Many people have asked about Jon’s view on software patents. Jon shares the views expressed in Opera’s vision: http://www.opera.com/company/vision/

rene31 asks: Jon, you said “We focus on making a great browser” which is a clear, focussed vision. But what is the vision behind the email and chat client or Opera’s capabilities on mobile phones which are more than just a browser?
Jon rene31; the browser is the core of what we do. On the mobile and in other places, the browser is being used for other things than going to the Internet. This is a natural trend as the browser is very powerful and you can make very powerful solutions using browser technology. When it comes to mail and chat, these are natural additions when it comes to providing a browser. These are part of providing a full Internet experience.

Magi asks: what feture do you like the most in Opera8?
Jon Magi, I am a big fan of ERA. ERA (or fit to window) allows you to take just about any page and have it fit to your window or paper. I have a small laptop, so this is a very useful feature for me.

TheMajor asks: Jon, are you using Opera to connect to IRC, at the moment?
Jon TheMajor; obviously. To be frank, I use Opera for all my work, really.

Jeba asks: where do you see opera the comany 5 years from here?
Jon Jeba, our aim is to continue on our path. We aim to be a significant player in shaping the Internet.

Lizard asks: Opera has built in three clients: web browser, e-mail and irc. are you gonna divide this project into three small projects like Mozilla?
Jon Lizard, there are no plans for that. Opera is much smaller than the competition, even with all these features built in. We have made Opera 8 very scaleable in this way, so if you do not use all the features, they are hidden.

ROBOd asks: You said that mail and chat are “part of providing a full Internet experience”. Yet, many futurists envision that we will use operating systems that boot from the Internet. Does this mean Opera is interested into *anything* which can “provide a full Internet experience” ?
Jon ROBOd, our focus is on the browser itself as an enabling technology and a few major applications on the side. We have no plans to provide operating systems, office applications or the like. However, you may well use browsing technology to achieve some of those. Already you can get your mail through webmail applications, for example, and that applies to a lot of other applications as well.

joenp graste asks: What is the current status of the cross-browser plugin API alliance that you founded with mozilla, apple, sun and macromedia? Are there any results to be seen in the near future?
Jon graste, yes. I believe all the parties are implementing support.

Joshtek asks: Are there any secret features or easter eggs in Opera that you don’t think anybody knows of?
Jon Joshtek, I am sure there are a lot of features people do not know about. Opera has a lot of features and I would like to urge you all to spend some time learning them as I believe it can be a real time saver. I do not believe we have much easter eggs in there. We need to keep the program size down…

fundawang asks Q: How would you comment on the cooperation between Trolltech and Opera?
Jon fundawang, the cooperation is great! Troll Tech is is the same building and we build Opera on Linux for Qt and QTopia.

Indyan asks - SirOpera has been expanding at a rapid pace.How many employees are working for opera currently?
Jon Indyan, we are about 250 at this time.

Regarding how many employees, also check out the party page: http://my.opera.com/community/party/

manxstar asks: Jon, you said you use Opera 8 for almost anything (browser, mail, …). Do you get angry when stumble on a bug in Opera?
Jon manxstar, I hate bugs. I do take pride in finding them, though. I did mention that I love beta testing. That means I am always using beta versions and it is important to find the bugs before the final product leaves the building.

YtseJam asks: Will Opera continue its commitment to its BiDi users by providing the means to correctly display as best as possible BiDi content throughout the browser (mail, UI, rendering)?
Jon YtseJam, BIDI is important. It is part of our philosophy to provide Opera on the user’s terms. We will continue to strive for better support for BIDI and more and more languages.

joenp Sietse: Are you aiming at making Opera fully W3C compliant to the standards set by the W3C consortium?
Jon Sietse, the W3C standards are very important to us and we will strive to be 100% compatible.

dohz asks: How do you respond to criticisms about Opera?
Jon dohz, I try to find the core of the problem and fix it. Sometimes it is a question of people having different requirements. We then try to make it so that the user can tailor Opera to their needs.

Nixer asks: is Opera going to open local offices or something like that in countries where it’s the most popular (Poland or Japan for example)?
Jon Nixer, Opera already has an office in Japan. We also have offices in the US, China, Sweden and Norway. Expect the list to get longer in the future.

Joshtek asks: Have you ever updated the Opera entry at Wikipedia?
Jon Joshtek, no I have not worked on that entry.

Jeba asks Q>strange question but how much Opera is optimized for people with physical disablity like partially blind, etc.
Jon Jeba, this is core to our values. Opera has, for example, support for full page zooming. When you add ERA, voice compatibility, single-key short cuts and the like, I am sure you see that we are doing a lot. We aim to do more, though.

magetoo asks: Do you see any danger in adding more features? It seems that what attracts many is the small size and the speed. Myself, I never bothered to upgrade from version 6, for example.
Jon Magetoo, you really should upgrade to 8. The goal with 8 is to have a simple interface, where extra features are hidden. Opera 8 is a lot faster than 6. So, no I am not afraid of adding features. We aim to innovate. However, we aim to do that in a small package and you as a user should be able to choose which features you want to use in an easy way.

ScouseBR asks: Opera tried selling boxed copies in Japan. Should that be expected in other countries as well?
Jon ScouseBR, you can buy Opera in a lot of stores in the US as well…

yikes asks: How do you feel about big companies like google, not supporting opera one bit - gzip compression, gmail etc? Thanks
Jon yikes, we are talking to Google and others and I am sure we will be seeing more Opera support from Google and other major companies in the future.

KimmoA asks: What does the Swedish office do, and where in Sweden is it located? I wanted to apply for work at Opera Software, but moving to Norway felt too unreal…
Jon KimmoA… I think you will actually find Norway is a nice place… However, we also have offices in Link?ping and Gothenburg in Sweden. We do development in these offices.

Several people have asked about plug-in or extension support in Opera.
Jon I think we have some lovely ways to add new functionality to Opera. User JS is one such way. I would like to encourange people to try it.

Joshtek asks: Why was it called Opera?
Jon Joshtek, we spent a lot of time discussing the name. We wanted an international name that is easy to remember. We believe the Opera name works as independent of whether people like Opera music or not, everybody understands the amount of work that goes into making a good Opera. Later on we found out that Opera in fact means work, which makes it even more appropriate.
Jon Also, Opera is multimedia and so is the Web.

Words asks: Opera Mini is going down a storm with Palm and Palm-Phone users. Will there be an official Palm OS release?
Jon Words, yes we noticed. We hadn’t really tested much with PalmOS devices, but I guess we have to now.

raiXer asks: will there ever be a real useragent customization for every page instead the very limiting ua.ini? One that absolutely doesn’t include Opera in the string.
Jon raiXer, ua.ini does allow you to hide the fact that you are using Opera. I would recommend, though, that you do the opposite!

dohz asks: It seems that we aren’t hearing too many concrete details about future Opera version, couldn’t you release just a little since it’s such a special day?
Jon dohz, you know, you do not want to peek into the packages before Christmas…

manxstar asks: Will there be a 64 bit version of Opera available any time soon?
Jon manxstar, we have it in the labs. This is really demand driven.

blurpy asks: What kind of project managment is used when developing Opera? (like RUP, MSF, XP)
Jon blurpy, I am afraid I cannot tell you too much there.

Stephan1 asks: due to the “revival” of BeOS thru Zeta, will there be further development for this platform?
Jon Stephan1, we will continue to evaluate what to do, but there are no current plans. There is a lot of requests for Opera on a lot of platforms and although the team is a lot bigger, we still have to make some tough choices.

Jon Thanks a lot for all your questions! It has been great chatting with you! I am very happy so many have come here today and it is my promise that we will continue to work hard on providing you with an even better browser experience. Now, time for H?kon…. Bye!

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Thanks Opera for this wonderfull oppertunity.

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