5 ms·

I think it will take more time to say that for certain. Warp is an exception, but most of the recent improvements to Firefox were initially prototyped and devel

by ATsch 6y ago

I think it will take more time to say that for certain. Warp is an exception, but most of the recent improvements to Firefox were initially prototyped and developed in the experimental Servo engine which was to my knowledge intended to eventually replace all of gecko. Most of the team for that has been let go. I think the thing to be worried about is: what will happen when they run out of stuff that's already in the pipeline? Will they be able to execute the sweeping changes they'll need to do to stay within reach of blink long term? Or will they have to concede like opera and edge did.

IainIreland 6y ago
> most of the recent improvements to Firefox were initially prototyped and developed in the experimental Servo engine which was to my knowledge intended to eventually replace all of gecko. Most of the team for that has been let go. This is not the case. Servo worked on big experimental moonshot projects. They had some major successes (Stylo, WebRender), but the rest of the Firefox team wasn't sitting around twiddling their thumbs. I don't think Servo ever made up more than a small fraction of the overall Firefox workforce. They had to pick and choose their projects. Note, for example, that Servo embeds SpiderMonkey instead of writing its own JS engine from scratch: https://github.com/servo/rust-mozjs https://github.com/servo/rust-mozjs Don't worry! SpiderMonkey still has additional cool projects coming down the pipeline, none of which are dependent on Servo.
- cpeterso 6y ago
  This is correct. Servo's Stylo parallelized CSS parser shipped in Firefox's "Quantum" performance release, but a huge part of the overall performance improvement came from profiling the whole system. Fixing lots of small hot spots in Firefox frontend and Gecko really added up. It's easy for tiny performance regressions to creep in here and there.
- coliveira 6y ago
  Many people are badmouthing Mozilla because they disbanded the group working on their pet language, Rust, as if this was synonym for Firefox technology. There are many things that Mozilla does beyond working on Rust.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    No, just no. they were badmouthing Mozilla because they didn't like mozilla firing their rust resources while they continue to pay enormous amounts for a CEO and other higher ups while Firefox's market share is in a death spiral currently. The only thing that can save it is better branding and "gotta have it features" which Rust can bring, along with stability.
    - coliveira 6y ago
      I'm not trying to defend their management, but my opinion here is that they concluded that investing in a new language wouldn't be the best/fastest way to evolve Firefox. Google may have money to invest in a new language, but Mozilla probably needs to be more focused.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        The executive pay shows that their conclusions about where money should be allocated have severe issues, so it's hard to trust that choice without more justification.
mumblemumble 6y ago
> Or will they have to concede like opera and edge did. I am sad to say this, but I think it's only a matter of time. At this point, the list of parties driving Web standards basically consists of a whole bunch of organizations that rely on Blink, plus Apple and Mozilla. WebKit can probably hang on for a good long while because ~15% of user-agents are required by fiat to be WebKit. Gecko? At 5% marketshare, I fear it's dropped below the point where web developers are well-incentivized worry too much about making sure their sites run well on it. Which means that it's going to get increasingly costly for individuals to continue using Firefox. And, at the same time, actually making sure your site runs well on it is getting increasingly difficult. The rise of client-side JavaScript frameworks like React means that cross-browser issues have moved beyond easy-to-perceive things like ActiveX controls not being supported, or CSS rendering badly. Now the big problem is differences between JavaScript engines leading to annoying performance problems. And, if a developer is planning on doing the sane thing and relying mostly on libraries for their heavy lifting, there's just not that much that any individual can do about it. My sense, at this point, is that, going forward, the Internet does still have room for free, open, community-driven standards that aren't tightly controlled by a small number of massive corporations. However, the Web (i.e., HTML, CSS and JavaScript) does not.
- toyg 6y ago
  This is catastrophism. If Mozilla can make a browser that developers enjoy using as daily driver, developers will make stuff for it. If Mozilla can build bridges with framework makers, frameworks will work just fine. They just need to regain some of the focus that was squandered on too many moonshots and hazardous choices (FFOS, Pocket, etc).
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    I think that that may no longer be enough. The elephant in the room is the Web taking over non-Web apps. If Electron is part of your deployment surface, you can't escape Chromium. If Cordova is part of your deployment surface, it's Chromium or WebKit. A nice UI on the dev tools is nice, but I imagine most people would take an acceptable UI over a nice one if the acceptable one is how you get a development environment that is more comparable to what life will be like in production. FFOS was a moonshot that burned a lot of resources, but I also suspect it's one of the few things that, had it been successful, could have guaranteed Firefox's long-term survival.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Initially it was an option to become the engine, then after a time it simply became the place to try and engines and they said it would never be the "new" browser engine. It was a prototyping area.
- emayljames 6y ago
  Successful parts of Servo where integrated in Gecko, as was intended. So, in a way Gecko is largely Servo.
  - dblohm7 6y ago
    The two major Servo components are the style system and WebRender. But I wouldn't say that it is "largely" Servo by any means.

by ATsch 6y ago

IainIreland 6y ago

> most of the recent improvements to Firefox were initially prototyped and developed in the experimental Servo engine which was to my knowledge intended to eventually replace all of gecko. Most of the team for that has been let go. This is not the case. Servo worked on big experimental moonshot projects. They had some major successes (Stylo, WebRender), but the rest of the Firefox team wasn't sitting around twiddling their thumbs. I don't think Servo ever made up more than a small fraction of the overall Firefox workforce. They had to pick and choose their projects. Note, for example, that Servo embeds SpiderMonkey instead of writing its own JS engine from scratch: https://github.com/servo/rust-mozjs https://github.com/servo/rust-mozjs Don't worry! SpiderMonkey still has additional cool projects coming down the pipeline, none of which are dependent on Servo.

cpeterso 6y ago
This is correct. Servo's Stylo parallelized CSS parser shipped in Firefox's "Quantum" performance release, but a huge part of the overall performance improvement came from profiling the whole system. Fixing lots of small hot spots in Firefox frontend and Gecko really added up. It's easy for tiny performance regressions to creep in here and there.
coliveira 6y ago
Many people are badmouthing Mozilla because they disbanded the group working on their pet language, Rust, as if this was synonym for Firefox technology. There are many things that Mozilla does beyond working on Rust.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  No, just no. they were badmouthing Mozilla because they didn't like mozilla firing their rust resources while they continue to pay enormous amounts for a CEO and other higher ups while Firefox's market share is in a death spiral currently. The only thing that can save it is better branding and "gotta have it features" which Rust can bring, along with stability.
  - coliveira 6y ago
    I'm not trying to defend their management, but my opinion here is that they concluded that investing in a new language wouldn't be the best/fastest way to evolve Firefox. Google may have money to invest in a new language, but Mozilla probably needs to be more focused.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      The executive pay shows that their conclusions about where money should be allocated have severe issues, so it's hard to trust that choice without more justification.

mumblemumble 6y ago

> Or will they have to concede like opera and edge did. I am sad to say this, but I think it's only a matter of time. At this point, the list of parties driving Web standards basically consists of a whole bunch of organizations that rely on Blink, plus Apple and Mozilla. WebKit can probably hang on for a good long while because ~15% of user-agents are required by fiat to be WebKit. Gecko? At 5% marketshare, I fear it's dropped below the point where web developers are well-incentivized worry too much about making sure their sites run well on it. Which means that it's going to get increasingly costly for individuals to continue using Firefox. And, at the same time, actually making sure your site runs well on it is getting increasingly difficult. The rise of client-side JavaScript frameworks like React means that cross-browser issues have moved beyond easy-to-perceive things like ActiveX controls not being supported, or CSS rendering badly. Now the big problem is differences between JavaScript engines leading to annoying performance problems. And, if a developer is planning on doing the sane thing and relying mostly on libraries for their heavy lifting, there's just not that much that any individual can do about it. My sense, at this point, is that, going forward, the Internet does still have room for free, open, community-driven standards that aren't tightly controlled by a small number of massive corporations. However, the Web (i.e., HTML, CSS and JavaScript) does not.

toyg 6y ago
This is catastrophism. If Mozilla can make a browser that developers enjoy using as daily driver, developers will make stuff for it. If Mozilla can build bridges with framework makers, frameworks will work just fine. They just need to regain some of the focus that was squandered on too many moonshots and hazardous choices (FFOS, Pocket, etc).
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  I think that that may no longer be enough. The elephant in the room is the Web taking over non-Web apps. If Electron is part of your deployment surface, you can't escape Chromium. If Cordova is part of your deployment surface, it's Chromium or WebKit. A nice UI on the dev tools is nice, but I imagine most people would take an acceptable UI over a nice one if the acceptable one is how you get a development environment that is more comparable to what life will be like in production. FFOS was a moonshot that burned a lot of resources, but I also suspect it's one of the few things that, had it been successful, could have guaranteed Firefox's long-term survival.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Initially it was an option to become the engine, then after a time it simply became the place to try and engines and they said it would never be the "new" browser engine. It was a prototyping area.

emayljames 6y ago
Successful parts of Servo where integrated in Gecko, as was intended. So, in a way Gecko is largely Servo.
- dblohm7 6y ago
  The two major Servo components are the style system and WebRender. But I wouldn't say that it is "largely" Servo by any means.