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Chrome is the de facto standard at this time and all of the irrelevant, hyperbolic nitpicking and dubious conjecture isn't going to change that. But here's a t

Chrome is the de facto standard at this time and all of the irrelevant, hyperbolic nitpicking and dubious conjecture isn't going to change that. But here's a thought: WebKit and Chromium (and Blink) are open source, so maybe don't worry about it? Furthermore, if all browsers don't work the same then that's a problem for developers. If we can't have that - I'd rather see just one browser engine in use by the majority like what we have now with WebKit. It makes my life easier. Don't we have more important things to worry about than competition between web browser apps?

syshum 9y ago
That would be great if Chromium/Chrome used WebKit, they dont. They stopped using Webkit years ago
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  Yeah, they use Blink which is a fork of WebKit and open source as well. So I guess it is great, isn't it?
  - pcwalton 9y ago
    You missed the point. Your position is that there should be only one browser engine. But you're trying to use two browser engines, which are very different, to support your argument.
    - hungerstrike 9y ago
      No, you missed the points. My major point was that we have the source code and nothing changes that. My second point was that I would rather all browser engines work the same and if they can’t then I’d rather just have one popular browser engine.
      - pcwalton 9y ago
        > My second point was that I would rather all browser engines work the same and if they can’t then I’d rather just have one popular browser engine. Would you be willing to give up, for example, Rust's parallelism and security for that future? Why do you think this would work better than it did in the past, when Google and Apple tried to collaborate on the same engine and it ended in a fork?
        hungerstrike 9y ago
        Yes. Anything that comes out of Mozilla is rubbish.
        pcwalton 9y ago
        Well, thanks for your opinion on my work!
        hungerstrike 9y ago
        I knew that I was arguing with a bunch of Mozilla fanatics in this thread. Thanks for confirming your bias. That's the exact crowd responsible for pushing stories like these.
WorldMaker 9y ago
Chrome is not Chromium, however. Just because there is a nougaty open source center doesn't mean that Chrome is entirely free from proprietary software worries and worries about Google's commercial interests infringing upon user interests/greater web interests. Additionally, Chromium isn't WebKit either. Blink forked from WebKit some time back and the fork continues to diverge, with WebKit and Blink disagreeing on some implementations.
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  Yes thank you, I understand all of that - it's very well known among web developers. None of it changes my argument: The majority of the functionality that we care about in our web browsers comes from an open source library.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    Except it does change your argument: you are clearly missing a for now, so long as it pleases Google. You can imply that if Google did something to upset consumers they may flock to an alternative Blink-based browser or Chromium, but Google and Chrome are the brands they know, they don't know or care about Blink or Chromium. You may believe that Google are entirely generous and would never upset the open source balance from which they benefit, but they've done it before. The hard fork of Blink from WebKit is one obvious sign that if Google isn't happy, they can and will take their ball and move on. You can also consider in this equation the increasing disparity between open source AOSP and consumer Google Android. The number of closed, proprietary "Google Play" APIs that applications increasingly rely on still seems to be growing at a strong pace. The number of APKs that you can, for instance, sideload to AOSP-based Amazon FireOS continues to only dwindle and at this point a software developer very much has to develop two apps, one for Amazon's APIs and one for Google's, despite all the shared open source between the platforms. So of course we should worry that Chrome has such a huge marketshare and that so many web developers are essentially building "Chrome-only" websites.
    - hungerstrike 9y ago
pcwalton 9y ago
> But here's a thought: WebKit and Chromium (and Blink) are open source, so maybe don't worry about it? How could Stylo have happened if WebKit/Chromium/Blink were the only browser engines? Do you think WebKit is likely to accept Rust code into the tree? Futhermore, WebKit and Blink have substantial divergence at this point. They are not the same browser engine. Do you think that Safari and Chrome should adopt the same engine? If so, why do you think that will be more successful than the last time they tried that, which ended in a fork?

syshum 9y ago

That would be great if Chromium/Chrome used WebKit, they dont. They stopped using Webkit years ago

hungerstrike 9y ago
Yeah, they use Blink which is a fork of WebKit and open source as well. So I guess it is great, isn't it?
- pcwalton 9y ago
  You missed the point. Your position is that there should be only one browser engine. But you're trying to use two browser engines, which are very different, to support your argument.
  - hungerstrike 9y ago
    No, you missed the points. My major point was that we have the source code and nothing changes that. My second point was that I would rather all browser engines work the same and if they can’t then I’d rather just have one popular browser engine.
    - pcwalton 9y ago
      > My second point was that I would rather all browser engines work the same and if they can’t then I’d rather just have one popular browser engine. Would you be willing to give up, for example, Rust's parallelism and security for that future? Why do you think this would work better than it did in the past, when Google and Apple tried to collaborate on the same engine and it ended in a fork?
      - hungerstrike 9y ago
        Yes. Anything that comes out of Mozilla is rubbish.
        pcwalton 9y ago
        Well, thanks for your opinion on my work!
        hungerstrike 9y ago
        I knew that I was arguing with a bunch of Mozilla fanatics in this thread. Thanks for confirming your bias. That's the exact crowd responsible for pushing stories like these.

WorldMaker 9y ago

Chrome is not Chromium, however. Just because there is a nougaty open source center doesn't mean that Chrome is entirely free from proprietary software worries and worries about Google's commercial interests infringing upon user interests/greater web interests. Additionally, Chromium isn't WebKit either. Blink forked from WebKit some time back and the fork continues to diverge, with WebKit and Blink disagreeing on some implementations.

hungerstrike 9y ago
Yes thank you, I understand all of that - it's very well known among web developers. None of it changes my argument: The majority of the functionality that we care about in our web browsers comes from an open source library.
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  Except it does change your argument: you are clearly missing a for now, so long as it pleases Google. You can imply that if Google did something to upset consumers they may flock to an alternative Blink-based browser or Chromium, but Google and Chrome are the brands they know, they don't know or care about Blink or Chromium. You may believe that Google are entirely generous and would never upset the open source balance from which they benefit, but they've done it before. The hard fork of Blink from WebKit is one obvious sign that if Google isn't happy, they can and will take their ball and move on. You can also consider in this equation the increasing disparity between open source AOSP and consumer Google Android. The number of closed, proprietary "Google Play" APIs that applications increasingly rely on still seems to be growing at a strong pace. The number of APKs that you can, for instance, sideload to AOSP-based Amazon FireOS continues to only dwindle and at this point a software developer very much has to develop two apps, one for Amazon's APIs and one for Google's, despite all the shared open source between the platforms. So of course we should worry that Chrome has such a huge marketshare and that so many web developers are essentially building "Chrome-only" websites.
  - hungerstrike 9y ago

pcwalton 9y ago

> But here's a thought: WebKit and Chromium (and Blink) are open source, so maybe don't worry about it? How could Stylo have happened if WebKit/Chromium/Blink were the only browser engines? Do you think WebKit is likely to accept Rust code into the tree? Futhermore, WebKit and Blink have substantial divergence at this point. They are not the same browser engine. Do you think that Safari and Chrome should adopt the same engine? If so, why do you think that will be more successful than the last time they tried that, which ended in a fork?