Opera Founder Jon S. von Tetzchner Resigns Over Differences With Board - Opera Browser Usage and Support forum at WebmasterWorld - WebmasterWorld

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Opera Founder Jon S. von Tetzchner Resigns Over Differences With Board

Brett_Tabke

12:34 am on Jun 25, 2011 (gmt 0)

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In an email to Opera employees, von Tetzchner said that “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.”

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.

SevenCubed

1:47 am on Jun 25, 2011 (gmt 0)

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In the full article the writer says... "It's unclear what values Opera's founder and the board disagreed upon". Yet Jon made it crystal clear in his his statement... "I feel the Board and Management is more quarterly focused than me". Translated, to heck with product quality and end users, they wanted to concentrate on money. Kudos to Jon for standing by his values.

Leosghost

2:08 am on Jun 25, 2011 (gmt 0)

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I do hope this doesn't mean I'm going to have to put up with something second best for my main browser soon, the others I only open nowadays for testing. :(

I do wish he had not left...

Sgt_Kickaxe

8:41 am on Jun 25, 2011 (gmt 0)

Drama, good for short term publicity but bad for long term trust.

I still find it odd that there needs to be a board at all for any piece of code. It's just code, ya know? I suppose it's required by Wall St but a 6th grade geek can produce stuff equally as effective sometimes, the suits just don't make the product better.

Meh, marketing, leadership, product development... I suppose big brands need suits but it still just doesn't feel right. I keep expecting to see a private entrepreneur move in with open source and take away a big piece of the pie and guess what... now is when they'd do it to Opera, in the midst of a shake-up.

graeme_p

9:33 am on Jun 25, 2011 (gmt 0)

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It might be just code, but can you name any substantial piece of code this complex that is produced without an organisation?

Look at the other rendering engines:

KHTML: left behind by its corporately backed fork, webkit, and is, in any case, backed by KDE e.V.
Webkit: Apple, Google, and at one time Nokia
Gecko: the Mozilla Foundation

A small open source project can be carried out be managed in an informal way, but once it gets past a certain size you find a formal organisation always appears. It may be a non-profit, it may continue to rely on volunteers, but it still imposes formal decision making.

JAB Creations

8:56 am on Jun 26, 2011 (gmt 0)

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What needs to be asked is if the board is composed of people who are both business savvy and well weathered coders who could or even better do directly contribute to Opera's software? If not then they aren't the kind of people who should be sitting at the board for a software company, period.

- John

pkaster

3:38 pm on Jun 26, 2011 (gmt 0)

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@SevenCubed

In the full article the writer says... "It's unclear what values Opera's founder and the board disagreed upon". Yet Jon made it crystal clear in his his statement... "I feel the Board and Management is more quarterly focused than me". Translated, to heck with product quality and end users, they wanted to concentrate on money. Kudos to Jon for standing by his values.

I don't know how you came up with that translation. It says "more quarterly focused," but what does that even mean? That the company doesn't have any long term strategies? That's just wrong. Check out the PDF on this [opera.com] page.

Also, keep in mind that Jon hasn't been CEO since late 2009/early 2010 (I think the last version he released as CEO was 10.5). He hasn't had any real power since then, I think (he was only employeed as an advisor or something like that). Do you feel that the product quality has become worse since then?

Also, wasn't the new CEO handpicked by Jon himself? And hasn't the new CEO been with the company for many years? And isn't it mostly the same management today as a year and a half ago? You know, the same people who worked under Jon? The only recent high-profile departure I can recall right now is the head of PR, which happened recently and apparently amicably [my.opera.com].

Some people seem to read a lot into a statement like that (which hasn't even been verified as being real). Did they all look at the actual situation?

np2003

3:21 am on Jun 29, 2011 (gmt 0)

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The latest version of Opera shows that it's going the other way. While other browsers like Firefox/IE/Chrome aim to load up faster, Opera takes much longer than previous versions (e.g. v10 or below). Maybe why he quit? They are making opera bloatware.

SevenCubed

3:26 am on Jun 29, 2011 (gmt 0)

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@pkaster - I just came across your reply now. "Quarterly Focused" is inside lingo for "finances". Jon had an eloquent way of saying so much with a few words.

pkaster

8:10 pm on Jun 29, 2011 (gmt 0)

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@SevenCubed, Of course "more quarterly focused" has to do with finances, but it still doesn't give you any real information.

@np2003

The latest version of Opera shows that it's going the other way. While other browsers like Firefox/IE/Chrome aim to load up faster, Opera takes much longer than previous versions (e.g. v10 or below). Maybe why he quit? They are making opera bloatware.

I'm not sure which version you are using, but 11.5 seems to start up faster, load pages faster, and use less memory than older versions. Where did you get the idea that it is not Opera's goal to be faster?