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Sure. And then Google will start extending that standard, then sites will start depending on those extensions, and any browser that refuses or is unable to impl

Sure. And then Google will start extending that standard, then sites will start depending on those extensions, and any browser that refuses or is unable to implement them will be extinguished/irrelevant.

qwerty456127 7y ago
How many websites rely on google-specific features not defined by W3C, WHATWG, ECMA etc. today?
- icebraining 7y ago
  Those examples are the demonstration of my point! You had a mostly fixed standard that a small team could hope to reach - the W3C stuff - and the few top browser vendors decided to extend that with a continuous stream of new features chosen only by them - the WHATWG -, with the result that browsers who couldn't keep up got extinguished from the market. That the features aren't proprietary is besides the point: Google realizes that they don't need them to be proprietary, what matters is that others can't easily implement them all.
vbezhenar 7y ago
The only reason to extend the standard if you can't implement required functionality with acceptable performance within this standard. That is the weak point for web platform: JavaScript is too slow and does not have access to drivers, you can't implement GPU-accelerated H.264 video codec within browser, so you have to implement it with C++ in browser. That means that proposed standard should be Turing-complete, provide C++ level of performance and native access to required hardware, while keeping browser-level safety and isolation. That is hard thing, but I believe, it could be solved using modern virtualization techniques with some advancements from OS and hardware to better virtualize GPU, USB, etc.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  I could never understand why does a browser even have to know what codec is used in a video (let alone implement it) when there are ffmpeg, DirectShow and whatever the Apple alternative is. Same thing with picture formats: if I were developing a browser I would just support them all via ImageMagick or something like that.
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    AFAIK until recently there was no support for H.264 in DirectShow. So your browser would not be very useful. Also you wouldn't be able to control video from JavaScript (get current time, get current loaded amount, play, pause, stop, etc).
    - qwerty456127 7y ago
      Then just stick to ffmpeg, libav, gstreamer or whatever such a library.

qwerty456127 7y ago

How many websites rely on google-specific features not defined by W3C, WHATWG, ECMA etc. today?

icebraining 7y ago
Those examples are the demonstration of my point! You had a mostly fixed standard that a small team could hope to reach - the W3C stuff - and the few top browser vendors decided to extend that with a continuous stream of new features chosen only by them - the WHATWG -, with the result that browsers who couldn't keep up got extinguished from the market. That the features aren't proprietary is besides the point: Google realizes that they don't need them to be proprietary, what matters is that others can't easily implement them all.

vbezhenar 7y ago

The only reason to extend the standard if you can't implement required functionality with acceptable performance within this standard. That is the weak point for web platform: JavaScript is too slow and does not have access to drivers, you can't implement GPU-accelerated H.264 video codec within browser, so you have to implement it with C++ in browser. That means that proposed standard should be Turing-complete, provide C++ level of performance and native access to required hardware, while keeping browser-level safety and isolation. That is hard thing, but I believe, it could be solved using modern virtualization techniques with some advancements from OS and hardware to better virtualize GPU, USB, etc.

qwerty456127 7y ago
I could never understand why does a browser even have to know what codec is used in a video (let alone implement it) when there are ffmpeg, DirectShow and whatever the Apple alternative is. Same thing with picture formats: if I were developing a browser I would just support them all via ImageMagick or something like that.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  AFAIK until recently there was no support for H.264 in DirectShow. So your browser would not be very useful. Also you wouldn't be able to control video from JavaScript (get current time, get current loaded amount, play, pause, stop, etc).
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    Then just stick to ffmpeg, libav, gstreamer or whatever such a library.