3 ms·

You wouldn't need to scrap all of it by a long shot. You could take a small subset of the stack and make something enormously simpler to implement. Start with s

by l0b0 9y ago

You wouldn't need to scrap all of it by a long shot. You could take a small subset of the stack and make something enormously simpler to implement. Start with supporting only one version of HTTP, TLS, (X)HTML, CSS and JS and fork them if necessary. Even drop CSS to start with and finally start relying on semantic markup and good browser defaults. Use existing open source libraries where available, such as for TLS and markup/media parsing. Pull out libraries for everything so the browser is easily composable and forkable. You don't want JS support at all? Compile without it.

ehnto 9y ago
Not many would be interested in an un-designable web. It bares no comparison to what browsers are capable of delivering for UX currently. What you are suggesting then, a non-comparable browser experience, already exists and has for years, yet to no avail. You would get niche technologists and die hard enthusiasts only and the rest of the world would trudge happily into the future, DRM and net nutrality distant memories. What you and I want, what HN and friends want, is not even a debate most realise is happening let alone that it affects them and will affect them profoundly in the future. The masses are deciding what our internet will look like for they comandeered it years ago.
- l0b0 9y ago
  Yeah, yeah, the world is going to shit and nobody cares. How about doing something about it instead of telling everybody it can't possibly work? And why do we need the rest of the world on the bandwagon for it to work? The web was built without the masses, and still is. The open web still vastly outweighs the closed parts in amount of content. A bunch of freedom stealing technologies have died silently over the years despite often resulting in "cool" UX wholly different from plain HTML, such as Flash, Silverlight, and Java applets. EME is a fundamentally different wedge inserted between users and their machines by evil corporations, but not one that is in any way unbeatable. So screw 'em, and let's fork the web!
  - ehnto 9y ago
    Forking the technologies that underpin the platform of the web I think tackles the wrong problem. The problem I see facing the open web is the consolidation of users and services into single platforms. Facebook is an easy example. You can build a Facebook alternative with any technology you like, it would take a completely different force to change the social paradigm around it. The great thing about the open web that you rightly mention is still kicking, is that it's full of places and services that are driven by humans and passionate communities. Nothing about EME stops those communities existing, but nothing about those communities is going to stop Netflix being the most popular platform and using EME/DRM. If you will excuse my fluffy analogy, the web is a farmers market that has a shopping mall being built right next door. What I think would help the web, is educating people that it's better to go to the farmers market so that we can support entrepreneurial and local community endeavors rather than stuffing corporate coffers and enabling that consolidation.
netgusto 9y ago
Now that's an idea I could get behind !
gsnedders 9y ago
> Start with supporting only one version of HTTP, TLS, (X)HTML, CSS and JS and fork them if necessary. The support for different versions that does exist in browsers tends to be minute: ripping out support for older versions would cut out almost no code, because there's basically nothing specifically handling them. (Heck, the only forks in CSS are for quirks and limited quirks mode, and both of them affect very, very little of the layout engine.)

by l0b0 9y ago

ehnto 9y ago

Not many would be interested in an un-designable web. It bares no comparison to what browsers are capable of delivering for UX currently. What you are suggesting then, a non-comparable browser experience, already exists and has for years, yet to no avail. You would get niche technologists and die hard enthusiasts only and the rest of the world would trudge happily into the future, DRM and net nutrality distant memories. What you and I want, what HN and friends want, is not even a debate most realise is happening let alone that it affects them and will affect them profoundly in the future. The masses are deciding what our internet will look like for they comandeered it years ago.

l0b0 9y ago
Yeah, yeah, the world is going to shit and nobody cares. How about doing something about it instead of telling everybody it can't possibly work? And why do we need the rest of the world on the bandwagon for it to work? The web was built without the masses, and still is. The open web still vastly outweighs the closed parts in amount of content. A bunch of freedom stealing technologies have died silently over the years despite often resulting in "cool" UX wholly different from plain HTML, such as Flash, Silverlight, and Java applets. EME is a fundamentally different wedge inserted between users and their machines by evil corporations, but not one that is in any way unbeatable. So screw 'em, and let's fork the web!
- ehnto 9y ago
  Forking the technologies that underpin the platform of the web I think tackles the wrong problem. The problem I see facing the open web is the consolidation of users and services into single platforms. Facebook is an easy example. You can build a Facebook alternative with any technology you like, it would take a completely different force to change the social paradigm around it. The great thing about the open web that you rightly mention is still kicking, is that it's full of places and services that are driven by humans and passionate communities. Nothing about EME stops those communities existing, but nothing about those communities is going to stop Netflix being the most popular platform and using EME/DRM. If you will excuse my fluffy analogy, the web is a farmers market that has a shopping mall being built right next door. What I think would help the web, is educating people that it's better to go to the farmers market so that we can support entrepreneurial and local community endeavors rather than stuffing corporate coffers and enabling that consolidation.

netgusto 9y ago

Now that's an idea I could get behind !

gsnedders 9y ago

> Start with supporting only one version of HTTP, TLS, (X)HTML, CSS and JS and fork them if necessary. The support for different versions that does exist in browsers tends to be minute: ripping out support for older versions would cut out almost no code, because there's basically nothing specifically handling them. (Heck, the only forks in CSS are for quirks and limited quirks mode, and both of them affect very, very little of the layout engine.)