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> prevent another decade of browser monoculture Mobile is our protection against browser monoculture. Even if Chrome/WebKit/Blink/whatever browsers make up th

> prevent another decade of browser monoculture Mobile is our protection against browser monoculture. Even if Chrome/WebKit/Blink/whatever browsers make up the vast majority of mobile, there's such huge variation between them and customizations added by OEMs that - much to web developers chagrin - a monoculture seems like a blessing by comparison. There's also browsers in tons of devices like TVs, consoles, car dashboards, etc that add a staggering amount of variability. (Not to mention embedded browsers in other apps like Steam, anything based on Electron, etc) The author misses the fact that desktop browsers aren't the most relevant web browsers anymore, and there's tons of variability and competing stakeholders even if Mozilla disappeared tomorrow. Edit: Now if the assertion is that we need a nonprofit competitor in the web market, that's a compelling reason for Mozilla to exist (if it can stay sufficiently independent from its commercial benefactors).

pcwalton 11y ago
There's nowhere near as much variation among WebKits as between WebKit and Gecko, or WebKit and Trident, or Trident and Gecko.
- schmichael 11y ago
  That's a pro. Variation sucks. What you want is competing contributors and stakeholders to ensure a single entity's interests don't win. I would argue the massive WebKit/Chromium ecosystem has lots of competing contributors.
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    > That's a pro. Variation sucks. No, it doesn't. A browser engine monoculture means that a single engine's bugs and quirks become the standard. As a result the Web platform gets worse, and it becomes harder for new browser engines to enter the market. For example: http://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/a-small-example-of-value-of-browser.html http://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/a-small-example-of-value... > What you want is competing contributors and stakeholders to ensure a single entity's interests don't win. That is not the case in practice with either WebKit or Blink. > I would argue the massive WebKit/Chromium ecosystem has lots of competing contributors. Not really. There are two primary ones: Apple and Google. Both organizations have essentially as close to absolute sway over their respective projects as to what Web platform features they implement and how they choose to implement them as to make no difference.

pcwalton 11y ago

There's nowhere near as much variation among WebKits as between WebKit and Gecko, or WebKit and Trident, or Trident and Gecko.

schmichael 11y ago
That's a pro. Variation sucks. What you want is competing contributors and stakeholders to ensure a single entity's interests don't win. I would argue the massive WebKit/Chromium ecosystem has lots of competing contributors.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  > That's a pro. Variation sucks. No, it doesn't. A browser engine monoculture means that a single engine's bugs and quirks become the standard. As a result the Web platform gets worse, and it becomes harder for new browser engines to enter the market. For example: http://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/a-small-example-of-value-of-browser.html http://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/a-small-example-of-value... > What you want is competing contributors and stakeholders to ensure a single entity's interests don't win. That is not the case in practice with either WebKit or Blink. > I would argue the massive WebKit/Chromium ecosystem has lots of competing contributors. Not really. There are two primary ones: Apple and Google. Both organizations have essentially as close to absolute sway over their respective projects as to what Web platform features they implement and how they choose to implement them as to make no difference.