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This is the kind of project that I'd hope the Linux Foundation or similar could take an interest in financing too. Until, at least, all major modern OSes come

This is the kind of project that I'd hope the Linux Foundation or similar could take an interest in financing too. Until, at least, all major modern OSes come with a built in scriptable headless browser engine, which would be a game-changer. Something-like-electron-or-sciter where you don't have to download the runtime for each individual application. Also, of course, not a walled garden: the windows "modern apps" store can sort of do this I think, but there are lots of good reasons not to go down that path.

SiVal 6y ago
"Until...all major modern OSes come with a built in scriptable headless browser engine, which would be a game-changer." Ah, yes. Internet Explorer, they called it. Built right into the OS. A game changer. Funny how the meaning of something (goodness/badness/motives/...) can change as circumstances change.
- tomashubelbauer 6y ago
  I think for "all major modern OSS" to apply we need at least Windows and macOS support. Internet Explorer never fit this description. Edit: This comment is wrong - looks like IE did fit this description before my time. :-)
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    Internet Explorer ran on macOS back when it was relevant. It got discontinued after Safari was released. Also, Internet Explorer was ported to various Unices. It just never got ported to a Linux-kernel based OS. If software like this is FOSS, relies on open standards, and is designed architect independent it can be run on virtually anything. Including something which is rising in popularity.
    - eropple 6y ago
      Not only was there IE for Mac -- at the time, it was actually a pretty decent browser. Bit rotted over time, but there was a stretch when your choices were a really janky Netscape and IE for Mac, and the choice as I recall it was pretty easy.
      - pseudosavant 6y ago
        Not only was it pretty decent, it was far more standards compliant than the Windows IE. I don't think they actually shared much code wise. At least developing for IE on Mac felt like adding another browser to test.
  - deergomoo 6y ago
    People forget that when OS X launched IE was the default browser :)
    - dagw 6y ago
      Plus there was an X Windows version that ran on Solaris. I'm sure making it work on Linux would have been quite possible had they wanted to.
    - watersb 6y ago
      IE on Mac was a different code base, different layout engine, and did not run ActiveX plugins. It was a good browser at the time, and helped move the OS X platform forward. Perhaps even a vital part of the software support available at release. But it wasn't IE6. All that corporate ActiveX, DCOM software could not be deployed on it. Microsoft grew multiple platforms to address this, for 20 years, but that's another story (that may also be relevant to the article).
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    The first computer I bought with my own money was an iMac running at 266 Mhz (not the first gen running 33Mhz slower!), Mac OS 8 something and Internet Explorer 5 I think. Google didn't exist or wasn't evil yet and finding things was quite difficult specially at dial-up "speed".
antagonisticpen 6y ago
Curious statement - why don't you support it financially with small donation? This OS project literally has a page enabling it. Man the entitlement of this community.
madeofpalk 6y ago
> Until, at least, all major modern OSes come with a built in scriptable headless browser engine One of the main advantages of shipping your own browser like Electron or SciterJS is that it's a fixed, stable target where you can be a lot more confident about browser compatibility because you're only supporting a single browser + version.
- tambourine_man 6y ago
  Exactly, but we can check for feature support and adapt accordingly. We did it for the seen for years.
  - vikramkr 6y ago
    Right, but I'm getting the sense that people may have done it for years, but all that did was engender a desire to never have to worry about compatibility again
    - whoisthemachine 6y ago
      It really is the age old debate between static and dynamic libraries.
  - c-smile 6y ago
    What if you have no browser for the platform at all? What should you do if you need your app to run on W2000 for example (IE 6.0 anyone?) ? Sometimes people do need that: https://sciter.com/necromancing-sciter-on-windows-2000/ https://sciter.com/necromancing-sciter-on-windows-2000/
- c-smile 6y ago
  #2. Browsers are for browsing - desktop and mobile application UI requires far more than that. Browsers are catching up of course but... Who would thought that the thing for reading pages will need access to your file system or make screenshots... #3. UI engine must have natural and effective means to use native code - to be embeddable and extendable by hosting application. In native app world you don't need WebAssembler for example - you can run native code you need natively.
tambourine_man 6y ago
I think macOS and Windows are covered in that regard, though with different JavaScript and HTML engines. A normalizing layer above could be an interesting approach.
robertoandred 6y ago
They already do. Macs have Webkit, and I'm sure Windows has an equivalent.

SiVal 6y ago

"Until...all major modern OSes come with a built in scriptable headless browser engine, which would be a game-changer." Ah, yes. Internet Explorer, they called it. Built right into the OS. A game changer. Funny how the meaning of something (goodness/badness/motives/...) can change as circumstances change.

tomashubelbauer 6y ago
I think for "all major modern OSS" to apply we need at least Windows and macOS support. Internet Explorer never fit this description. Edit: This comment is wrong - looks like IE did fit this description before my time. :-)
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Internet Explorer ran on macOS back when it was relevant. It got discontinued after Safari was released. Also, Internet Explorer was ported to various Unices. It just never got ported to a Linux-kernel based OS. If software like this is FOSS, relies on open standards, and is designed architect independent it can be run on virtually anything. Including something which is rising in popularity.
  - eropple 6y ago
    Not only was there IE for Mac -- at the time, it was actually a pretty decent browser. Bit rotted over time, but there was a stretch when your choices were a really janky Netscape and IE for Mac, and the choice as I recall it was pretty easy.
    - pseudosavant 6y ago
      Not only was it pretty decent, it was far more standards compliant than the Windows IE. I don't think they actually shared much code wise. At least developing for IE on Mac felt like adding another browser to test.
- deergomoo 6y ago
  People forget that when OS X launched IE was the default browser :)
  - dagw 6y ago
    Plus there was an X Windows version that ran on Solaris. I'm sure making it work on Linux would have been quite possible had they wanted to.
  - watersb 6y ago
    IE on Mac was a different code base, different layout engine, and did not run ActiveX plugins. It was a good browser at the time, and helped move the OS X platform forward. Perhaps even a vital part of the software support available at release. But it wasn't IE6. All that corporate ActiveX, DCOM software could not be deployed on it. Microsoft grew multiple platforms to address this, for 20 years, but that's another story (that may also be relevant to the article).
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  The first computer I bought with my own money was an iMac running at 266 Mhz (not the first gen running 33Mhz slower!), Mac OS 8 something and Internet Explorer 5 I think. Google didn't exist or wasn't evil yet and finding things was quite difficult specially at dial-up "speed".

antagonisticpen 6y ago

Curious statement - why don't you support it financially with small donation? This OS project literally has a page enabling it. Man the entitlement of this community.

madeofpalk 6y ago

> Until, at least, all major modern OSes come with a built in scriptable headless browser engine One of the main advantages of shipping your own browser like Electron or SciterJS is that it's a fixed, stable target where you can be a lot more confident about browser compatibility because you're only supporting a single browser + version.

tambourine_man 6y ago
Exactly, but we can check for feature support and adapt accordingly. We did it for the seen for years.
- vikramkr 6y ago
  Right, but I'm getting the sense that people may have done it for years, but all that did was engender a desire to never have to worry about compatibility again
  - whoisthemachine 6y ago
    It really is the age old debate between static and dynamic libraries.
- c-smile 6y ago
  What if you have no browser for the platform at all? What should you do if you need your app to run on W2000 for example (IE 6.0 anyone?) ? Sometimes people do need that: https://sciter.com/necromancing-sciter-on-windows-2000/ https://sciter.com/necromancing-sciter-on-windows-2000/
c-smile 6y ago
#2. Browsers are for browsing - desktop and mobile application UI requires far more than that. Browsers are catching up of course but... Who would thought that the thing for reading pages will need access to your file system or make screenshots... #3. UI engine must have natural and effective means to use native code - to be embeddable and extendable by hosting application. In native app world you don't need WebAssembler for example - you can run native code you need natively.

tambourine_man 6y ago

I think macOS and Windows are covered in that regard, though with different JavaScript and HTML engines. A normalizing layer above could be an interesting approach.

robertoandred 6y ago

They already do. Macs have Webkit, and I'm sure Windows has an equivalent.