> Back when Firefox 2 was released (six years ago this week!),
> the Internet Explorer team started a friendly tradition of sending Mozilla a cake
> as congratulations. This continued for Firefox 3 and Firefox 4.
This finally explains why they changed to the more frequent release schedule.
You know what is so amazing about this tradition? It is not about the software or the companies that build them, it is about people sharing their 'love' and respect for each other citing the software as a reason. I simply love this. I think even we should team up and send pg, and his new YC teams a cake every year (without expecting a cake in return :P ) :)
I would imagine that these two teams, and the Chrome team, are the only people who fully understand what supporting an application as complex as a Web browser entails. And the IE10 team are now dealing with different architectures (arm and x86?).
IE has dealt with different architectures since its very beginning, as has Windows. Recall that Windows so far ran on x86, x86-64, IA64, DEC Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC and ARM (and I probably forgot a few). Also they re-used the Trident Engine whenever they needed a browser on another device, so ARM isn't exactly new to them (Windows Phone) or even other platforms (XBox 360 is PowerPC).
Sure does, I was welcoming the Microsoft team to the world of multiple processor types! I think there is still a PPC build of Firefox for Linux as well...
I for one love that there's decent competition right now, and not just IE or Netscape. It puzzles me when people are so divisive about iOS, Android, Windows RT, etc. when we have more viable alternatives than we used to. (though we could still use more)
This continued good-natured back-and-forth is nice to see. Kind of reminds me of something Stephen Potter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Potter) would have done, had he been in the tech industry :)
Major tech organizations being friendly with each other? Unthinkable! We must put a stop to this madness before it spreads to to other tech companies and humanity in general!
But don't fear, we always have Apple v. Google, Microsoft v. Apple, Samsung v. Apple and a whole host of others to remind us of how we should behave.
In 1930 he wrote D. H. Lawrence: A First Study, the first book-length work on Lawrence, which appeared in print within a few days of the death of its subject, unfortunate timing because it seemed like an inadequate memorial rather than what it was intended to be, a critical reappraisal. It also suffered from a regrettable misprint, rendering the heading "Sea and Sardinia", as "Sex and Sardinia". This was soon amplified by rumour into "Sex and Sardines", none of which helped Potter's reputation as a serious writer.
> Just 30 minutes later, Michael Bolan tweeted that the cake was gone.
This has me thinking of that scene in Mike Judge's Office Space where Milton always happens to be in the wrong part of the crowd relative to the cake and never gets a piece. Cruel but hilarious.
I don't know how many people there are in that office, but I hope it's sufficiently few that no-one got Miltoned :).
The licensing means that MS would have to disclose whether or not they did. Since they haven't, and since MS are good at that kind of thing, we can say that IE does not include Firefox code.
When Windows had some BSD code the EULA was clear.
(Not sure why your straight forward question got downvoted.)
There are bakeries that can decorate cake using inkjet or screen-printing machines (with edible dyes, of course) but the logo on this cake was hand-painted.
Of course they're competitors (although the Mozilla party line is "competition is better for everyone"), but I think the takeaway here is the mutual respect they have for each other. Building a browser is hard. And building a good browser (which IE 10 is, by the way) is a major endeavor. So I think each team has a pretty good idea of the level of achievement that comes with finally shipping.
