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It's interesting, I don't see this argument made against other open source projects that are dominant, such as the Linux kernel. I rarely see people saying tha

by Osiris 8y ago

It's interesting, I don't see this argument made against other open source projects that are dominant, such as the Linux kernel. I rarely see people saying that there need to be competing kernel projects with completely separate code bases but all trying to conform to the same ABI, etc. (Yes, I know there are other kernels out there, but my point is that people don't complain that Linux is so dominant like they do about Chromium vs Firefox)

satyenr 8y ago
Linux is not dominated by a single company. Developers working for many companies contribute heavily to it, but as long as Linus Torvalds is at the helm, it is unlikely to be dominated by any one of them. So you don’t have to worry about the Linux Kernel tracking every keystroke to harvest data for adverts.
happymellon 8y ago
Dominant on server or generally? Windows is pretty big generally, and it isn't obscure enough on servers that I don't have to deal with vendors daily who require me to inter-operate with windows.
- Osiris 8y ago
  I see your point. I suppose I was thinking the dominant open source kernel.
- mr_toad 8y ago
  It’s dominant enough that every cloud vendor has to support it. Even Microsoft.
pcwalton 8y ago
And the OS kernel monoculture is to the open source world's detriment. I think it's fantastic that Fuchsia is going to give Linux a run for its money: Fuchsia is fundamentally better architected in numerous ways than Linux is.
- wbl 8y ago
  Meanwhile the BSDs are closer and haven't done that, capability systems have been around for years but breaking Unix means tools aren't around.
rvense 8y ago
If Linux was owned and controlled by Google, I think it would be a lot more controversial.
insulanus 8y ago
It comes down to who's in charge, and what their motivations are. Google's motivations include learning everything about you, and how to serve you more ads. Linus' motivations include writing solid code and flipping people the bird. It's not just about the current situation, either. When Linus finally goes to the bitbucket in the sky, there are so many companies, organizations and private individuals with an incentive to keep Linux operating and free from backdoors, we can somewhat rest easy at night. But with Chromium/Chrome - there are only a handful of organizations in the world that can keep up with the rate of patches coming out of Google. Google de-facto controls the direction of Chromium. I'm not saying that's worse than the alternative. Maintaining something like that is a hell of a lot of work. Unfortunately, things have become so complex and monolithic that there are only a handful of viable browsers. At least two of them have source available, so we can start over if we absolutely have to.
- pythonaut_16 8y ago
  Perhaps Microsoft adopting Chromium will be healthy for Chromium too then. I don't expect Microsoft to immediately keep pace with Google's browser teams but they should be able to contribute significantly to Chromium and help balance out the direction of the project.
  - insulanus 8y ago
    Maybe, yeah. It would be great if there were multiple heavy hitters involved in such an important project. I think a lot of us on here are assuming that they'll fork and stop submitting their patches upstream, once they get comfortable with the codebase though, but who knows what will happen these days!
snarfy 8y ago
The kernel isn't trying to adhere to an open protocol. It's defining it's own to match ever evolving hardware. Ultimately it's about the client driving the protocol. We don't want that. It means there will be only one client. We have an ISO C standard and many different C compilers. We have a standard for C++, and many different C++ compilers. With things like Matlab and Go, you have an implementation. There is no standard. The implementation defines the standard. And there is only one implementation. That's not good for anybody.

by Osiris 8y ago

satyenr 8y ago

Linux is not dominated by a single company. Developers working for many companies contribute heavily to it, but as long as Linus Torvalds is at the helm, it is unlikely to be dominated by any one of them. So you don’t have to worry about the Linux Kernel tracking every keystroke to harvest data for adverts.

happymellon 8y ago

Dominant on server or generally? Windows is pretty big generally, and it isn't obscure enough on servers that I don't have to deal with vendors daily who require me to inter-operate with windows.

Osiris 8y ago
I see your point. I suppose I was thinking the dominant open source kernel.
mr_toad 8y ago
It’s dominant enough that every cloud vendor has to support it. Even Microsoft.

pcwalton 8y ago

And the OS kernel monoculture is to the open source world's detriment. I think it's fantastic that Fuchsia is going to give Linux a run for its money: Fuchsia is fundamentally better architected in numerous ways than Linux is.

wbl 8y ago
Meanwhile the BSDs are closer and haven't done that, capability systems have been around for years but breaking Unix means tools aren't around.

rvense 8y ago

If Linux was owned and controlled by Google, I think it would be a lot more controversial.

insulanus 8y ago

It comes down to who's in charge, and what their motivations are. Google's motivations include learning everything about you, and how to serve you more ads. Linus' motivations include writing solid code and flipping people the bird. It's not just about the current situation, either. When Linus finally goes to the bitbucket in the sky, there are so many companies, organizations and private individuals with an incentive to keep Linux operating and free from backdoors, we can somewhat rest easy at night. But with Chromium/Chrome - there are only a handful of organizations in the world that can keep up with the rate of patches coming out of Google. Google de-facto controls the direction of Chromium. I'm not saying that's worse than the alternative. Maintaining something like that is a hell of a lot of work. Unfortunately, things have become so complex and monolithic that there are only a handful of viable browsers. At least two of them have source available, so we can start over if we absolutely have to.

pythonaut_16 8y ago
Perhaps Microsoft adopting Chromium will be healthy for Chromium too then. I don't expect Microsoft to immediately keep pace with Google's browser teams but they should be able to contribute significantly to Chromium and help balance out the direction of the project.
- insulanus 8y ago
  Maybe, yeah. It would be great if there were multiple heavy hitters involved in such an important project. I think a lot of us on here are assuming that they'll fork and stop submitting their patches upstream, once they get comfortable with the codebase though, but who knows what will happen these days!

snarfy 8y ago

The kernel isn't trying to adhere to an open protocol. It's defining it's own to match ever evolving hardware. Ultimately it's about the client driving the protocol. We don't want that. It means there will be only one client. We have an ISO C standard and many different C compilers. We have a standard for C++, and many different C++ compilers. With things like Matlab and Go, you have an implementation. There is no standard. The implementation defines the standard. And there is only one implementation. That's not good for anybody.