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> I can't wait to see what the same company that gave us VSCode is able to build on top of Blink, and eventually separate from Blink. The situation here is ver

> I can't wait to see what the same company that gave us VSCode is able to build on top of Blink, and eventually separate from Blink. The situation here is very different from WebKit and Blink. Google was already the plurality contributor to WebKit at the time of the fork. By contrast, Microsoft has contributed virtually nothing to Blink, and they intend to be identical to upstream Chromium. Microsoft is not going to fork Blink. Blink is completely controlled by Google. (98% of Blink patches are reviewed by a Google employee.) This means that Google has complete control over the direction of the Web platform. While Google may not be able to set the default search engine in Edge, it has and will exert more subtle influence on the Web as a platform in ways that benefit Google. (Just to name one example, Chromium has deployed whitelists of Google properties for NaCl support.)

tolmasky 8y ago
“Subtle control of the web platform” is strictly better than the explicit control of the web platform and the web browser space the currently enjoy. Microsoft’s IE and Edge together currently have just 10% market share, compared to Chrome’s ~70%. Step 1 to winning back a meaningful amount of control over the web platform is making a browser people actually use. And if in the meanwhile you can win other important battles? Amazing! I feel people don’t analyze this move realistically in the current context, but instead compare it to some imagined magical alternative where we snap our fingers and have a fresh new viable competitor or people just decide to switch away from a browser most people like. Regarding the specific example you gave, I’m fairly certain Microdift’s wrapped Chromium can exclude participation to those lists. And frankly I’d be surprised if they didn’t. Microsoft didn’t sign on Google as an OEM provider of a browser for their OS, they are building their own browser on top of Google’s engine. Im not super worried about Microsoft being bullied, they’re probably the best suited to do something like this in a defensible way.

tolmasky 8y ago

“Subtle control of the web platform” is strictly better than the explicit control of the web platform and the web browser space the currently enjoy. Microsoft’s IE and Edge together currently have just 10% market share, compared to Chrome’s ~70%. Step 1 to winning back a meaningful amount of control over the web platform is making a browser people actually use. And if in the meanwhile you can win other important battles? Amazing! I feel people don’t analyze this move realistically in the current context, but instead compare it to some imagined magical alternative where we snap our fingers and have a fresh new viable competitor or people just decide to switch away from a browser most people like. Regarding the specific example you gave, I’m fairly certain Microdift’s wrapped Chromium can exclude participation to those lists. And frankly I’d be surprised if they didn’t. Microsoft didn’t sign on Google as an OEM provider of a browser for their OS, they are building their own browser on top of Google’s engine. Im not super worried about Microsoft being bullied, they’re probably the best suited to do something like this in a defensible way.