Firefox: The Better Alternative
In poking around to see what people are saying about Zotero, I’ve come across a couple of nitpicks about the Firefox dependency. What about my Internet Explorer users?
, these bloggers ask.
As a former Word and Endnote and IE (for the Mac) user, let me remind people: Firefox and Zotero and a whole host of other free software tools and applications are all about freeing users from the shackles of bad, proprietary, software. Firefox, in particular, is an example of all that is right about open source development; not only free, but superior to the Microsoft alternative.
Moreover, tools like Zotero are built in the best of open source traditions: the code is open and free (well, will be once they take it public), and it uses open standards wherever possible. It is designed and built in a way that is demonstrably different than the closed worlds of Endnote, RefWorks, and Word. You want to take the code—the SQL schema, all the really useful Javascript stuff, the CSS, etc.—and create some new solution? No problem; just do it.
Finally, instead of simply assuming your users have some sort of loyalty to IE or Endnote, why not suggest to them they try something different? In my experience, when IE users try Firefox, they often don’t go back. I expect the same will happen when Endnote users try Zotero. There’ll still be a fair bit of work to do on server synchronization and integration with desktop applications, but that’s only a matter of time.
So the lack of IE support and the decision to go with Firefox, it seems to me, is far from a problem, but rather just the opposite: they’ve made the right choices that will allow to them succeed long term.
