7 ms·

Your examples have nothing to do with whether you use Chrominum engine, though. Say that Chrome implements a web feature you don't like. MS use their own MSeng

by joesb 8y ago

Your examples have nothing to do with whether you use Chrominum engine, though. Say that Chrome implements a web feature you don't like. MS use their own MSengine for their Edge browser that doesn't have that feature. But websites expect Chrome, and they use that feature, so MS Edge doesn't work with those websites. Say that Chrome refuses to add a feature you want. MS use their own MSengine for their Edge browser that has that feature. But websites expect Chrome, so they don't use MS Edge feature so as to not break for their Chrome users, and MS Edge browser is no better off.

kibwen 8y ago
Not sure what this is attempting to refute. Your comment is about why monocultures are bad for competition, which I happen to agree with. My comment is about why Chromium being open-source doesn't alleviate any concerns about monoculture.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  How is the situation better if there are two browsers with 50% market share? You still can’t add a new feature the other side doesn’t want, because 50% of users won’t be able to use it. Any feature that requires a site owner to do something to support it isn’t going to be added.
  - viraptor 8y ago
    > You still can’t add a new feature the other side doesn’t want That's not quite true. This happens all the time with things not standardised (yet). With time those either get wide adoption because people want them, or get dropped, or get standardised in a different widely agreed form.
  - kibwen 8y ago
    You've just illustrated the advantage of a polyculture: changes to the platform are not unilateral decisions, and therefore require discussion, communication, and documentation. Furthermore, if one actor tries to do something out of blatant self-interest that would be a detriment to the platform as a whole, that action can be blocked. With a Google monoculture, at the end of the day, the web will be whatever the CEO of Google allows it to be. Imagine how little control users have over the Android platform; envision a future where that's the web's model as well.
    - Karunamon 8y ago
      The difference being now that we're in no danger of IE6-ification. If Google annoys enough people, people can take Webkit and do whatever they want. It happened to Microsoft, arguably to Mozilla, it can happen to Google. So long as the players are well behaved, having a single dominant browser is beneficial. How much time, energy, productivity, and money has been lost on cross-browser (in)compatibility wrangling?
      - vatueil 8y ago
        > If Google annoys enough people, people can take Webkit and do whatever they want. Not sure if that should have been Blink, or if you're making a subtle point about how Blink was forked from WebKit (which was in turn forked from KHTML). Personally, while I can see why some may react to this news with concern about a monoculture, I find it hard to feel sorry about the end of the last significant closed source browser engine. If Microsoft gives up IE and Edge then all the major browsers will have an open source foundation. With Gecko, WebKit, and Blink there remains a healthy range of options, too. And as the history of KHTML/WebKit/Blink demonstrates, derivatives will appear if there's enough interest. Perhaps someday Microsoft will follow the examples Apple and Google have set by creating their own fork, if the circumstances warrant it.
        pjmlp 8y ago
        It also demonstrates that forks are irrelevant and no one cares about them unless they come from major players with enough money and political power to push them.
        vatueil 8y ago
        WebKit was forked from KHTML. Chromium used WebKit, until Blink was forked. All of that was only possible because the browser engines are open source. As with anything, you always need somebody (or a group of somebodies) to help something new gain traction. There's no magic pixie dust that will let you develop a major new platform without commensurate resources. What open source does do is lower the cost of entry and make it easier to build up to a level where you can make an impact.
  - foepys 8y ago
    Your argument is easily proven false by looking at the various CSS properties prefixed by vendors like -moz-* and -webkit-* that eventually made it into the standard.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

by joesb 8y ago

kibwen 8y ago

Not sure what this is attempting to refute. Your comment is about why monocultures are bad for competition, which I happen to agree with. My comment is about why Chromium being open-source doesn't alleviate any concerns about monoculture.

cortesoft 8y ago
How is the situation better if there are two browsers with 50% market share? You still can’t add a new feature the other side doesn’t want, because 50% of users won’t be able to use it. Any feature that requires a site owner to do something to support it isn’t going to be added.
- viraptor 8y ago
  > You still can’t add a new feature the other side doesn’t want That's not quite true. This happens all the time with things not standardised (yet). With time those either get wide adoption because people want them, or get dropped, or get standardised in a different widely agreed form.
- kibwen 8y ago
  You've just illustrated the advantage of a polyculture: changes to the platform are not unilateral decisions, and therefore require discussion, communication, and documentation. Furthermore, if one actor tries to do something out of blatant self-interest that would be a detriment to the platform as a whole, that action can be blocked. With a Google monoculture, at the end of the day, the web will be whatever the CEO of Google allows it to be. Imagine how little control users have over the Android platform; envision a future where that's the web's model as well.
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    The difference being now that we're in no danger of IE6-ification. If Google annoys enough people, people can take Webkit and do whatever they want. It happened to Microsoft, arguably to Mozilla, it can happen to Google. So long as the players are well behaved, having a single dominant browser is beneficial. How much time, energy, productivity, and money has been lost on cross-browser (in)compatibility wrangling?
    - vatueil 8y ago
      > If Google annoys enough people, people can take Webkit and do whatever they want. Not sure if that should have been Blink, or if you're making a subtle point about how Blink was forked from WebKit (which was in turn forked from KHTML). Personally, while I can see why some may react to this news with concern about a monoculture, I find it hard to feel sorry about the end of the last significant closed source browser engine. If Microsoft gives up IE and Edge then all the major browsers will have an open source foundation. With Gecko, WebKit, and Blink there remains a healthy range of options, too. And as the history of KHTML/WebKit/Blink demonstrates, derivatives will appear if there's enough interest. Perhaps someday Microsoft will follow the examples Apple and Google have set by creating their own fork, if the circumstances warrant it.
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        It also demonstrates that forks are irrelevant and no one cares about them unless they come from major players with enough money and political power to push them.
        vatueil 8y ago
        WebKit was forked from KHTML. Chromium used WebKit, until Blink was forked. All of that was only possible because the browser engines are open source. As with anything, you always need somebody (or a group of somebodies) to help something new gain traction. There's no magic pixie dust that will let you develop a major new platform without commensurate resources. What open source does do is lower the cost of entry and make it easier to build up to a level where you can make an impact.
- foepys 8y ago
  Your argument is easily proven false by looking at the various CSS properties prefixed by vendors like -moz-* and -webkit-* that eventually made it into the standard.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]