4 ms·

Didn't they just revamp Edge with Chromium? Why would they want to revamp it again with an engine that barely has a market share.

haakon 6y ago
Servo is a research project. Microsoft spends a ton on research.
- NegativeLatency 6y ago
  Would they spend it on a project that was written in Rust rather than one of their own languages though?
  - steveklabnik 6y ago
    Microsoft is already supporting the Rust project, so, yes, I would not expect that to be a disqualifying reason.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Are any of their langauges a good fit for something like Servo? I haven't used C# a huge amount but everytime I do I find myself being more productive than writing C++ but ultimately slightly worried about performance and correctness (the biggest thing that stood out is the absolutely awful immutability in C#)
    - oaiey 6y ago
      Latest C# versions added a lot of language and library features allowing efficient writing of high performance code. And if you want to go a step further, unity has shown how (burst compiler)
    - domenicd 6y ago
      They had a project called "Midori" which was a new operating system (I believe including browser?) written in a C# derivative. The blog posts on it are fascinating stuff, diving into some greenfield decisions for both language design and OS design. http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ It's interesting to compare what we know of "Midori C#" to Rust.
      - steveklabnik 6y ago
        Joe spoke on this topic at RustConf a few years back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuD7SCqHB7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuD7SCqHB7k
  - ponker 6y ago
    Sure. Microsoft is a pretty unpredictable company these days. They are supporting all kinds of weird and wonderful things. I’m sure there is some ruthless business reason behind all of it but I don’t care if it helps the projects.
monoideism 6y ago
"competitive independent browser again" The point would be the technology and independence from Google, not the market share.
staticassertion 6y ago
Sure. At the same time, is it really smart for them to just completely abandon the idea of independence? There's a lot that a browser can do for a company. Google has built GSuite and ChromeOS around Chrome - the integration with the browser is absurd and right up Microsoft's alley. Microsoft could build Azure Active Directory, O365, Windows, etc, around a next gen browser and I think they'd be smart to do so.
- treis 6y ago
  > Sure. At the same time, is it really smart for them to just completely abandon the idea of independence? It is. Chrome is so dominant at this point they're the de facto web standard. Other browsers have to put in significant effort just to play catch up and can't really offer any new renderer/js feature without Chrome's blessing. Plus, we have a decade's worth of evidence that Chromium is just flat out better than the competition. Even if we set aside the problems with market share the Chromium team has consistently put out a faster engine than Firefox or IE. Adopting Chromium allows you to (mostly) avoid putting effort into the rendering engine allowing you to focus on other features to differentiate yourself.
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    > Other browsers have to put in significant effort just to play catch up and can't really offer any new renderer/js feature without Chrome's blessing. Microsoft still runs the dominant operating system! They have a huge opportunity here to complete. The same way Chrome advertises on Google.com, Microsoft can provide the default fucking browser that is HUGE. > Plus, we have a decade's worth of evidence that Chromium Chrome is 12 years old. It's been super popular for less than a decade. Its multiprocess architecture, by far its most long term scalable feature, was behind Internet Explorer's (they started multiproc trend with, iirc, IE8). > Even if we set aside the problems with market share the Chromium team has consistently put out a faster engine than Firefox or IE. Acquire Servo, do better? That's my entire point.
    - solarkraft 6y ago

haakon 6y ago

Servo is a research project. Microsoft spends a ton on research.

NegativeLatency 6y ago
Would they spend it on a project that was written in Rust rather than one of their own languages though?
- steveklabnik 6y ago
  Microsoft is already supporting the Rust project, so, yes, I would not expect that to be a disqualifying reason.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Are any of their langauges a good fit for something like Servo? I haven't used C# a huge amount but everytime I do I find myself being more productive than writing C++ but ultimately slightly worried about performance and correctness (the biggest thing that stood out is the absolutely awful immutability in C#)
  - oaiey 6y ago
    Latest C# versions added a lot of language and library features allowing efficient writing of high performance code. And if you want to go a step further, unity has shown how (burst compiler)
  - domenicd 6y ago
    They had a project called "Midori" which was a new operating system (I believe including browser?) written in a C# derivative. The blog posts on it are fascinating stuff, diving into some greenfield decisions for both language design and OS design. http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/ It's interesting to compare what we know of "Midori C#" to Rust.
    - steveklabnik 6y ago
      Joe spoke on this topic at RustConf a few years back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuD7SCqHB7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuD7SCqHB7k
- ponker 6y ago
  Sure. Microsoft is a pretty unpredictable company these days. They are supporting all kinds of weird and wonderful things. I’m sure there is some ruthless business reason behind all of it but I don’t care if it helps the projects.

monoideism 6y ago

"competitive independent browser again" The point would be the technology and independence from Google, not the market share.

staticassertion 6y ago

Sure. At the same time, is it really smart for them to just completely abandon the idea of independence? There's a lot that a browser can do for a company. Google has built GSuite and ChromeOS around Chrome - the integration with the browser is absurd and right up Microsoft's alley. Microsoft could build Azure Active Directory, O365, Windows, etc, around a next gen browser and I think they'd be smart to do so.

treis 6y ago
> Sure. At the same time, is it really smart for them to just completely abandon the idea of independence? It is. Chrome is so dominant at this point they're the de facto web standard. Other browsers have to put in significant effort just to play catch up and can't really offer any new renderer/js feature without Chrome's blessing. Plus, we have a decade's worth of evidence that Chromium is just flat out better than the competition. Even if we set aside the problems with market share the Chromium team has consistently put out a faster engine than Firefox or IE. Adopting Chromium allows you to (mostly) avoid putting effort into the rendering engine allowing you to focus on other features to differentiate yourself.
- staticassertion 6y ago
  > Other browsers have to put in significant effort just to play catch up and can't really offer any new renderer/js feature without Chrome's blessing. Microsoft still runs the dominant operating system! They have a huge opportunity here to complete. The same way Chrome advertises on Google.com, Microsoft can provide the default fucking browser that is HUGE. > Plus, we have a decade's worth of evidence that Chromium Chrome is 12 years old. It's been super popular for less than a decade. Its multiprocess architecture, by far its most long term scalable feature, was behind Internet Explorer's (they started multiproc trend with, iirc, IE8). > Even if we set aside the problems with market share the Chromium team has consistently put out a faster engine than Firefox or IE. Acquire Servo, do better? That's my entire point.
  - solarkraft 6y ago