A conflict of interest?

Sun Jan 30, 2005 4:09 am by Esquilax

As some of you may have heard, approximately a week ago Firefox's Lead Programmer was employed by Google. Because of this, version 1.1 is being delayed. Ordinarily I wouldn't care, but this could be the first symptom of a larger problem. After all, isn't the employment of one of the heads of Firefox going to create a conflict of interest within Firefox? How long will it be before Firefox is filled with "integrated" Google search bars and, God forbid, "targeted" ads? Indeed, some would argue that developing an opensource/ freeware browser and working for a company like Google flies in the face of the GPL. I don't necessarily feel this way, but it is a point of concern because, as you may be aware, I am a bit of fan of Firefox (a surprise I know), and the prospect of FF becoming another extenstion of Google is worrying to say the least. So... comments?

Note: I haven't created a thread for a while, and I am only doing so now because no-one else seems to have noticed this nugget. Final! Haven't you been keeping up to date lately? Shame!

Edited by - esquilax on 1/30/2005 4:09:14 AM

Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:01 am by Eraser

Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing though Esq, however... Google does seem to want their fingers into everything really badly. First only a search engine, than email (gmail) and now a browser. What's next?

I dunno, I like google in certain ways, but if there's one thing I hate it's targeted ads! We'll just have to wait and see.

Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:30 am by Chips

ISP would be my thoughts

As it is, a clean installation of Firefox gives you google search as a 'home page' anyways.........so toolbar maybe just the next step up.

I guess the creator should have made people pay to use it though...then he could have continued to make it without working for Google

Sun Jan 30, 2005 6:00 am by Sirius

The default search bar is also google. Why would they need another bar?

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Sun Jan 30, 2005 7:53 pm by Esquilax

Eraser - Indeed we will. Hopefully things will not turn out the way I expect, but if they do, I'll simply move back to vanilla Mozilla

.

Sirius - They don't but they may "optimise" the search bar to make things "better" for FF's users

.

Sun Jan 30, 2005 11:28 pm by the01

Yea I just LOVE the way they make it "better" for their users. So thoughtfull
(Note the sarcasm)

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