An ambitious volunteer software-development experiment has so far been a flop for Norway's Opera Software, makers of the upstart Opera Web browser. Late last week, the company said that efforts to write Macintosh and Linux versions of the cult-hit browser have failed.
"The initial team [of developers] did not perform to expectations. They are out," reported Opera's Helmar Rudolph of the Mac OS version, on the company's Web site.
"We are currently busy shifting the project to another team, which will delay things a bit, but nevertheless, our commitment to a Mac OS version is there," said Rudolph, who leads the company's volunteer programming initiative.
The company also said that Opera versions for the Amiga, OS/2, and Linux platforms would also be late. The Amiga version of Opera has been put on hold, the OS/2 port is late, and Linux programmers working alongside the Mac team has "failed" as well, Rudolph reported.
Created with a "less is more" philosophy, the Opera Web browser scored an underground hit with Web aficionados as an alternative to Navigator and Explorer. Opera demands less memory than the bigger browsers, runs on older computers, and allows the end user to extensively customize the interface.
But so far the program only runs on Windows-based machines. Project Magic aimed to develop alternate versions of Opera for other computers. The company invited small teams of software developers to help build the software.
After several delays, the company reported that the plan was being overhauled. Not asking users to pay for the software before it was developed was deemed the cause for the project's failure.
"Please don't shout and scream," Rudolph told Macintosh and Linux fans on the company's Web site. "It won't help anyway -- just send us some positive energy that we get this on track this time 'round."
Opera spokeswoman Sandra Thorbjornsen said the company plans to rely less on volunteers, putting more internal effort into making sure at least three other versions of the program are delivered as soon as possible. A Mac version tops the company's priority list, followed by BeOS and Linux ports.
One volunteer software development pioneer said that Opera was stumbling with its effort because the company did not release its source code.
"If they wanted to tap into all that enthusiasm, opening up the source is the only way I know how to do that," said Eric Raymond, whose pioneering work in open-source development helped spur Netscape into freeing the source code of its Communicator browser.
Closed development doesn't "fire people up," he said. "It doesn't make them get out of bed in the morning.
However, other factors impacting the project may include Mozilla, Netscape's own volunteer browser development effort based on the Communicator source code that was released in March 1998.
"Mozilla is sucking up a lot of energy," Raymond said. "It may be the energy that would have gone to Opera.... I bet there are a number of Mozilla people who otherwise would have been Opera developers."
But in his Project Magic update, Rudolph explains that the project may have simply been too large from the beginning.
"The entire project was very ambitious for starters," Rudolph wrote. "Not even Microsoft or Netscape have done anything comparable."
