My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

http://trondblog.tumblr.com/post/49192504201/so-my-former-employer-opera-software-has-filed-a

by sverrejoh • 13 years ago

475 233 13 years ago

trondblog.tumblr.com

louthy3• 13 years ago

For somebody who doesn't want to talk about the case, he sure does talk about the case an awful lot!

hkmurakami7• 13 years ago

Might be because there's definitely an element of "the court of public opinion" for these two consumer product companies (and given Opera's stance, OP must feel some sense of loyalty/responsibility to defending Mozilla's name and public image)

edit: Correction by magclock. Mozilla (so far) isn't directly involved in the suit. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5629534

louthy3• 13 years ago

Quite, but one of the reasons for not talking about a case is to not give the opposition any ammunition. It's best to just keep quiet until the case is over.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

magclock6• 13 years ago

One consumer product company and one one-man consulting company. Mozilla is not a part of this, according to the articles.

DannyBee4• 13 years ago

To the last point: Mozilla not being involved directly in public is not surprising (unless you hold Mozilla to a higher standard, which some folks do).

It's pretty typical that what happens is the corporation gives some initial advice, and tries to find you good counsel. They basically have to get out, because the corporate employment lawyer does not work for the employee, and there is usually a clear conflict of interest between representing both employee and corporation interests at the same time.

Since Mozilla was not sued here, Mozilla may pay for his defense (depending on factors), but direct intervention usually does not happen.

The rest goes to your "public opinion" element. Mozilla may publicly support him, of course, but in most cases, associating yourself with a lawsuit is often lose lose, even in cases where it appears to be defending a good guy (Imagine if today they support him, and tomorrow it turns out he was lying).

They may just be hoping their name doesn't get dragged through the mud here. I haven't seen any public release from Opera accusing Mozilla of bad behavior, but if Mozilla comes out and says something very supportive, Opera may just do that. My guess is staying out of it publicly seems the best way to accomplish that.

suyash6• 13 years ago

Exactly, and there might be arguments that he has made on this blog that might be used against him in the court of law. He may not have realized that, that is why they always recommend to shut up and let the lawyers talk when a case like this is going on.

ww520• 13 years ago

I don't know the merit of the suit and from the sound of it I don't like their trade secret suit.

With that said, I think it's a very good strategy for Trond to go public with this. He is one person and the other party is a corporation. It will be a lopsided fight in the court. Even if he would win in court, it will have cost him dearly. This is what these kinds of suit about - intimidation. But by going public, he will be able to get public support and Opera is risking eroding their brand and good will. At the end of the day, a cold calculation on Opera's part to see how much branding they are losing due to the suit will convince them to drop it.

jamesaguilar• 13 years ago

I hope he has checked this with a lawyer and that he is not giving his adversary ammunition. Good luck.

hkmurakami7• 13 years ago

I am honestly surprised that Mozilla's legal counsel has not stepped in already to offer advice and guidance. (this post is something that such an intervention most likely would have stopped)

nawitus2• 13 years ago

Note that it's a court in Norway, not USA, which makes a rather large difference.

DannyBee4• 13 years ago

They probably are, just not directly to him, but to his lawyers.

At least, for the US-side lawyers (I'm presuming Mozilla's US lawyers are on this one) due to conflict-of-interest rules, they would not be able to step in to offer advice and guidance to him directly, because the representation would probably be adverse to Mozilla's interests.

The rule in most states (based on the ABA model rules) is " A concurrent conflict of interest exists if: (1) the representation of one client will be directly adverse to another client; or (2) there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the lawyer's responsibilities to another client , a former client or a third person or by a personal interest of the lawyer."

Even if you don't believe #1 applies, #2 definitely applies.

Norway may have different rules, but the local Mozilla lawyers are bound by their local state bars, where this rule (or some variant) would apply. I've avoided discussion of whether this conflict could be consented to by him, etc, as it varies from state state

This of course, only applies directly. They can and probably are talking with his lawyers, just not advising him directly.

patmcguire• 13 years ago

This sounds like it was written by a lawyer, or at least run by one.

lawnchair_larry• 13 years ago

Wouldn't it be uncommon for a lawyer to allow him to say anything at all? As far as the lawyer's job is concerned, letting the client talk can never help, it can only hurt. I know this is the case for criminal cases, but I'm not sure if it applies to civil cases.

LocalPCGuy• 13 years ago

It is possible he wanted to get some of his side out before being potentially muzzled in a plea deal of some sort with an NDA. Definitely sounds like the post was run past a lawyer to vet it before being posted.

hso9791• 13 years ago

He is obviously concerned to keep his good name.

Assuming he can back up his narrative with facts in court, I cannot imagine Opera has a leg to stand on. If he followed up the conversation with the CEO with a clear email, then there is documentation in place. That the CEO hasn't responded should have no bearing, as an oral agreement is considered as binding as a contract in Norway.

cmstoken• 13 years ago

IANAL: So here's my advice: Get a lawyer.

malgorithms4• 13 years ago

I wish I knew someone who used Opera so I could ask them to start boycotting it.

suyash6• 13 years ago

You can still do it, translate this blog post in Chinese and post it on Weibo. Opera Mobile is big in asia.

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

Or translate it into Russian. A lot of former Soviet bloc countries have high usage of Opera.

seanmcdirmid3• 13 years ago

Really? This is quite news to me; I don't think many people are still stuck with feature phones on China Mobile, at least in the big cities.

magclock6• 13 years ago

Hey Chris, good to know for any consulting companies (like the OP's) that okcupid/IAC might want to hire! It's nice that you're not so concerned about trade secrets!

malgorithms4• 13 years ago

I can assure you I'd never sue someone for stealing trade secrets. Whatever "trade secrets" means in software, anyway.

jmillikin• 13 years ago

  > Hey Chris, good to know for any consulting companies
  > (like the OP's) that okcupid/IAC might want to hire!
  > It's nice that you're not so concerned about trade secrets!

Snideness is unbecoming.

A more straightforward way to write your comment would be "Since you believe that the OP did not divulge trade secrets and are opposed to apparently frivolous legal action, you must not care about protecting your own trade secrets."

The problems with this position should be obvious.

liquidise3• 13 years ago

Right, because justice tends to be a one-sided story. Let's be clear that all you are basing your opinion on is an abridged, single viewpoint account of events.

There is such a rush to bless this guys post and chastise opera in these comments it is astounding. I don't understand the complete disregard for a balanced consideration of the facts.

malgorithms4• 13 years ago

Unfortunately, justice is a one-sided story when large companies sue individuals or tiny companies at large corporate magnitudes. A defense alone can be financially devastating. Second, sadly, it's for "trade secrets" in the the world of software. Come on!

I (and again, this is personal, lest someone drag my former companies into this) stand by my statements, as long as this lawsuit exists.

If the basic facts themselves are wrong, then of course I will back off my statement. If Opera is not suing an individual for ~$3.4MM USD for divulging trade secrets, then great.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

Please tell us what is so "balanced" about a large company suing an individual for millions of dollars.

doktrin2• 13 years ago

I agree with you in principle, but I have to admit I'm not sure what justification Opera could have for this type of vendetta-esque suit.

Frankly, I'm surprised all around. Lawsuits in Norway are, by and large, less frivolous and for appreciably lower sums of money than in the US. I have no idea what they hope to gain from what is already a PR disaster, nor what court will entertain this suit.

Osiris2• 13 years ago

I use Opera on the desktop and on my mobile devices. So does my wife. I'm not going to stop using it because of a lawsuit, let alone for one that has not had any facts proven in a court.

I really don't understand why people who don't know the facts of cases like this (i.e., you don't have an inside knowledge of the nitty-gritty), jump to conclusions to readily. Aren't we supposed to be a community of rational, thoughtful people that use facts and evidence to backup opinions?

Do you stop using Google products when they get sued by various government agencies for things like collecting WiFi data? Why doesn't Google get the benefit of your doubt but not other companies?

latj• 13 years ago

There are many many many many many people who have stopped using Google products for various political and policy reasons. You know this right?

wpietri6• 13 years ago

What I know from this and the news articles is that Opera has sued a former employee for $3.4 million because they think he gave secret information to a nonprofit. The guy hasn't worked there full time since 2006, but Opera has decided to seriously fuck up his life.

What more do I need to know? Google has a thousand times as many employees, but when's the last time they sued one of them like this?

Were I in Opera's shoes, even if the ex-employee had blabbed something important to a competitor, I would say, "fuck that jerk" and keep on trying to make something awesome. Having ideas doesn't make companies great. It's making great things. A lawsuit is a waste of time and money for everybody involved.

mixmastamyk• 13 years ago

Unfortunately facebook is filled to the brim with outright false postings and millions of people jumping to conclusions to argue based on them.

Only know this because I got into the habit of googling when I see something fishy. Usually takes 30 seconds to find out ~90% of them are flat-out false. Shame there's no downvote button.

fakeer3• 13 years ago

Facts?

I've recently developed some (parts) of Android framework for my current employer (which is as of now unique to this OEM phones) and I am seriously looking for a job change for various reasons. Now if my new employer hires me for the same role and I am asked to do the same thing again(and I'll mention this work on my resume and interview), I'll do it. Otherwise, what am I gonna do? Make railway engines for them or rockets or weave yards of fabric?

You are right, its not very prudent to make comments on sth sub judice.

But, let's not forget what kind of a lawsuit we are talking about here. As far as I can see it's a court case where an former employer(contracted job offer, not permanent) wants the employee in question not to do the job he knows to do.

>Do you stop using Google products....

Well, honestly many people do. And if I am not again seeing demons (:P ) many people who moved to FastMail for the biggest reasons - "privacy, pure email as in firm's passion for good email service"[1] - may see sth in it and may not find suh an Opera(which owns FastMail) to be the kind of company they thought was [1]. Again this is a far fetched speculation but at least I'm giving serious thoughts to it :-) (and I do not use Opera).

coldtea7• 13 years ago

>I use Opera on the desktop and on my mobile devices. So does my wife.

OK. We just need to find the other 10.

Why do people get out of their way to use some marginal browser when there better both proprietary and open source options available?

Just to add to the web another slightly incompatible rendering engine? Or do they really like the gimmicky extras that Opera offers that much?

billforsternz• 13 years ago

I think he was making a playful joke at Opera's expense, rather than seriously suggesting a boycott.

lostlogin4• 13 years ago

I for one have started shedding the Google products. Im slowly switching to alternatives. I find Google creepy company and don't like being sold. I have 2 products left to drop.

nollidge• 13 years ago

> Aren't we supposed to be a community of rational, thoughtful people that use facts and evidence to backup opinions?

HA! You must be new here.

ttrreeww2• 13 years ago

I have stopped using Opera, in fact, I will now actively discourage it from being used by others.

duncan_bayne• 13 years ago

I'm using Fastmail, so I'm essentially an Opera customer. I'll wait to see what comes of this lawsuit before deciding whether to continue with them.

(Annoyingly, I'd just changed over to Fastmail from Gmail. I hope Opera is in the right here otherwise I'll have to change again ...)

weareconvo• 13 years ago

Maybe they feel that if they sue enough people, they'll earn enough money to stay afloat for another year.

tonyedgecombe• 13 years ago

Maybe the bigger problem for Opera will be attracting talent. I'd think twice before working for a company that had a history of suing its employees.

simplyinfinity• 13 years ago

maybe you should think about not spilling company trade secrets to competitors. I'm not trying do defend Opera, but if an (ex) employee ( be it contractor or not) revealed or used the same thing that he developed for my company while i was paying him , i would probably sue him too. Now ... in this case there are a lot of missing facts, but in the general case, when it's about a lot of money , i think any sane CEO would decide to sue.

papsosouid2• 13 years ago

I wish I could read the comments here without thinking "wow, the quality of reddit really has declined a lot", and then realizing "holy shit, this is HN".

suyash6• 13 years ago

It's ironic that both the companies which are proponet of non-profit open source software are engaged in this battle. Opera's legal counsel need to reassess this case, I don't think they can get $3.4million from this guy, what is the point of going after him?

hkmurakami7• 13 years ago

I'm just hoping that the suit doesn't extend its tentacles to either Mozilla's product(s) or its finances.

TheCoelacanth2• 13 years ago

AFAIK, Opera is in no way a proponent of non-profit or open source software. They are a publicly traded for-profit company and their main product is proprietary.

suyash6• 13 years ago

Ok, thanks for the correction.

andreastt• 13 years ago

Except that Opera has historically been one of the most significant proponents for open standards, the WHATWG, and opening the web to people without internet access. One should also not forget that Opera is now contributing, and have already landed several patches, to the Chromium and Blink projects.

joenathan• 13 years ago

Opera has been for profit and proprietary from the get go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Software

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_%28web_browser%29

edit: here is a good excerpt

"Up to this point, the Opera browser was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period ended. But version 5.0 (released in 2000) saw the end of the trial period requirement. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying advertisements to users without a license,[8] which was commonly criticized as a barrier to gaining market share. In newer versions, the user was allowed a choice of generic graphical banners or text-based targeted advertisements provided by Google based upon the page being viewed."

hkmurakami7• 13 years ago

For Mozilla itself, other than possibly being painted in a somewhat negative light, do they have any chance of becoming the "co-defendant" in this suit? (They'll surely be called as a witness)

magclock6• 13 years ago

I think he meant to write "My company's former customer".

suyash6• 13 years ago

That makes a big difference, he can be prevented from personal liability in that case and can declare bankruptcy.

gcp• 13 years ago

Depends on a lot of things, really, like his company's structure and the relevant laws.

eliasmacpherson4• 13 years ago

I hadn't thought of that. Not only do Opera's direct employees need to watch their steps - but contractors too. It's almost as if they want people to go in, collect their paychecks and offer up nothing above average.

Androidmeda8• 13 years ago

Do Opera employees have to watch their steps to a greater degree than employees in other companies? I think that if you stole trade secrets from any other company and sold them to a competitor, they would sue you as well.

All you need to do to avoid being sued is to not sell trade secrets to competitors.

gwgarry• 13 years ago

incredibly lame thing to do to former employees. if you can't innovate, sue!

magclock6• 13 years ago

The thing they can't agree about did not happen while this guy was an employee of Opera Software. He was offering his consulting services as a commercial company.

mrtron• 13 years ago

This is probably a terrible idea to publish!

wesray• 13 years ago

Opera, you are dead to me.

sigzero• 13 years ago

Yes, because what he wrote is the absolute truth? We have no idea if that is the case.

wpietri6• 13 years ago

Well, we know that the suit exists: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/29/opera-claims-former...

And really, that's all that he says in that note.

magclock6• 13 years ago

I think the site you were trying to open in your organic browser is called reddit.com, Sir. This way...

baby2• 13 years ago

People are quickly jumping to conclusions here.

crummy• 13 years ago

Now let's hear Opera's side of the story.

baby2• 13 years ago

This is the wisest thing to do. We have no idea what's really happening and this blog post doesn't really tell much (and it shouldn't if he doesn't want to give too much information to his now enemies' layers).

jussij• 13 years ago

Or better still, let the court hear both sides of the story and let them decide.

wpietri6• 13 years ago

Their lawyer's (content-free) statement is in this article: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/29/opera-claims-former...

nick2021• 13 years ago

So let me get this straight, Opera is suing you because they think you gave away secrets. It appears they have no hard evidence, no emails, no phone conversations, just someone talking about ideas. I would personally laugh at them and think about all of the money I would get when they lose.

Also Opera needs your millions so that they can continue to support a piece of software that no one uses. (Chrome FTW!)

Ixiaus2• 13 years ago

That is a myopic statement. Get off the bro-horse for a second. Opera has a lot of users! Their software, while not oss is pretty damn good!

Whether Opera is being evil or not we don't know and can't know from one filed lawsuits, speculation, and public retort so stop jumping on the bandwagon.

nawitus2• 13 years ago

Opera is definitely "evil" these days.

papaver• 13 years ago

pretty sad to here this from opera. i've been an avid opera user for the last 10 years. i haven't seen as much innovation in any other browser like ive seen in opera. from mouse gestures to tab grouping to the closed tabs list to a million other features that were first in opera and slowly migrated to all the other browsers. sure websites sometimes didn't render properly and no one ever cared to properly support it, but still they were always on the cutting edge feature wise.

although this doesn't change my stance on using opera, i hope this results in a ousting of the current ceo.

Androidmeda8• 13 years ago

Why would the current CEO be ousted? Why are you mad at him instead of the guy who allegedly stole Opera's business secret and sold them to a competitor?

dobbsbob• 13 years ago

You and the guys who work at Xenforo can have a my old employer is suing me party. Curious, what idiot in management at Opera decided to MITM attack https traffic on mobile platform for "optimizations"?

dsl• 13 years ago

Opera Mini can't render HTML (only OPML), so they have to make the SSL connection on your behalf from the server. This isn't exactly a MITM attack, and from what I remember last time I played with it, they even warn you of the implications the first time you try to view secure content.

Opera Mobile and Desktop never mess with SSL, period.

fern• 13 years ago

As far as I know, the one making the accusations has to present proof. Am I wrong? Is it so simple that saying "Oh, by the way, I believe he stole my idea." is enough to sue someone?

No one would (Or "should" maybe) be so stupid as to go for that.

wpietri6• 13 years ago

That is enough to sue someone. It's not enough to win, but it's definitely enough to sue.

There's some logic behind that. To prove claims like that, you may need the power of the court to get documents or witness statements under oath. The process is know as discovery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_%28law%29

Unfortunately, it also means that the party being sued has to suddenly put up a bunch of cash to pay to defend the lawsuit. In situations where one side has a lot more money than the other, like when a corporation sues an individual, that can be ruinous. So it can be an effective method of bullying somebody.

claudius3• 13 years ago

> Unfortunately, it also means that the party being sued has to suddenly put up a bunch of cash to pay to defend the lawsuit.

In any decent legal system, you can get publicly funded lawyers if you are unable to pay for your own, and if you win, you get your costs back anyways.

msandford• 13 years ago

Nope, that's not how it works. You simply have to ALLEGE that the other party did something wrong via a lawsuit and then it's up to the courts to sort it out.

Intimidation lawsuits are easy to make happen as the cost of prosecution for a large company is small, where as the cost of defense for an individual is large. So all that has to happen is the big company makes legal arguments that will take the judge some time to catch on to and BLAM you've bankrupted (or worse) the defendant. Once he has no money, he's forced to settle. Intimidation lawsuit success!

nly2• 13 years ago

I find it interesting that Opera are trying to claw back revenue on old innovations while seemingly stagnating.

The rendering engine they're dumping in favour of WebKit is fast and slick. The number of new user visible features and the rate of releases has seemed sluggish to me for what must be 4 or 5 years.

purple_platypus3• 13 years ago

That's part of why they're dropping Presto for Blink, I think. One of the blogs I read on it mentioned that a lot of time and money was going into keeping Presto up to date with what developers were doing (such as ignoring anything not webkit on mobile). Switching to Blink will give them more resources to pump into UX.

Androidmeda8• 13 years ago

What old innovations are they trying to claw back revenue from? Wasn't the disputed object actually a fairly new innovation?

yekko• 13 years ago

Time to uninstall Opera from my computer.

dkrich• 13 years ago

I'll admit that I am no IP expert but I'm told that winning an IP suit is impossibly difficult and extremely expensive. To pursue it, you really better believe that you have a tremendous amount of upside (ie, deep pockets on the other side) and that you have a very strong case.

You might say that they are "just suing for $3.4 million" and that they might settle out of court, but I'd bet that unless Opera has a really strong in-house counsel in this area, this whole story will evaporate pretty soon. Usually things like this start out because one party is pissed-off and then once cooler heads prevail they realize it's just not worth it and move on.

Not sure what the laws are or where Opera is headquartered, though so IP laws may be vastly different.

zurn• 13 years ago

Norway, and how different depends on what you're comparing with. Probably not too expensive for his means.

devcpp2• 13 years ago

They probably just want to tell their employees that sharing "trade secrets" won't be tolerated. Nothing better for that than a lawsuit with ridiculous amounts of money. It might fail but it sends a strong message.

Not that I don't despise this kind of practices...

sleepyhead2• 13 years ago

Actually $3.4m is not that little in Norwegian court. Amounts paid out from lawsuits are a lot less compared to what is normal in the states.

Also the judges here have very little knowledge about IT so I agree that winning the case will be difficult for Opera. My previous company had a lawsuit against a competitor and lost largely due to the judge having no knowledge of IT.

Androidmeda8• 13 years ago

I don't think this is a regular IP suit. It's more like a breach of contract or something. Opera likely hadn't legally protected the features/designs that were stolen, which would be why the theft would be such a bad thing for them.

It's been a year since the video that triggered the lawsuit was published. I doubt that someone at Opera has been pissed off for a year and done this without thinking through it at all.

lesbaker• 13 years ago

Honest question: How would Opera Software prove in court that Trond Hansen stole browser ideas/feature concepts (if I'm reading it correctly)? Subpoena Mozilla's emails? My gut says if this goes to court it will devolve into "he said/she said".

Androidmeda8• 13 years ago

It seems pretty straightforward. Trond Hansen was apparently paid to do some consultancy design work for Opera. After accepting his paycheck and moving on, he decided to take the design(s) he made while at Opera, and give it to Mozilla.

This doesn't sound like a very clever thing to do. It sounds very illegal indeed.

eliasmacpherson4• 13 years ago

Depends on the contract he signed, and where he signed it. For example, some contracts stipulate all work inside and outside of work hours belongs to the employer, most others don't.

tipiirai• 13 years ago

Fuck Opera. Their software sucks. Now even more.

Tomis023• 13 years ago

Actually Opera's software the one that sucks the least in the browser market. Sorry.

smiddereens• 13 years ago

I've tried to get into Opera every year for over the past decade. While I admit that they introduced many innovative features, they could never get them "right" and their UI was always ugly and unpleasant to work with. If anything Opera should be suing this guy for that.

stormen• 13 years ago

In Norway, it's usual for employees to sign intellectual copyright waivers for all work done for their employers. If Trond developed parts of the CB browser and/or other intellectual property whilst working for Opera (during office hours), they could easily claim - and probably win - a case that parts and/or all of the CB browser rightfully belonged to Opera Software. I haven't read their lawsuit, I'm just saying that the case might be more complicated that one person's blog post.

There was an (in parts) similar case to this one in Norway about Nettby.no, the so-called "Fredrik Kristiansen vs Dagbladet" (Google it if you're interested).

Deestan• 13 years ago

> In Norway, it's usual for employees to sign intellectual copyright waivers for all work done for their employers.

Yes, but that does not seem to be what this is about. On the surface it seems he was re-using good ideas rather than copying over actual work.

The nettby case was about outright copying source code.

Androidmeda8• 13 years ago

Re-using ideas/features he was paid for at Opera? Doesn't that make those Opera's property?

julianz• 13 years ago

Regardless of the facts in this case, this screams to me that Opera is fucked, they know it, and will grab anything they can on the way down. What other conclusion could you possibly draw?

probably_wrong• 13 years ago

> What other conclusion could you possibly draw?

Without facts? None. But if you want some speculation: Opera's interface is consistently listed as one of the preferred features for its users (if not the preferred feature). And now a guy just gives away for free what would have been their most valuable asset (assuming they were on the right, but again, apparently we don't like facts). They would be pretty incompetent at their job if they didn't sue the guy.

Androidmeda8• 13 years ago

It just so happens that Opera announced the financial results for the 1st quarter today:

http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/search.do?messageId=326699

At the same time, they published a report on usage of their mobile browsers:

http://business.opera.com/smw/2013/03/

Record profits and revenues, and 20 million new users from February to March. Doesn't exactly look like a company in trouble to me.

But maybe you know something I don't.

fmax30• 13 years ago

I am pretty sure that the negative PR that this lawsuit will bring more damaging to Opera than any trade secrets.

Tomis023• 13 years ago

Probably that was the intention.

iagomr• 13 years ago

You so naughty

tpainton• 13 years ago

I would say the absolute worst thing he could have done was write this article. I'm sure his attorney will agree.

kriro• 13 years ago

Do providers of other browsers that use tabs have some sort of licensing deal with Opera? Seems like they are suing over trade secrets based on Firefox tabs?

Why are they suing the guy and not Mozilla, why are there no lawsuits against other companies that provide browsers?

Feels like a FU-cause-we-can type of deal.

sleepyhead2• 13 years ago

It is not based on normal tabs (which Opera was first to introduce to a browser). Well actually we don't know the specific yet but the blog post says "a Mozilla employee presents among others a feature named Search Tabs".

Androidmeda8• 13 years ago

> Why are they suing the guy and not Mozilla, why are there no lawsuits against other companies that provide browsers?

Probably because this isn't about features that already exist, but about features that Opera was working on and hadn't even made public yet. And this guy sold them to Mozilla or something.

Opera never had problems with other browsers copying them once the features were actually out, but in this case Opera's secret features were sold to Mozilla before Opera even had a version of their own.

ttrreeww2• 13 years ago

I'm also leaving Opera for good now.

drderidder• 13 years ago

BoycottOpera.JS :-)

  if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Opera') !== -1) {
    alert("Hello Opera User! I encourage you to uninstall Opera and use Mozilla Firefox instead. Click OK to learn why.");
    document.location = "http://trondblog.tumblr.com/post/49192504201/so-my-former-employer-opera-software-has-filed-a"
  }

</script>

stretchwithme• 13 years ago

Just because something is a trade secret doesn't mean someone else can't think of it. That's the risk you run when you don't patent an idea.

a-non-ymouse• 13 years ago

Opera employee here. Anon for obvious reasons XD

Didn't work there when Trond did so I can't speak to his moral standing, but there's been talk around the water cooler about the lawsuit.

Several people who worked with Trond in 2009-2010 (and even before 2006) are still here and the impression I'm getting is that they're annoyed with Trond for taking all the credit for the work and ignoring all the work they put into the stuff he later handed to Mozilla.

He pretends to be the lone innovator but the truth is he got plenty of help. He took a healthy paycheck from Opera and then turned around and handed the results over to Mozilla.

My 2¢: He's going to lose the lawsuit.

My former employer Opera Software has filed a lawsuit against me

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