3 ms·

> (The three spec editors are all Googlers. Webkit seem to have some doubts about some aspects of the design.) Here's my issue with a browser monoculture. Wit

by ken 7y ago

> (The three spec editors are all Googlers. Webkit seem to have some doubts about some aspects of the design.) Here's my issue with a browser monoculture. With 3 or 4 major browsers, it was easy to tell what features would survive. The specs were never great at that -- there were some early spec'd features that never got widely implemented. But any feature that could convince people at Google + Microsoft + Apple + Mozilla to all implement it would be around for a long time. With Microsoft switching to a Chrome-based engine, this is a valuable data point we've lost. Essentially, instead of new features being opt-in by default, they're opt-out. We've seen it before: when one browser has a majority market share, nobody else can afford to tell them an idea is bad.

nickthemagicman 7y ago
Doesn't Chrome follow w3 standards though?
- alexisread 7y ago
  Kinda, the W3C are now following WHATWG, so as Google are the major stakeholder by marketshare it's more like the tail wagging the dog. - https://www.neowin.net/news/w3c-and-whatwg-agree-on-single-html-and-dom-specs https://www.neowin.net/news/w3c-and-whatwg-agree-on-single-h...
  - nickthemagicman 7y ago
    Haha that's nuts. I see your point.
munificent 7y ago
This is a good point, but I do feel you're missing a step, and it's one open standards folks sort of gloss over because it's kind of icky. A feature doesn't directly "convince" other browser teams to implement itself. The process, instead, is more like: 1. Browser A adds new non-standard feature. 2. Users like it enough to start using it widely in their apps. 3. Other browsers are now motivated to implement the feature so that those apps work in their browser too. 4. Because of that, there is now incentive to standardize. Finally, the feature becomes a standard. The sketchy part is that step 2 only works when users deliberately choose to build apps that only work in a single browser. That idea anathema to standards folks, but as far as I can tell, the consensus process does rely on it most of the time. That's how we got JavaScript, XHR, <canvas>, etc. It's very hard to convince several independent implementation teams that a feature is a good idea if no one is using it yet.
WorldMaker 7y ago
Microsoft has argued that a potential benefit of them spending full time in the Chromium codebase is potentially a bit more power to curb some of the worst of Google's folly by making sure things remain opt-in by default and things that haven't passed specs approval are behind experimental flags and such. So long as Google follows the ideals of Open Source Governance on the project and listens to PR feedback, Microsoft might not be wrong about that. That said, Google also has a history of taking their ball and going home when they aren't getting what they want from Open Source Governance (the increasing divorce between AOSP and Google Play Services for example, or closer to this particular debate the fallout with Apple that caused the Blink fork from WebKit). I'm almost tempted to bring popcorn to the Chromium mailing lists in anticipation of whatever drama is about to happen.

by ken 7y ago

nickthemagicman 7y ago

Doesn't Chrome follow w3 standards though?

alexisread 7y ago
Kinda, the W3C are now following WHATWG, so as Google are the major stakeholder by marketshare it's more like the tail wagging the dog. - https://www.neowin.net/news/w3c-and-whatwg-agree-on-single-html-and-dom-specs https://www.neowin.net/news/w3c-and-whatwg-agree-on-single-h...
- nickthemagicman 7y ago
  Haha that's nuts. I see your point.

munificent 7y ago

This is a good point, but I do feel you're missing a step, and it's one open standards folks sort of gloss over because it's kind of icky. A feature doesn't directly "convince" other browser teams to implement itself. The process, instead, is more like: 1. Browser A adds new non-standard feature. 2. Users like it enough to start using it widely in their apps. 3. Other browsers are now motivated to implement the feature so that those apps work in their browser too. 4. Because of that, there is now incentive to standardize. Finally, the feature becomes a standard. The sketchy part is that step 2 only works when users deliberately choose to build apps that only work in a single browser. That idea anathema to standards folks, but as far as I can tell, the consensus process does rely on it most of the time. That's how we got JavaScript, XHR, <canvas>, etc. It's very hard to convince several independent implementation teams that a feature is a good idea if no one is using it yet.

WorldMaker 7y ago

Microsoft has argued that a potential benefit of them spending full time in the Chromium codebase is potentially a bit more power to curb some of the worst of Google's folly by making sure things remain opt-in by default and things that haven't passed specs approval are behind experimental flags and such. So long as Google follows the ideals of Open Source Governance on the project and listens to PR feedback, Microsoft might not be wrong about that. That said, Google also has a history of taking their ball and going home when they aren't getting what they want from Open Source Governance (the increasing divorce between AOSP and Google Play Services for example, or closer to this particular debate the fallout with Apple that caused the Blink fork from WebKit). I'm almost tempted to bring popcorn to the Chromium mailing lists in anticipation of whatever drama is about to happen.