6 ms·

Nowadays, a small team is simply not enough to develop a browser and keep up with the competition. Unless you fork Chrome, of course.

qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
Browsers have become way over complicated. They're always trying to figure out some new gimmick just to keep people engaged and to produce clicks. Down-vote me, go ahead. I speak the truth.
diegocg 7y ago
Indeed. Even Microsoft decided to give up their own browser, and they have plenty of money.
jahlove 7y ago
They made $450m in revenue in 2018. What fraction of that is actually needed to keep a productive browser team afloat?
- bzbarsky 7y ago
  How big do you think a "productive browser team" needs to be? How big do you think the Chromium team is?
  - jahlove 7y ago
    > How big do you think a "productive browser team" needs to be? Wait, that was my question...
    - bzbarsky 7y ago
      OK, let's do some data-gathering. If I git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git and then run: git log --since=2019-01-15 | grep "^Author:" | fgrep chromium.org | sort -u | wc -l to get one year's worth of commits as of today (as of rev c43e247d6444 to be exact), I get 1250. If I repeat that with "google.com" instead of "chromium.org", I get 623. So figure ~1800-1900 there. If I git clone https://github.com/WebKit/webkit.git https://github.com/WebKit/webkit.git as of today (rev ba925cdbc8c3f2dff44cdcb92d9a374816b0215b) and run: git log --since=2019-01-15 | grep "^Author:" | fgrep webkit.org | sort -u | wc -l I get 15. If I repeat that with apple.com instead of webkit.org I get 70. If I just list all distinct authors, I get 128. Note that this is an underestimate of what it takes to build a browser, because a bunch of the parts of an actual browser are not in the webkit repo itself last I checked. Like the whole network stack. If I hg clone https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/ https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/ (the repository for Firefox) and run: hg log -d 2019 | grep "^user:" | sort -u | fgrep mozilla.com | wc -l I get 359. I am quite sure this last is is an underestimate: I am a Mozilla employee, but I use a non-mozilla.com address in my commits, because I started contributing before becoming an employee. I'm not the only one. The total number of distinct committers there is 1497 which is a serious overestimate: web platform test changesets come with their original author, who is often an engineer working on some other browser. If I filter out webkit.org, microsoft.com, google.com, chromium.org, webkit.org, that leaves me with 1265. This is almost certainly a significant over-estimate, since it's more than the total number of Mozilla employees. Note that we may be undercounting QA here, since not all of them might commit to the main repository. On the other hand, we might be counting one-off contributors who are not really on the "browser team" per se, especially for "apple.com" and "google.com". We're also overcounting somewhat depending on how much churn there was over the course of the year (people leaving, new ones joining). But pallpark, I suspect an unrealistic lower bound is 100 and a reasonable lower bound is 150-500, depending on how much of the tech stack you want to delegate to other entities. The Chrome team is a lot bigger than any of those numbers, of course.
      - junar 7y ago
        Note that getting a chromium.org email does not require being a Google employee. https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/become-a-committer https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/become-a-committer
        bzbarsky 7y ago
        That is true, and I did not claim that the entirety of the "Chromium team" are Google employees, either... You do need to be a bit more involved than a few drive-by contributions to get a chromium.org email, as far as I can tell.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >How big do you think a "productive browser team" needs to be? I'd say 50 or so people would be fine. >How big do you think the Chromium team is? Around 60-80 people judging from the names listed under the various Blink teams (Rendering, DOM, Memory, Style, etc).
    - Yoric 7y ago
      > I'd say 50 or so people would be fine. With 50 or so devs (let's forget for this example about managers, UX researchers and designers, HR, etc.) you'll get maybe a JavaScript VM and a small UX. Not nearly a browser :( > Around 60-80 people judging from the names listed under the various Blink teams (Rendering, DOM, Memory, Style, etc). That sounds like a really, really vast underestimation. To the best of my recollection Chromium embedding teams inside Google that are 30+ developers (again, let's forget managers, UX researchers, etc.). I know that there are at least 4 such teams at Google. I would be very surprised if Google didn't have at least 1000 developers working on Chromium.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        > With 50 or so devs (let's forget for this example about managers, UX researchers and designers, HR, etc.) you'll get maybe a JavaScript VM and a small UX. Safari does those two specific things with a quarter of the number you mentioned. The entire team is nowhere near a thousand people.
        marcinzm 7y ago
        Safari runs on 1.5 operating systems and a limited set of hardware.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        WebKit runs on a lot more.
        alwillis 7y ago
        Apple is known for how small their teams are. WebKit runs on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS across Intel and ARM architectures. WebKit provides the web views for countless 3rd party apps, including Mail, Calendar, iTunes, etc. Apple certainly has fewer people who get paid to write code for Safari/WebKit than Google has on Chrome/Blink. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mozilla has more people too, especially since they’re rewriting pieces of the browser engine at the same time.
  - shuckles 7y ago
    Google employs thousands of engineers who spend a majority of their time thinking about Google Chrome. This gets slightly more complicated because of, e.g., the strategic impact of Chrome in other places like ChromeOS. The right comparison would be Apple's WebKit and Safari teams.
- summerlight 7y ago
  Assuming that Chrome team have thousands of engineers, designers and PMs (which is a pretty reasonable number as a modern browser is comparable to OS), I expect them to spend more than a billion each year. Mozilla is really in short of resources.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Other browsers do just fine with significantly fewer engineers.
    - dblohm7 7y ago
      Do they ship their own rendering engines?
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        Yes.
        banachtarski 7y ago
        Honestly calling BS. Just writing a javascript runtime alone isn't just a "handful of engineers." WebGL stack? WebRTC? Layout engine/compositor? Notifications? You're kidding me, there is no small team in the world that could ship a browser stack end to end.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        > Just writing a javascript runtime alone isn't just a "handful of engineers." But it is. You can verify it yourself: https://github.com/WebKit/webkit/commits/master/Source/JavaScriptCore https://github.com/WebKit/webkit/commits/master/Source/JavaS... > You're kidding me, there is no small team in the world that could ship a browser stack end to end. https://webkit.org/team/ https://webkit.org/team/, ⌘F "Apple". Balance the people on that list who have left or are assigned to work on something else with those who aren't listed there.

qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago

Browsers have become way over complicated. They're always trying to figure out some new gimmick just to keep people engaged and to produce clicks. Down-vote me, go ahead. I speak the truth.

diegocg 7y ago

Indeed. Even Microsoft decided to give up their own browser, and they have plenty of money.

jahlove 7y ago

They made $450m in revenue in 2018. What fraction of that is actually needed to keep a productive browser team afloat?

bzbarsky 7y ago
How big do you think a "productive browser team" needs to be? How big do you think the Chromium team is?
- jahlove 7y ago
  > How big do you think a "productive browser team" needs to be? Wait, that was my question...
  - bzbarsky 7y ago
    OK, let's do some data-gathering. If I git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git and then run: git log --since=2019-01-15 | grep "^Author:" | fgrep chromium.org | sort -u | wc -l to get one year's worth of commits as of today (as of rev c43e247d6444 to be exact), I get 1250. If I repeat that with "google.com" instead of "chromium.org", I get 623. So figure ~1800-1900 there. If I git clone https://github.com/WebKit/webkit.git https://github.com/WebKit/webkit.git as of today (rev ba925cdbc8c3f2dff44cdcb92d9a374816b0215b) and run: git log --since=2019-01-15 | grep "^Author:" | fgrep webkit.org | sort -u | wc -l I get 15. If I repeat that with apple.com instead of webkit.org I get 70. If I just list all distinct authors, I get 128. Note that this is an underestimate of what it takes to build a browser, because a bunch of the parts of an actual browser are not in the webkit repo itself last I checked. Like the whole network stack. If I hg clone https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/ https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/ (the repository for Firefox) and run: hg log -d 2019 | grep "^user:" | sort -u | fgrep mozilla.com | wc -l I get 359. I am quite sure this last is is an underestimate: I am a Mozilla employee, but I use a non-mozilla.com address in my commits, because I started contributing before becoming an employee. I'm not the only one. The total number of distinct committers there is 1497 which is a serious overestimate: web platform test changesets come with their original author, who is often an engineer working on some other browser. If I filter out webkit.org, microsoft.com, google.com, chromium.org, webkit.org, that leaves me with 1265. This is almost certainly a significant over-estimate, since it's more than the total number of Mozilla employees. Note that we may be undercounting QA here, since not all of them might commit to the main repository. On the other hand, we might be counting one-off contributors who are not really on the "browser team" per se, especially for "apple.com" and "google.com". We're also overcounting somewhat depending on how much churn there was over the course of the year (people leaving, new ones joining). But pallpark, I suspect an unrealistic lower bound is 100 and a reasonable lower bound is 150-500, depending on how much of the tech stack you want to delegate to other entities. The Chrome team is a lot bigger than any of those numbers, of course.
    - junar 7y ago
      Note that getting a chromium.org email does not require being a Google employee. https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/become-a-committer https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/become-a-committer
      - bzbarsky 7y ago
        That is true, and I did not claim that the entirety of the "Chromium team" are Google employees, either... You do need to be a bit more involved than a few drive-by contributions to get a chromium.org email, as far as I can tell.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >How big do you think a "productive browser team" needs to be? I'd say 50 or so people would be fine. >How big do you think the Chromium team is? Around 60-80 people judging from the names listed under the various Blink teams (Rendering, DOM, Memory, Style, etc).
  - Yoric 7y ago
    > I'd say 50 or so people would be fine. With 50 or so devs (let's forget for this example about managers, UX researchers and designers, HR, etc.) you'll get maybe a JavaScript VM and a small UX. Not nearly a browser :( > Around 60-80 people judging from the names listed under the various Blink teams (Rendering, DOM, Memory, Style, etc). That sounds like a really, really vast underestimation. To the best of my recollection Chromium embedding teams inside Google that are 30+ developers (again, let's forget managers, UX researchers, etc.). I know that there are at least 4 such teams at Google. I would be very surprised if Google didn't have at least 1000 developers working on Chromium.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > With 50 or so devs (let's forget for this example about managers, UX researchers and designers, HR, etc.) you'll get maybe a JavaScript VM and a small UX. Safari does those two specific things with a quarter of the number you mentioned. The entire team is nowhere near a thousand people.
      - marcinzm 7y ago
        Safari runs on 1.5 operating systems and a limited set of hardware.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        WebKit runs on a lot more.
        alwillis 7y ago
        Apple is known for how small their teams are. WebKit runs on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS across Intel and ARM architectures. WebKit provides the web views for countless 3rd party apps, including Mail, Calendar, iTunes, etc. Apple certainly has fewer people who get paid to write code for Safari/WebKit than Google has on Chrome/Blink. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mozilla has more people too, especially since they’re rewriting pieces of the browser engine at the same time.
- shuckles 7y ago
  Google employs thousands of engineers who spend a majority of their time thinking about Google Chrome. This gets slightly more complicated because of, e.g., the strategic impact of Chrome in other places like ChromeOS. The right comparison would be Apple's WebKit and Safari teams.
summerlight 7y ago
Assuming that Chrome team have thousands of engineers, designers and PMs (which is a pretty reasonable number as a modern browser is comparable to OS), I expect them to spend more than a billion each year. Mozilla is really in short of resources.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Other browsers do just fine with significantly fewer engineers.
  - dblohm7 7y ago
    Do they ship their own rendering engines?
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Yes.
      - banachtarski 7y ago
        Honestly calling BS. Just writing a javascript runtime alone isn't just a "handful of engineers." WebGL stack? WebRTC? Layout engine/compositor? Notifications? You're kidding me, there is no small team in the world that could ship a browser stack end to end.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        > Just writing a javascript runtime alone isn't just a "handful of engineers." But it is. You can verify it yourself: https://github.com/WebKit/webkit/commits/master/Source/JavaScriptCore https://github.com/WebKit/webkit/commits/master/Source/JavaS... > You're kidding me, there is no small team in the world that could ship a browser stack end to end. https://webkit.org/team/ https://webkit.org/team/, ⌘F "Apple". Balance the people on that list who have left or are assigned to work on something else with those who aren't listed there.