6 ms·

Mozilla has had "we'll be #1 again once X is launched!" things since I was there 5 years ago (and servo was one of those things back then). It won't happen. Mo

Mozilla has had "we'll be #1 again once X is launched!" things since I was there 5 years ago (and servo was one of those things back then). It won't happen. Mozilla won the browser war. Firefox lost the browser fight. But there's many wars left to fight, and I hope Mozilla dives into a new one.

pcwalton 9y ago
Servo barely existed 5 years ago.
- gkoberger 9y ago
  But it did exist, no?
  - kibwen 9y ago
    Yes, but even five years ago people acknowledged that it was going to take more than five years to write a browser engine from scratch. I'm on the record as stating in ~2012 not to expect a usable Servo any sooner than 2017 at the earliest (basing my estimation on the time it took to write V8 from scratch). And that was indeed optimistic, but we are seeing bits of Servo (most importantly WebRender and Stylo) being integrated into Firefox this year.
    - lelandbatey 9y ago
      Hey, you weren't totally wrong. If you want to use a simple and fast web-browser on the bleeding edge of development, you can use Servo today. On all the computers I've tried it on it's been really fast, though with plenty of rendering issues.
  - pcwalton 9y ago
    It started in 2012. It was a total toy for most of that year, though. I would barely consider it a real engineering project in that state--heck, for quite a while it was a readme and nothing else :)
andreasgal 9y ago
"Mozilla won the browser war. Firefox lost the browser fight. But there's many wars left to fight, and I hope Mozilla dives into a new one." Very poetic way of putting it. Couldn't agree more!
- diminish 9y ago
  Mozilla lost the mobile OS war unfortunately if that what's inspiring you. What's next isn't clear to me
  - qznc 9y ago
    The Mobile OS war can still be continued. Mozilla should join forces with Lineage OS instead of wasting time with their own. Do the embrace, extend, extinguish strategy with Android. Secure messaging is also still a hot topic. Join forces with Signal or Wire or Matrix or XMPP. For example, Wire intends to open source their server code and enable federation [0]. Voice control requires some weight for an Open Source solution. Specifically, we could use something which does not rely on the internet. PocketSphinx is an ok foundation, but needs more work. [0] https://medium.com/@wireapp/open-sourcing-wire-server-code-ef7866a731d5 https://medium.com/@wireapp/open-sourcing-wire-server-code-e...
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      I don't know a single Android user that even knows what Lineage OS is all about.
      - kogepathic 9y ago
        A vast majority of Android users know nothing about custom ROMs. However I would say that among those who do know, Lineage OS has a fairly good reputation for quality. You wouldn't be targeting mass adoption with this, you'd be targeting the influencers.
      - LamaOfRuin 9y ago
        Fork/Successor to Cyanogen would probably net slightly more recognition.
larsberg 9y ago
I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel yet, though that's certainly a sentiment I hear a lot of around town :-) As technology shifts to a world where most people do not have a monitor on their home computer or a screen on their phone, what it means to be a browser will dramatically change. Certainly, we could post-it the current user experience into whatever we will have tomorrow, but if VR, AR, Speech, and AI and ample cheap private computing power don't excite people for the future of browsers and user agency, I don't know what will. I know we've been working on tech such as Servo for a long time, but sometimes even just being "better" isn't enough, especially when there's a large legacy gap to close. You also need to get lucky with a point where consumers are making massive changes and open to new things. I think that time is much sooner than the "always 5--10 years quoted", and you're going to see mind-blowing things on the web in general and supported by the browser and related services specifically. And I'm betting (at least with my current career) that Mozilla will lead the charge.
mozillatw 9y ago
Mozilla also lost its proud feature - freedom of internet. There is no going back ever.
arontopp 9y ago
https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com The Vivaldi browser has copied the original Firefox user interface and stole the best ideas from the Firefox extension makers so if you want the Chromium web rendering engine with the original Firefox user interface you are served by the Vivaldi browser. Hopefully they will become profitable and release their modification under a free software license.
arontopp 9y ago
https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com The Vivaldi browser has copied the original Firefox user interface and stole the best ideas from the Firefox extension makers so if you want the Chromium web rendering engine with the original Firefox user interface you are served by the Vivaldi browser. Hopefully they will become profitable and release their modification under a free software license.

pcwalton 9y ago

Servo barely existed 5 years ago.

gkoberger 9y ago
But it did exist, no?
- kibwen 9y ago
  Yes, but even five years ago people acknowledged that it was going to take more than five years to write a browser engine from scratch. I'm on the record as stating in ~2012 not to expect a usable Servo any sooner than 2017 at the earliest (basing my estimation on the time it took to write V8 from scratch). And that was indeed optimistic, but we are seeing bits of Servo (most importantly WebRender and Stylo) being integrated into Firefox this year.
  - lelandbatey 9y ago
    Hey, you weren't totally wrong. If you want to use a simple and fast web-browser on the bleeding edge of development, you can use Servo today. On all the computers I've tried it on it's been really fast, though with plenty of rendering issues.
- pcwalton 9y ago
  It started in 2012. It was a total toy for most of that year, though. I would barely consider it a real engineering project in that state--heck, for quite a while it was a readme and nothing else :)

andreasgal 9y ago

"Mozilla won the browser war. Firefox lost the browser fight. But there's many wars left to fight, and I hope Mozilla dives into a new one." Very poetic way of putting it. Couldn't agree more!

diminish 9y ago
Mozilla lost the mobile OS war unfortunately if that what's inspiring you. What's next isn't clear to me
- qznc 9y ago
  The Mobile OS war can still be continued. Mozilla should join forces with Lineage OS instead of wasting time with their own. Do the embrace, extend, extinguish strategy with Android. Secure messaging is also still a hot topic. Join forces with Signal or Wire or Matrix or XMPP. For example, Wire intends to open source their server code and enable federation [0]. Voice control requires some weight for an Open Source solution. Specifically, we could use something which does not rely on the internet. PocketSphinx is an ok foundation, but needs more work. [0] https://medium.com/@wireapp/open-sourcing-wire-server-code-ef7866a731d5 https://medium.com/@wireapp/open-sourcing-wire-server-code-e...
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    I don't know a single Android user that even knows what Lineage OS is all about.
    - kogepathic 9y ago
      A vast majority of Android users know nothing about custom ROMs. However I would say that among those who do know, Lineage OS has a fairly good reputation for quality. You wouldn't be targeting mass adoption with this, you'd be targeting the influencers.
    - LamaOfRuin 9y ago
      Fork/Successor to Cyanogen would probably net slightly more recognition.

larsberg 9y ago

I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel yet, though that's certainly a sentiment I hear a lot of around town :-) As technology shifts to a world where most people do not have a monitor on their home computer or a screen on their phone, what it means to be a browser will dramatically change. Certainly, we could post-it the current user experience into whatever we will have tomorrow, but if VR, AR, Speech, and AI and ample cheap private computing power don't excite people for the future of browsers and user agency, I don't know what will. I know we've been working on tech such as Servo for a long time, but sometimes even just being "better" isn't enough, especially when there's a large legacy gap to close. You also need to get lucky with a point where consumers are making massive changes and open to new things. I think that time is much sooner than the "always 5--10 years quoted", and you're going to see mind-blowing things on the web in general and supported by the browser and related services specifically. And I'm betting (at least with my current career) that Mozilla will lead the charge.

mozillatw 9y ago

Mozilla also lost its proud feature - freedom of internet. There is no going back ever.

arontopp 9y ago

https://vivaldi.com https://vivaldi.com The Vivaldi browser has copied the original Firefox user interface and stole the best ideas from the Firefox extension makers so if you want the Chromium web rendering engine with the original Firefox user interface you are served by the Vivaldi browser. Hopefully they will become profitable and release their modification under a free software license.

arontopp 9y ago