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> instead of people following a web standard, they'll follow what's Chrome-compatible The browser vendors taking the lead over standards committees is how we g

> instead of people following a web standard, they'll follow what's Chrome-compatible The browser vendors taking the lead over standards committees is how we got this far into HTML5, especially including Apple's/Safari's decision to ditch flash, and the WHATWG actually moving us forward vs the W3C. Unless Blink has a history or an expectation of deprecating serious functionality in the future, is it really so bad if websites follow what's Chrome-compatible instead of 'a web standard'?

pas 8y ago
W3C might be too slow, but eschewing at least a rough consensus and instead just ramming through whatever you feel like is the other extreme end of the spectrum. And Google is no saint, so if it benefits them and only them, who cares, Chrome will support it, the community be damned. And this - of course - applies to depreciation of functionality. (Think about any web feature/standard as another Google property, like G+ ... scary? But that's where we're headed with the Blink hegemony.)
detaro 8y ago
I don't think you can conclude from "things got better when browser vendors took over" that it'd be the same if there was one vendor dominating. They keep each other honest at least to a degree, forcing that issues are discussed and things thought out instead of someone in a browser team coming up with an idea and shipping it the first way they can come up with.
mcgannon2007 8y ago
Because then any pull request introducing something into Chromium essentially becomes the web standard. For example, Google has a ton of influence on the project. If they want to, they can introduce something that benefits their services but eschews the web standard.
- holtalanm 8y ago
  but if Microsoft is moving to Blink, wouldn't they, as well, have (as you say) influence on the project? What, really, is a downside to having an open-source web engine that all browsers use? I'm failing to see one. The web would become less fragmented; the web standard would be (only slightly) irrelevant, and we would move forward without having to deal with browsers interpreting the spec/standard differently, which is what happens currently in a lot of cases.
  - numbsafari 8y ago
    I generally agree with your sentiment on this. The only real downside I can think of is similar to the issues that motivated the renewed investment in OpenBGPD recently: that standards and ecosystems are made stronger when there is some level of competition and diversity. For example, a security bug in chromium becomes vastly more dangerous if everyone is working off that code. That said, hopefully there’ll be fewer of those because everyone is focused on the same codebase. The questions seem to be “how many browser engine implementations is truly necessary for a healthy ecosystem?” And “has the spec gotten so bad that it’s not feasible for the ecosystem to support a sufficient number of independent implementations?” Seems like <5, and maybe <3 is the answer to the first, and the answer to the second is we’ll see what happens to servo in 2019...
  - bad_user 8y ago
    > but if Microsoft is moving to Blink, wouldn't they, as well, have (as you say) influence on the project? No. 1. Chrome will remain the dominant web browser 2. the Chromium repository itself is owned by Google The only leverage Microsoft is in forking Chromium, but that does nothing to Chrome's market. Google themselves forked WebKit when they couldn't get along with Apple. And that was back when Chrome wasn't as pervasive. So what makes you think Google would give a crap about Microsoft today?
    - holtalanm 8y ago
      well, if you look at it now, webkit is BY FAR not the dominant engine. So, by your own logic, if Microsoft ends up in a disagreement with Google about the direction of chromium, whats to stop them from just forking it and becoming the new dominant engine? Chrome will only remain the dominant web browser as long as its users view it as worth the hassle. If Edge is built upon chromium in the future, I'm not going to sit here and say that Chrome will remain the dominant browser following that. We can sit here and talk about 'what ifs' all day.
      - bunnycorn 8y ago
        WebKit is the dominant engine because it's what powers Webviews on Android.
Yoric 8y ago
This is a good question. Let me give you an example. Let's imagine for instance that Google develops something called "Google Pay". Let's now imagine that WHATWG works on something called "WebPay". In a multiple-engines world, there would be pressure for Blink to support (and keep supporting) most major credit cards & payment mechanisms to let users pay using WebPay. In a single-engine world, one single manager at Google will have sufficient power to decide that WebPay supports only Google Pay. Feel free replace Google Pay and WebPay by any other technology strategic to Google.
- sureaboutthis 8y ago
  Let's not get confused. Blink is a rendering engine and not an API server.
  - Yoric 8y ago
    This kind of thing has stopped being true a long time ago. For all intents and purposes, web browsers are operating systems running web applications, taking care of security, etc. And all these Chromium-derived browsers are skins and utilities on top of Google's browser/OS.
    - sureaboutthis 8y ago
      It's still true and always will be. Blink is not a browser any more than the Linux kernel is a standalone operating system by itself with no attached software or applications.
gsnedders 8y ago
> The browser vendors taking the lead over standards committees is how we got this far into HTML5, especially including Apple's/Safari's decision to ditch flash, and the WHATWG actually moving us forward vs the W3C. That takes a somewhat limited in scope view as to what a web standard is; by most measures, what the WHATWG produces is as much a standard as anything the W3C does, and is certainly comparably useful to other implementers. > Unless Blink has a history or an expectation of deprecating serious functionality in the future, is it really so bad if websites follow what's Chrome-compatible instead of 'a web standard'? If someone wants to build a new web browser, can they do it without having to spend huge amounts of money on reverse-engineering Chrome and being bug compatible with it?

pas 8y ago

W3C might be too slow, but eschewing at least a rough consensus and instead just ramming through whatever you feel like is the other extreme end of the spectrum. And Google is no saint, so if it benefits them and only them, who cares, Chrome will support it, the community be damned. And this - of course - applies to depreciation of functionality. (Think about any web feature/standard as another Google property, like G+ ... scary? But that's where we're headed with the Blink hegemony.)

detaro 8y ago

I don't think you can conclude from "things got better when browser vendors took over" that it'd be the same if there was one vendor dominating. They keep each other honest at least to a degree, forcing that issues are discussed and things thought out instead of someone in a browser team coming up with an idea and shipping it the first way they can come up with.

mcgannon2007 8y ago

Because then any pull request introducing something into Chromium essentially becomes the web standard. For example, Google has a ton of influence on the project. If they want to, they can introduce something that benefits their services but eschews the web standard.

holtalanm 8y ago
but if Microsoft is moving to Blink, wouldn't they, as well, have (as you say) influence on the project? What, really, is a downside to having an open-source web engine that all browsers use? I'm failing to see one. The web would become less fragmented; the web standard would be (only slightly) irrelevant, and we would move forward without having to deal with browsers interpreting the spec/standard differently, which is what happens currently in a lot of cases.
- numbsafari 8y ago
  I generally agree with your sentiment on this. The only real downside I can think of is similar to the issues that motivated the renewed investment in OpenBGPD recently: that standards and ecosystems are made stronger when there is some level of competition and diversity. For example, a security bug in chromium becomes vastly more dangerous if everyone is working off that code. That said, hopefully there’ll be fewer of those because everyone is focused on the same codebase. The questions seem to be “how many browser engine implementations is truly necessary for a healthy ecosystem?” And “has the spec gotten so bad that it’s not feasible for the ecosystem to support a sufficient number of independent implementations?” Seems like <5, and maybe <3 is the answer to the first, and the answer to the second is we’ll see what happens to servo in 2019...
- bad_user 8y ago
  > but if Microsoft is moving to Blink, wouldn't they, as well, have (as you say) influence on the project? No. 1. Chrome will remain the dominant web browser 2. the Chromium repository itself is owned by Google The only leverage Microsoft is in forking Chromium, but that does nothing to Chrome's market. Google themselves forked WebKit when they couldn't get along with Apple. And that was back when Chrome wasn't as pervasive. So what makes you think Google would give a crap about Microsoft today?
  - holtalanm 8y ago
    well, if you look at it now, webkit is BY FAR not the dominant engine. So, by your own logic, if Microsoft ends up in a disagreement with Google about the direction of chromium, whats to stop them from just forking it and becoming the new dominant engine? Chrome will only remain the dominant web browser as long as its users view it as worth the hassle. If Edge is built upon chromium in the future, I'm not going to sit here and say that Chrome will remain the dominant browser following that. We can sit here and talk about 'what ifs' all day.
    - bunnycorn 8y ago
      WebKit is the dominant engine because it's what powers Webviews on Android.

Yoric 8y ago

This is a good question. Let me give you an example. Let's imagine for instance that Google develops something called "Google Pay". Let's now imagine that WHATWG works on something called "WebPay". In a multiple-engines world, there would be pressure for Blink to support (and keep supporting) most major credit cards & payment mechanisms to let users pay using WebPay. In a single-engine world, one single manager at Google will have sufficient power to decide that WebPay supports only Google Pay. Feel free replace Google Pay and WebPay by any other technology strategic to Google.

sureaboutthis 8y ago
Let's not get confused. Blink is a rendering engine and not an API server.
- Yoric 8y ago
  This kind of thing has stopped being true a long time ago. For all intents and purposes, web browsers are operating systems running web applications, taking care of security, etc. And all these Chromium-derived browsers are skins and utilities on top of Google's browser/OS.
  - sureaboutthis 8y ago
    It's still true and always will be. Blink is not a browser any more than the Linux kernel is a standalone operating system by itself with no attached software or applications.

gsnedders 8y ago

> The browser vendors taking the lead over standards committees is how we got this far into HTML5, especially including Apple's/Safari's decision to ditch flash, and the WHATWG actually moving us forward vs the W3C. That takes a somewhat limited in scope view as to what a web standard is; by most measures, what the WHATWG produces is as much a standard as anything the W3C does, and is certainly comparably useful to other implementers. > Unless Blink has a history or an expectation of deprecating serious functionality in the future, is it really so bad if websites follow what's Chrome-compatible instead of 'a web standard'? If someone wants to build a new web browser, can they do it without having to spend huge amounts of money on reverse-engineering Chrome and being bug compatible with it?