OStatic

Ever since Google unveiled its open source Chrome browser, I and others have been wondering what its stance toward Mozilla Firefox will be going forward. Firefox, of course, has proven to be the little engine that could among really ubiquitous open source applications, with more than 20 percent market share now. Firefox has also been subsidized by Google for years, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, and Google recently pledged to continue that funding through 2011. Still, there are some signs that Google's long-term plan may be to promote Chrome at what could be the expense of Firefox. Is Firefox's future in peril?

Stephen Shankland from CNet has an interesting item up today about the very first non-Google coder getting an invitation to add code directly to the open source browser project. In a blog post, Evan Martin, a software engineer at Google, nominates University of Warsaw computer science student Pawel Hajdan Jr. to move from contributor --submitting patches and the like to the Chrome team--to committer, working directly on the browser's code. The nomination provides a glimpse of how high-profile open source projects truly treat openness.

NetApplications is out with a couple of new metrics of market share for operating systems and browsers, and the news is good for open source. Topping their findings, Microsoft Windows' market share has dropped below 90 percent for the first time in its measurements. The share erosion is largely attributed to increased interest in the Mac platform, but Linux is cited as on the rise as well. In addition, for the first time since it launched its metrics, NetApplications' data shows Firefox's market share topping 20 percent.

Google Chrome and the beta version 3.1 of Firefox have been much in the news for the neck-and-neck speeds they're showing in performance tests, but one of the clear advantages of Firefox remains the many outstanding extensions available for it. Now, in answer to many questions on the topic, Google programmer Aaron Boodman has put up a post confirming work on add-ons for Chrome, including a link to a design document for proposed extensions. It looks like many Firefox extension developers will be able to easily deliver their tools for Chrome. Check out more here.