4 ms·

As someone who read a lot of Slashdot in the 90's... what is the world coming to, when I'm rooting for Microsoft products because I don't want monopolies in bro

by lacker 7y ago

As someone who read a lot of Slashdot in the 90's... what is the world coming to, when I'm rooting for Microsoft products because I don't want monopolies in browsers and operating systems?

saagarjha 7y ago
Of course, you may get more bang for your rooting buck if you supported a browser that didn’t use Blink as its rendering engine.
- hollerith 7y ago
  I hear that sentiment a lot on this site, but don't understand it. Since Blink is available under a very permissive license, why does it matter? It seems to me that the notion that it is important to have multiple implementations of a standard (and the notion that a formal standard is even necessary) derive from a time when those implementations had proprietary licenses.
  - Santosh83 7y ago
    Matters because if at least two engines are equally popular (in terms of market share) or close to that, then no one entity will be able to disregard or exert undue influence over the standardisation process of web technologies. They will be forced to work together and presumably if one entity tries to do something evil the other will resist and since they have roughly equal market share, the evil proposal will be dead in water. Diversity of implementations is important as a means of checks and balances.
    - hollerith 7y ago
      I continue to fail to understand. Is it not the case that if the popularity of Edge Chromium becomes close to that of Google Chrome, then your argument will apply just as well, i.e., if either Google or Microsoft tries to do something evil the other will resist? Why is whether the 2 project descend from the same codebase the decisive factor? I would've thought that the decisive factor is whether the second project is willing to deploy developer (and managerial) resources to the same extent as Google is willing to, i.e., many hundreds of full-time developers, each earning over 100,000 usd per year (and sufficiently competent managers).
      - Santosh83 7y ago
        True. But there still remain subtle bugs in rendering engines that become 'features.' On the other hand if there are multiple popular engines (deep forks count too), those bugs will be exposed and there will be incentive to fix them and align towards a single standard behaviour.
    - wayneftw 7y ago
      Mozilla alone is the reason we couldn't have Web SQL and instead we have that stupid piece of shit known as Indexed DB. So, how did that happen? They had less market share and they still got their way. https://nolanlawson.com/2014/04/26/web-sql-database-in-memoriam/ https://nolanlawson.com/2014/04/26/web-sql-database-in-memor...
      - paulryanrogers 7y ago
        IIRC WebSQL failed more because it was too dependent on Sqlite being the only implementation. So it's not just about the rendering library.
        wayneftw 7y ago
        Yes, they were against it for that reason. Microsoft was meh. Google and Apple were for it. So, my point stands I think. Having only one (very good and stable) implementation for something isn’t a good enough reason to lose such great functionality IMO.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Google de-facto controls the development of Blink, so it goes where Google would like to take it regardless of how “forkable” it is. Having a significant fraction of the web browser market share come from a single engine encourages website developers to program for the monoculture and not to the standard; we’re already seeing this today to some extent and it increases the control of a single company on the web.
    - hollerith 7y ago
      >Google de-facto controls the development of Blink So you believe that Google will continue to de-facto control Blink's development even if Microsoft allocates as much money to the development of Edge Chromium as Google does to that of Chrome (which by the way I'm guessing is closer to 1000 full-time developers and security experts than it is to 100 developers and security experts) and if the management of the development of Edge Chromium is at least as competent as that of Chrome?
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        I think that a high-performance team of even a hundred would probably be able to match Google’s efforts on Blink; another browser engine is doing this already. But when you’re working on an engine with another company, I think it’s generally difficult to have too much control of the direction the project is going without hard forking, as Google probably realized themselves when Blink was created. Plus I’m not sure how much effort Microsoft is putting into this and whether they’re trying to exert any control on the engine.
      - int_19h 7y ago
        It's not so much about the money as it is about the market share. What gives Google so much control is that if they unilaterally make the change, it goes out to all the existing Chrome users - and it becomes the de facto standard simply because they are the majority. If and when the new Edge can take enough market share, that might change. But I don't think this is happening anytime soon.
nolok 7y ago
Eh, Microsoft never cared much what you did as long as you did it on their OS or Browser. It used to be an issue because we wanted to do it on any OS we wished, and it still is in the back of our mind, but now we're facing the much bigger issue of Google/Apple/Whatever not just wanting us to do it on theirs, but also controlling what we can or can't do or say, and suddenly Microsoft's proposition looks much much better.
Santosh83 7y ago
Well, supporting Edge will help prevent a developer monopoly (at least two major corps will contribute to Chromium base), but it won't do anything for the engine monopoly and hence the vitiation of vibrant implementations of the web standards (which will be increasingly defined as whatever Chromium implements).

by lacker 7y ago

As someone who read a lot of Slashdot in the 90's... what is the world coming to, when I'm rooting for Microsoft products because I don't want monopolies in browsers and operating systems?

saagarjha 7y ago

Of course, you may get more bang for your rooting buck if you supported a browser that didn’t use Blink as its rendering engine.

hollerith 7y ago
I hear that sentiment a lot on this site, but don't understand it. Since Blink is available under a very permissive license, why does it matter? It seems to me that the notion that it is important to have multiple implementations of a standard (and the notion that a formal standard is even necessary) derive from a time when those implementations had proprietary licenses.
- Santosh83 7y ago
  Matters because if at least two engines are equally popular (in terms of market share) or close to that, then no one entity will be able to disregard or exert undue influence over the standardisation process of web technologies. They will be forced to work together and presumably if one entity tries to do something evil the other will resist and since they have roughly equal market share, the evil proposal will be dead in water. Diversity of implementations is important as a means of checks and balances.
  - hollerith 7y ago
    I continue to fail to understand. Is it not the case that if the popularity of Edge Chromium becomes close to that of Google Chrome, then your argument will apply just as well, i.e., if either Google or Microsoft tries to do something evil the other will resist? Why is whether the 2 project descend from the same codebase the decisive factor? I would've thought that the decisive factor is whether the second project is willing to deploy developer (and managerial) resources to the same extent as Google is willing to, i.e., many hundreds of full-time developers, each earning over 100,000 usd per year (and sufficiently competent managers).
    - Santosh83 7y ago
      True. But there still remain subtle bugs in rendering engines that become 'features.' On the other hand if there are multiple popular engines (deep forks count too), those bugs will be exposed and there will be incentive to fix them and align towards a single standard behaviour.
  - wayneftw 7y ago
    Mozilla alone is the reason we couldn't have Web SQL and instead we have that stupid piece of shit known as Indexed DB. So, how did that happen? They had less market share and they still got their way. https://nolanlawson.com/2014/04/26/web-sql-database-in-memoriam/ https://nolanlawson.com/2014/04/26/web-sql-database-in-memor...
    - paulryanrogers 7y ago
      IIRC WebSQL failed more because it was too dependent on Sqlite being the only implementation. So it's not just about the rendering library.
      - wayneftw 7y ago
        Yes, they were against it for that reason. Microsoft was meh. Google and Apple were for it. So, my point stands I think. Having only one (very good and stable) implementation for something isn’t a good enough reason to lose such great functionality IMO.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Google de-facto controls the development of Blink, so it goes where Google would like to take it regardless of how “forkable” it is. Having a significant fraction of the web browser market share come from a single engine encourages website developers to program for the monoculture and not to the standard; we’re already seeing this today to some extent and it increases the control of a single company on the web.
  - hollerith 7y ago
    >Google de-facto controls the development of Blink So you believe that Google will continue to de-facto control Blink's development even if Microsoft allocates as much money to the development of Edge Chromium as Google does to that of Chrome (which by the way I'm guessing is closer to 1000 full-time developers and security experts than it is to 100 developers and security experts) and if the management of the development of Edge Chromium is at least as competent as that of Chrome?
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      I think that a high-performance team of even a hundred would probably be able to match Google’s efforts on Blink; another browser engine is doing this already. But when you’re working on an engine with another company, I think it’s generally difficult to have too much control of the direction the project is going without hard forking, as Google probably realized themselves when Blink was created. Plus I’m not sure how much effort Microsoft is putting into this and whether they’re trying to exert any control on the engine.
    - int_19h 7y ago
      It's not so much about the money as it is about the market share. What gives Google so much control is that if they unilaterally make the change, it goes out to all the existing Chrome users - and it becomes the de facto standard simply because they are the majority. If and when the new Edge can take enough market share, that might change. But I don't think this is happening anytime soon.

nolok 7y ago

Eh, Microsoft never cared much what you did as long as you did it on their OS or Browser. It used to be an issue because we wanted to do it on any OS we wished, and it still is in the back of our mind, but now we're facing the much bigger issue of Google/Apple/Whatever not just wanting us to do it on theirs, but also controlling what we can or can't do or say, and suddenly Microsoft's proposition looks much much better.

Santosh83 7y ago

Well, supporting Edge will help prevent a developer monopoly (at least two major corps will contribute to Chromium base), but it won't do anything for the engine monopoly and hence the vitiation of vibrant implementations of the web standards (which will be increasingly defined as whatever Chromium implements).