Change of engine, downsizing (and old-time developers fleeing the company), and now the lawsuit to me indicate that Opera Software now favors profits over preserving company's culture, image and web standards influence.

Hippies have left, suits have taken over.

These two things are not linked, stop trying to make it so.

Jon's closing email is also quite telling:

    Dear All,

    It is with a heavy heart that I send this message. Next week will be my last 
    at Opera. It has become clear that The Board, Management and I do not share 
    the same values and we do not have the same opinions on how to keep evolving 
    Opera. As a result I have come to an agreement with the Board to end my time 
    at Opera. I feel the Board and Management is more quarterly focused than me. 
    I have always worked to build the company for the future. I believe the 
    foundation we have is very solid to build further upon.
    
    I do believe strongly in Opera as a company, and in all of you working here. 
    Our products actually make a difference for a lot of people in the world, and 
    I wish you all the best of luck moving forward. I will be following the 
    company closely and rooting for you all.

    Yours truly, Jon.

Related: http://techie-buzz.com/opera/opera-tetzchner-reacts.html

While such wild speculation probably can't get you in trouble in the US of A, some European libel laws probably would require a little more than "seemed like it to me" as a reason to publish an assertion of an association.

First of all, European libel law requires a demonstrably false statement which 'seems to' by definition isn't.

Secondly, libel would be a civil offense so even if I were to be charged it would be the damage I caused to Opera at minimum (lowest value the judge deems to certain to have occurred.)

So basically only if I made a categorically false claim and it caused a demonstrable amount of loss (e.g. a contract with defined monetary value falling apart) would I be seriously affected by European libel law.

1) While the qualifying comment used "seemed linked to me", the original post had no such qualifiers and asserted its points without anything backing it. I admit its a bit pendantic, and in American usage easier to "get away with" on a comment board. If you were a US TV news or print outlet, you'd have to pre-frame the comments with "editorial" or "opinion", to cover your legal bases.

2) Yes.

3) Probably :-)

How do you know it? Please tell us or stop making such blanket but unsupported statements

They are suing their former employee, not Mozilla.

> Webkit, Blink and Gecko have near-parity on features, and are competing more on speed

The former employee is an artist and a musician. The article says he worked on UI related stuff. None of this has anything to do with the web engine the browsers run.

You are taking the simple fact of Opera suing it's former employee and trying to make it look like there is much more to it than there really is.

I wonder what other conspiracy theories you love.

Is this really the tone of discourse we want here?

Hell, it's not even a conspiracy theory. OP just shared his point of view, you don't agree to it, it's fine. But please don't pick bs from a comment where there's no bs. It's almost as pathetic as name calling.

You are looking for a conspiracy theory? Here's one: Do you for sure know that Eric Schmidt didn't invite Opera board to a dark abandoned bungalow for a meeting and convinced them to pinch in Mozilla's hind in a proxy manner, promising to acquire(for a BIG sum) and kill Opera in return?

That said, I did not understand a better way to put my point across. The article barely mentions Mozilla, doesn't mention Google at all. They talk about why a guy (a mozilla employee, a former Opera employee) was getting sued.

It does not talk about Opera suing Mozilla. Period. OP took that information and extrapolated it to Opera suing Mozilla because they are chums with Google now.

This is a huge jump in reasoning without any substantial evidence to point at. I am sure there is a Latin phrase for what kind of fallacy it is. I am unaware of it. But I have seen this happen in conspiracy theories, so I put it in the mildest way I could think of. If that offended anyone, I apologize.

It's very hard to "destroy" a not-for-profit that has a substantial endowment.

Firefox, IMHO, is one real challenge to Chrome with IE to be outed the day most of the Internet is educated to better software and starts to learn making choices in a broad manner. Safari not counted of course. So, as I said that leaves Firefox and Chrome in the arena. And a Firefox wounded with a financial blow shall be meat for Chrome. Things that's keeping Firefox in race and that is innovation, freedom, privacy advocacy. Without much money in the bank or boggled with court cases it's going to be real hard.

Then again, the cheapest way for him to win this battle is in the public arena; without the particulars of their complaint, which we'll hopefully soon learn about, it's hard to say.

But I can say it's never a good sign when a company starts to compete in the courtrooms.