4 ms·

> As the smaller vendor, it's incumbent upon Mozilla to break it. That's kind of impossible to do for a smaller vendor without wider developer cooperation. I

> As the smaller vendor, it's incumbent upon Mozilla to break it. That's kind of impossible to do for a smaller vendor without wider developer cooperation. I remember Mozilla only started to breach IE's dominance once devs were so sick of IE that they installed Firefox on their mom's computer despite tons of sites being made for IE. It's possible for something like it to happen again with Chrome, but less likely since Google's a lot smarter and not too lazy to implement latest tech, so it will sure take longer without some activism and evangelism from web devs. > expecting individual devs to do it collectively when it really isn't in their selfish interests is waiting for a unicorn to appear Selfishness is a lot more complicated thing than people give it credit for. A lot of 'selfless' acts could be alternatively described as selfish in that it makes one feel good. Free software developers already do a lot of work for the wider community, where probably it would be a lot easier to just use the proprietary, already feature-rich, counterpart than trying to develop a libre alternative. But the movement understands that long-term, having as much free software as possible is what will in the end help preserve general-purpose computing in the sea of silos. It takes some discipline, sure, but long-term it's actually in one's selfish self-interest.

shadowgovt 6y ago
But that's the thing, if Google is responsive enough to implementing new technologies and improving their browser, there's no reason for most web devs to advocate for an alternative browser. A (high-quality) monoculture is actually much much easier on most web devs, because it minimizes the number of browsers they have to support for quirks.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  > A (high-quality) monoculture is actually much much easier on most web devs, because it minimizes the number of browsers they have to support for quirks. Short-term, sure. Long-term it opens devs to Google's whims and makes the "open" web barely more open than Apple's AppStore. But that's short-term vs long-term thinking and I can't deny most would prioritize the short-term. Here's hoping there's still enough idealists, even among web devs to avoid that fate and bring about for the web what GNU did for UNIX in the 80/90s.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    GNU did great things for UNIX. It hasn't really demonstrated much utility in the user experience improvement space. The flow there, in general, appears to be that the big, closed source commercial interests devise new approaches for user interface operation and the open source community copies the ones that work. The only space I can name off the top of my head where my open-source architectures have outstripped Windows and Mac in UX is virtual desktops.
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      If you're taking casual computer experience, KDE's still way more customizable than any of the commercial desktop environments out there. Of course proprietary software has more funding to hire designers and such, but in terms of actual functionality, I'd contest your claim. If you're talking developer user experience, it's not even a race. The FLOSS ecosystem has a landslide lead here. In fact the whole point of WSL is to try to keep devs on the Windows platform by bringing that experience to Windows more directly.
      - zbentley 6y ago
        > If you're taking casual computer experience, KDE's still way more customizable than any of the commercial desktop environments out there Customizability is orthogonal with out-of-the box UX, the original axis of comparison here. In fact, the two are often at odds.
- Santosh83 6y ago
  Same as saying a benevolent tyrant is the best govt. Viewed from a certain angle it could be arguably true, yet none of us would trade democracy for it because we understand quality and efficiency are not the only factors but need to be weighed with other ethical and social ones. The history of biological evolution shows that monocultures invariably fail catastrophically. Diversity is the main way to guard against unpredictable events of the future. Software is not exempt from these general rules I'd presume.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I'd be conservative extrapolating from lessons of government and biology to software engineering principles. Software doesn't change via random mutation and natural selection pressure; most open source projects are benevolent dictatorships of some flavor or other.
mantap 6y ago
Sorry to interrupt the party here but I feel compelled to point out that Firefox's is actually the third most common engine after Blink and WebKit. The web is not and will not be a monoculture as long as the iPhone exists. There's already two ~trillion dollar juggernauts involved.
- Drdrdrq 6y ago
  Blink is a fork of WebKit though. Firefox is the last big non-WebKit browser afaik.

shadowgovt 6y ago

But that's the thing, if Google is responsive enough to implementing new technologies and improving their browser, there's no reason for most web devs to advocate for an alternative browser. A (high-quality) monoculture is actually much much easier on most web devs, because it minimizes the number of browsers they have to support for quirks.

AsyncAwait 6y ago
> A (high-quality) monoculture is actually much much easier on most web devs, because it minimizes the number of browsers they have to support for quirks. Short-term, sure. Long-term it opens devs to Google's whims and makes the "open" web barely more open than Apple's AppStore. But that's short-term vs long-term thinking and I can't deny most would prioritize the short-term. Here's hoping there's still enough idealists, even among web devs to avoid that fate and bring about for the web what GNU did for UNIX in the 80/90s.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  GNU did great things for UNIX. It hasn't really demonstrated much utility in the user experience improvement space. The flow there, in general, appears to be that the big, closed source commercial interests devise new approaches for user interface operation and the open source community copies the ones that work. The only space I can name off the top of my head where my open-source architectures have outstripped Windows and Mac in UX is virtual desktops.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    If you're taking casual computer experience, KDE's still way more customizable than any of the commercial desktop environments out there. Of course proprietary software has more funding to hire designers and such, but in terms of actual functionality, I'd contest your claim. If you're talking developer user experience, it's not even a race. The FLOSS ecosystem has a landslide lead here. In fact the whole point of WSL is to try to keep devs on the Windows platform by bringing that experience to Windows more directly.
    - zbentley 6y ago
      > If you're taking casual computer experience, KDE's still way more customizable than any of the commercial desktop environments out there Customizability is orthogonal with out-of-the box UX, the original axis of comparison here. In fact, the two are often at odds.
Santosh83 6y ago
Same as saying a benevolent tyrant is the best govt. Viewed from a certain angle it could be arguably true, yet none of us would trade democracy for it because we understand quality and efficiency are not the only factors but need to be weighed with other ethical and social ones. The history of biological evolution shows that monocultures invariably fail catastrophically. Diversity is the main way to guard against unpredictable events of the future. Software is not exempt from these general rules I'd presume.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  I'd be conservative extrapolating from lessons of government and biology to software engineering principles. Software doesn't change via random mutation and natural selection pressure; most open source projects are benevolent dictatorships of some flavor or other.

mantap 6y ago

Sorry to interrupt the party here but I feel compelled to point out that Firefox's is actually the third most common engine after Blink and WebKit. The web is not and will not be a monoculture as long as the iPhone exists. There's already two ~trillion dollar juggernauts involved.

Drdrdrq 6y ago
Blink is a fork of WebKit though. Firefox is the last big non-WebKit browser afaik.