wah! typical
Look, nowhere in this post did he bitch about Opera. He said he desires to keep using as much "really free" software as possible... and simply, "thanks but no thanks" and frankly never did he say Opera sucks or FSCK Opera! He never even suggested they should open source their product.
Listen, I loved the Opera browser. I'm sure it's still wonderful. But it is precisely this reason that I no longer use it.
I bought and paid for Opera. I even asked my wife for a new license for Christmas a few years back...and she got it for me. I was a huge Opera fanboy. Whenever some story about browsers came up on
But, at some point I realized that as cool as Opera is, and as much as I think the company is a fine company, it's still not software that is terribly concerned with freedom. And there are two perfectly acceptable (if not arguably better in some ways) browsers that are. Opera wants to give gratis licenses to schools, good on them. But any school that takes that gift should look at it for what it is and weigh carefully their options. Firefox is a damn fine browser on par with Opera in most ways that the majority of their users would need...and it's not just gratis, it's free. If Opera goes under, what then?
To me, Opera and Mozilla/Firefox...it's like six of one, half-a-dozen of another. And functionality (for my concern) being equal, I choose to use Mozilla/Firefox now. Because they're free, not because they're gratis. And I want to support this.
I find it amazing somebody points out that he makes the same choice on slashdot (of all places) and not only gets flack about it but gets modded down for it.
Anomaly...does not compute.
Re:Free as in beer (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the moderation was done not because of his software preference, not because of which software development model he supported, but because of the (in my opinion as well) completely redundant rambling on about the GPL, what it implies, and how Opera shouldn't be called free software. I quote:
Software isn't free unless you have specific rights
Maybe you're different from the rest of the world. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not going to force myself to use inferior software (not claiming that this is the case here) for no reason. To me, Opera delivers a better product. So other products are OSS. But if that can't deliver, does it matter? No. If you want to preach to anyone but the fanatics, you have to show that this leads to better qualities. Faster. More stable. More secure. More standards-compliant. Great extensions. More flexible.
If the can't argue price (or TCO), you can't argue features, if you can't argue quality, if all you have is that it is GNU/free, noone cares. RMS can preach all he wants. People don't use OSS software because it is OSS, they use it because it is better. Perhaps that's the OSS process, perhaps it's just a bunch of brillant people who could have done the same with a commercial product. But if you can't deliver, it's a dud either way.
Kjella
Re:Maybe you're different from the rest of the wor (Score:2)
I don't get the whole FLOSS thing, to me the only benefit I see from it is that it is free. If a commercial company or hell, anyone gave me something for free that is similar in capibilities, I see it the same.
I even know some C++, but I certainly couldn't get into the code to do anything. Both are black boxes to me.
I agree with the idea that you are needlessly limiting yourself (severley as I see it) if you will only use FLOSS.
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2)
Definitions of words can and do change over time, but in the current world a "free" product still means "doesn't cost money" for the vast majority of the population (and by those, I mean people who don't read slashdot, don't know how to code and don't have any desire to learn how to do so either).
Maybe in the future when people describe a product as being "free" it will be more synonymou
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2)
By the by this move by Opera reeks of desperation in their losing the battle against Firefox. Wouldn't it be ironic if Firefox only slightly dented IE but killed Opera and Safari?
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2)
They obviously meant in the meaning of beer, you know what you typed in the title.
We don't need yet another rambling post about the GPL.
It's not the law, and free as in beer is a perfectly valid usage of the word, even when speaking of software.
I call bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
BULLSHIT!
I love open source, use it, enjoy it, support it (take time out of busy day to report firefox bugs, and donated money) and I cheer RMS on and on....
But your little quote is bullshit. I think what they are doing is great. Free = don't pay $ so yes, it IS free.
If Mercedes gave you a car for free, but said "don't open the engine hood at all, otherwise drive the car as much as y
Enough (Score:2)
As for Opera thanks but no thanks I have the desire to keep using as much really free software as possible promoting further development.
OK. Go for it This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, however. Troll elsewhere.
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2)
This guy is the ideological opposite of 'The defenders of IP' (RIAA,MPAA,BSA, Bill Gates)
You are forgetting the main thing the GPL, like any other license is the choice of the developer. By whining that all software isnt 'free', you are in essence advocating the removal of the choice of the developer.
I also really wish people would stop using 'free' in this manner. In the realm of dealing with a product most people equate 'free' to mean 'without monetary cost'. I
Re:Free as in beer (Score:2)
Re:Open beer (Score:2)
Re:Open beer (Score:2)
The GPL cleverly uses existing US copyright law to insure users rights. The weight of law applies now. All that is required is cooperation by the community of software users. I would hope US patent law weakens over time so that free software less vulnerable to harmful lawsuits brought by rapacious corporations than it is now.
Re:Open beer (Score:5, Insightful)
Like it or not, Opera is a great piece of software and it's helped to make Firefox a great piece of software. Had Opera the company been litiguous in nature, they could easily have stamped down on some of those borrowed features, but Opera is one of the good guys and, if I remember correctly, opposed to software patents, etc.
Yet you still choose to paint a picture of Opera that's negative with your talk of whip hands, etc. Well, newsflash for you buddy: they good people at Opera still have to put food on their own tables and roofs above their heads so I and others will continue to appreciate the hard work they put into what many people regard as the best browser (with in-built mail client, RSS reader, etc) available by putting our money where our mouths are.
Re:Open beer (Score:2)
Yup, and I still prefer Opera over Firefox, which I've found to be much harder to use and less elegant. The cost issue, and the lack of support at some sites (particularly Gmail) are the only downsides I see.
Re:Open beer: Mod Parent UP! (Score:2)
Re:Free as in beer (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, according to the dictionary that was the original meaning and the "free from payment" one came later. Obviously both are in common use.
The problem is that we think of software as a product. Consider "free speech" vs. "free books" and you get the idea. Probably RMS should have called it "free code" instead of "free software".
great (Score:3, Funny)
Beat M$ AT THEIR OWN GAME? (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course this one it a bit more secure.
Re:Beat M$ AT THEIR OWN GAME? (Score:2)
As for security, it's worth noting that many of the security risks from IE come from the features they toss in - ActiveX, specialized (read: non-compliant) JScript - that you won't find in other, more secure browsers. It's not excusable, it's just part of the game. They shouldn't have released the browser at all without more thorough testing and review.
Like they say, you can't make a system secure unl
Re:Beat M$ AT THEIR OWN GAME? (Score:2)
Yeah, big deal for the little colleges, but not so much for the big colleges.
stability? (Score:2, Interesting)
At very least it should remember the tabs you had opened (is there an extension f
Re:stability? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopi
Re:stability? (Score:2)
Re:stability? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, as for 8.0b1, it has NASTY memory leaks, especially if you install over a 7.6 Preview. However, GMail only works with 7.6 previews and 8.0b1.
Only higher education? (Score:2)
Guess it doesn't matter much.. the sites I admin are using Firefox and will continue to do so.
Re:Only higher education? (Score:2)
Re:Only higher education? (Score:2)
<offtopic>FWIW, I found something very interesting and scary about Opera Software (it's a rather old press release, from 2000. The ad system in Opera 5.x through today is powered b
The other reason... (Score:3, Interesting)
Opera Software said they are doing so in an effort to meet the student and university need for security on the Internet.
Gerv
Opera missed it's chance (Score:3, Insightful)
Now they have made some inroads in the embedded market, but it looks like the Mozilla team has their sites set on this as well. My prediction is the same will apply (why pay when you can get it for free), except the gap between Opera and Mozilla has closed significantly.
Re:Opera missed it's chance (Score:2)
Ummm, there has been a per-gratis edition ever since Version 5?
I don't know if you know this, but before discovering the Symbian market (and discoverin g Google), Opera was actually making a loss. Look at it this way:- there has ne
Re:Opera missed it's chance (Score:2)
Better late than never, better free than expensive, I suppose.
I think you're right, Opera blew an opportunity for market share by not doing this, and more, much earlier. Is market share a big deal to them, though?
Opera has set their sights on making money by selling software or ad-ware. Libre software doesn't make much sense with that business model. I suppose
Re:Opera missed it's chance (Score:2)
Re:Opera missed it's chance (Score:2)
Can someone answer me... (Score:2)
If they're smart, they'll allow students copies (Score:3, Insightful)
Blind Firefox Zealotry (Score:2, Insightful)
Now I'm not saying Firefox isn't a terrific browser (because it is), but when someone suggests a browser that isn't IE or Firefox, why is there an uproar? You may think Honda (Firefox) makes the best vehicle, but does that mean Toyota (Opera) vehicles shouldn't be on the road?
Keeping with that analogy, the oil burning, cloud spewing, Gremlin with brakes that don't work (IE), *should* be off the road.
Re:Blind Firefox Zealotry (Score:3, Interesting)
Competition produces innovation, lack of competition only produces stagnation. Certainly there is room for IE, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Galeon, Edgar-ware Surfer (coded in Mom's basement! for Lappy 486's), etc.
Personally, I *love* Opera. I got hooked on it when I got sick of IE vulnerabilities, and when I switched Firefox was still a gleam in a
Re:Blind Firefox Zealotry (Score:2)
1. Browser developers are more motivated to think of nifty new features.
2. Security holes in one are unlikely (but I'm aware there are exceptions) to turn up in a different browser. This reduces the impact of such security holes.
3. Web developers are more inclined t
Re:Blind Firefox Zealotry (Score:2)
Or do you think they should just close up shop, give away what they currently have done?
I mean, as crazy as it sounds, people need to get paid for their work somehow, or they cannot do it.
I'm not terribly happy with the current IP landscape, or payment methods, but I still cannot come up with any way to get midsize to big projects done with any relialibity without paying developers.
Re:Blind Firefox Zealotry (Score:2)
So, as I said, I don't like how IP works now, but can't see how it would work under OSS for most stuff either.
Here goes, - assuming that copyright died as it is today, or everyone went with GPL style licenses or CC ones
Musicians can still make money for live performances, and for the cover art etc...
Movies still can sell the theater experiance, DVD quality and cover art etc...
Writers still have nicely bound
Different Holes (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that some are defining 'secure' as 'doesn't have the same security issues as IE'. IE is the biggest browser and obviously should be the target of a hackers energy, but is there anyway of putting a finger on the exploits that will come when Opera, FF etc are big enough to warrent hacker time?
Is there a way to evaluate this? It seems like simply something you have to wait and see. That the security is only available to the minority, by partial fact that it is the minority.
Re:Different Holes (Score:2)
Re:Different Holes (Score:2)
As for opera etc., we can just compare them to Mozilla and see that they don't seem to have many more vulnerabilities than it.
Compare how though, if no one is actively targetting it with hacks et al. then how do you know?
Re:Different Holes (Score:2)
Back then, Netscape didn't use the same HTML rendering engine. It was rewritten so you can't make this assumption with the "modern" Netscape 7.
Re:Different Holes (Score:3, Insightful)
The recent vunerabilities have been Java issues(really Sun's issue, and affects all browsers) and phishing issues. AFAIK fixed now.
Also, unlike IE, Opera doesn't integrate into the file system - file:// links fail from websites.
Furthermore, Opera doesn't run ActiveX, and javascript is very sandboxed.
Opera also goes beyond firefox in not allowing third party extensio
Exactly (Score:2)
Re:Different Holes (Score:2)
Re:Different Holes (Score:2)
"Secure" is relative
So far, it seems like Opera and Firefox is more secure than IE, but neither have been without their quirks.
Neither of those support ActiveX objects like IE does, and neither are integrated in the OS. So a bunch of problems are fixed already on a software design level. But that's basically all we can say about it. All your mentioned browsers have had their shares of severe security exploits, some more than others.
Is there a w
I love Opera. (Score:3, Informative)
Opera's multiple document interface is better, IMHO. It's also more featureful out of the box (I know firefox has a gazillion extensions available, many of them damn fine, but you have to go get them).
Opera has also (allegedly, I don't use it this way) taken substantial time to make it customizeable and manageable in an enterprise sense. I think it would be easier to roll out Opera to 150 machines than to roll out Firefox with the same capabilities (i.e. lots of extensions) to the same machines.
Firefox is truly FREE, Opera just doesn't have a cost for use, but for most users (the unwashed masses who care not at all about F/OSS) it doesn't matter.
Now, if Sunbird works out...
Re:I love Opera. (Score:3, Informative)
I love this browser's functionality via keyboard alone (I don't even use mouse gesture
Re:I love Opera. (Score:2)
I seem to recall that Opera has two rendering modes, which are selected based on the user agent string selected. If you set it to Opera then it uses a standards compliant rendering engine. If you set it to IE it uses a broken-in-the-IE-way layout and JavaScript engine. I found a few sites that looked wrong (or had broken JavaScript) when the UA was set to Opera, but worked fine when it was set to IE.
Re:I love Opera. (Score:2)
Opera vs Firefox (Score:3, Interesting)
Opera:
1) No option to ban loading images from third party sites. (In FF it's "Load Images.. for originating sites only").
2) No option to "Block images from this site".
3) Some versions are more buggy than others. A bit of a checkered pattern.
4) I miss history for forms. I like when I can type a couple of letters on Google search and search again for that stuff in FF.
5) I dunno, v8 kinda fixes it but I can't help feeling that the rendered page feels somewhat watered down or something. Can't explain it better.
FF:
1) Image-less browsing is rudimentary and is a PITA. Please - can I have a button on taskbar to toggle - "show all images / show cached images / no images" like in Opera! Also - when I right click on an image to show it - feel free to show it inline. Also - don't ignore the (known) image size for image placeholders.
2) Since 1.0pr(?) this "You need a plugin" popup bar SO pisses me off! NO! I won't fucking install Flash!!! Shove your ads....
3) Back button is slow sometimes.
4) Tabbed browsing / MDI does not hold a candle to Opera. I tried TabBrowser Extensions but they help only so-so. And they are buggy.
5) It loses a cache all too often. With "modern" pages having hundreds of kb's of images it's an annoyance sometimes. Not to say that offline browsing suffers.
Both:
1) I _SO_ crave for an option to disable iframes "from other sites". Combined with image blocking it would've killed stupid ads dead.
2) Option to save a web page with images and CSS to a single MIME file is a killer feature (in MSIE, gah) when you need to have something after doing your web research. A matter of convenience of course but imagine that Linux kernel would've been distributed as a set of *.c.bz2 files.
Re:Opera vs Firefox (Score:2)
I personally find the best solution for me is Allegrosurf(caching proxy - non free, but I would figure squid would work here as well, I just found this first years ago, still using ancient 4.4 lol) chained to proxomitron for uber site specific settings (I can do ANYTHING to a site with this). Now, proximodo is on sourceforge... OSS clone of proxomitron,
Re:Opera vs Firefox (Score:2)
I used a beta of Opera for a while (nice, since it was ad-free), and found I really didn't mind the crashing. When Opera loads a page, it saves the browser state. This means after it crashes and I restart it the only thing I've lost is about 10 seconds of time. I don't believe FireFox does this. The same thing happened with {Star,Open}Office - when it crashes it restores the document when you restart it.
Don't forget printing in Opera sucks (Score:2)
Tabbed browsing just feels better to me in Opera
"Continue from last time" rocks
Customizing just feels better to me in Opera
Mouse gestures in Opera are better
Now FF may have these in some form or another, but I like Opera's implementation better. If I close my last tab in Opera (usually via mouse gesture), the browser doesn't close. Last time I checked FF, it did. I can double-click in a blank (no
Re:Opera vs Firefox (Score:2)
Has everyone here lost all perspective? (Score:5, Insightful)
The people work on the software full-time because they don't have to have a primary job. Working on the software is their job. And isn't that what most people want to do?
I see a ton posts here about "F*ck them, they should have made it Open Source and looked for other ways to make money." What would be the point of that? That's saying they should have given up on the browser and done something else. They're doing something nobody thought possible: Surviving selling an independent browser in a hotly contested market. They're an independent company taking on a behemoth on their terms and shaking things up in the process. Give up on the fanboyisms and get a little perspective on what they've done.
I hate to break your illusions, but a lot of the development effort (and all of the full-time coders) for the Mozilla / Firefox rendering effort has been funded by large non-free software corporations. GASP Oh the horrors!
I'm not saying that free software is good or bad or dead. But I am saying that the software ecosystem is a lot more complicated than the pundits here are making it out to be. Stop taking such a simplistic view of things, it makes it harder for me to convince people that the OSS movement isn't a bunch of raving loonies. I had to live with an Access database for several months last time that happened.
does this one support xmlhttprequest or SOAP (Score:2)
Opera and Firefox both have good and bad points (Score:2)
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:3, Interesting)
Firefox doesnt
though im probably in the small minority that doesnt even notice the add in the top right at all unless i specificaly look at it
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2)
day when Opera can't handle something (it's either java or java-script...haven't
figured out which, but Opera can't handle it as well as Firefox).
The reason I use Opera is because I prefer the way Opera handles tabs and
mouse gestures (especially in combination). I've futzed around with Firefox
several times, but never got it to feel as comfortable as Opera does by
default.
In summary, I'm content to use a less technically capable browser
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2)
Re:You are doing something very wrong then. (Score:2)
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2)
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2)
I'll think I'll take the google ads in the corner over having to deal with bad tabs and crappy gestures.
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
It has the most responsive UI I have seen in a graphical program. It's the vi of browsers; tremendously powerful, yet small and nimble. And its a class apart on under-specced machines - Firefox doesnt even compare.
I have used the latest versions of firefox, Maxthon etc.. I'm not switching from Opera.
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2)
Well, gee, call me a fascist for using the better closed source product over the open source one.
Oh, and you don't have to look at the unobtrusive Google ads that Opera runs if you don't want to: all you have to do is shell out $20 to buy the thing. Yes, $20, which is less than the price of an average mea
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2)
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2)
Also Opera will do some strange things with stretching graphics and page layouts, over all it does a better job of displaying a site more closely to what IE does.
I like Fire Fox better based on it's speed and si
Re:Opera sucks. (Score:2)
Re:Sell me. (Score:2)
Have you tried 7.5 or 8.0b1?
Re:hm (Score:3, Interesting)
They should have made the program free for everyone and look elsewhere for sources of income. Firefox is gaining market share at a steady pace and if Opera doesn't act now, they'll be out of the game.
Re:hm (Score:2)
Re:hm (Score:2)
They also are doing very well in the PDA/mobile phone browser market. They really don't need to look for new sources of income.
Opera is also easier to deploy in a corporate enviroment. What is easy
Re:hm (Score:2)
Re:hm (Score:3, Informative)
I plan to stick with firefox on my desktop for now but I bet my next phone/palm has Opera on it.
Re:Good move from Opera (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good move from Opera (Score:4, Insightful)
Is Too (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good move from Opera (Score:2)
Re:Smart move... (Score:2)
One semester after my college rolled it out [fortunately that was my last semester] they raised tuition by $300.
They didn't hire new profs, or build a new wing or anything. Cost of living hasn't gone up that much and the government hasn't announced funding cutbacks [though maybe they're just not public].
So likely the $300 is to cover the extra super bonus MSFT AA crap.
Free or not Windows is crap. The sooner people real
Re:Smart move... (Score:2)
You basically get a login to a website that allows you to download free ISOs to Windows XP Pro, Office, VS.NET, and some other programs. It's not a bad program for students, but I think it is jus
Re:Smart move... (Score:2)
Typical serf-think. It's not "free". It factors into the cost of your tuition and in the cost of Microsoft software.
There is a reason why a retail copy of WinXP Pro costs 400 dollars [cdn]... And it ain't because of windows "advanced technology"
Tom
Re:Netscape did something like this in the mid 90s (Score:2)
Re:Well better than nothing.... (Score:2)
Of course, it is really a personal preference. I just dislike the way FireFox looks (and the idea of extensions) - how stupid is that?
It's not logical, but it sure has sold a lot of cars.
Re:I dont get it (Score:2)
That's a big difference in getting things done, maybe not technically faster, but seems that way.
Re:What advantages does Opera have over Firefox? (Score:5, Informative)