4 ms·
> there is not much more distance to cover [relative to native toolkits] As I see it, the web as originally conceived was "ready" around 2003, and then again a
by tannhaeuser 6y ago
> there is not much more
distance to cover [relative to native toolkits]
As I see it, the web as originally conceived was "ready" around 2003, and then again around 2009 when CSS media queries became mainstream to adapt to mobile usage. For me, the excessive push for browser APIs as a desktop replacement since then, and the proliferation of frameworks is a generational thing, driven not by technology but by big data, SaaS (prospect of extracting recurring revenue from customers, rather than one-time license fees), and a new generation of developers getting into the game by leaving the status quo behind, solely for their own economical benefit. Google has masterfully played this game, and let the idea of open web standards bend the minds of developers who thought they were clever. Moz partnering with them under WHATWG seemed like a good idea at the time, but just made the concept of a web standard arbitrary and "whatever Chrome does" over time, leading to Moz's demise and that of every other "browser vendor".
It'll take some stance and political will to reclaim the web.
- cageface 6y agoThe alternative is an internet completely locked down in native apps in proprietary and unaccountable app stores. I'll take a bloated web browser over a corporate monoculture any day.
- konjin 6y agoSorry which is which? Because right now Chrome engine has more control of the web then IE did in it's heyday when Microsoft was ruled to be a monopoly.
- vntok 6y agoAre you aware that Blink, Webkit and V8 are all open source?
- pjmlp 6y agoWith most people working out of Apple, Microsoft and Google salaries, good luck getting a bunch of random weekend coders to pick up and counterattack an alternative browser based on that open source.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoDoesn't this depend how high we set the bar? The ungoogled-chromium project [0] presumably doesn't take all that much manpower as it's just taking Chromium and paring it down a little. A true alternative browser codebase like Firefox, with its own rendering engine and JavaScript engine, takes a great deal of effort, of course. [0] https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
- pjmlp 6y agoDepends, check the recent stories about X.org being abandonware, yet it is open source.
- modeless 6y agoSorry, that's just wrong. Non-IE browsers had less than 5% market share at its peak. Non-Chrome browsers have more than 6 times that (~30%). And web standards are developed much more collaboratively these days, with less unilateral action.
- cageface 6y agoThe current situation isn't ideal but I can still build apps and reach users without the permission of any company's review board. There's a big difference between controlling technology and controlling content.
- tannhaeuser 6y agoYes the universal portability argument and fear of closed ecosystems is the carrot to put in front of a generation who experienced MS monoculture and the dangers of app stores not welcoming to GPL and other F/OSS licensing scheme. With the consequence of the web becoming a closed network itself, like AOL and CompuServe which the web was intended to replace. It's a selfish, narrow-minded motive of nerds putting their stuff into the browser using their preferred language and uniform platform/toolchain, without benefit for end-users.
- cageface 6y agoWhat benefits end users can change very quickly. Take Apple yanking HKMaps as an example. Dictatorships have always had some advantages over messy democracies.
- adrianN 6y agoI don't see a freedom or accountability difference between native apps from an appstore and webapps from a webserver.
- cageface 6y agoIt's very simple. One requires the good graces of an unaccountable and opaque corporate review process. The other requires nothing more than a simple webserver using open standards hosted anywhere in the world.
- tannhaeuser 6y agoHosted at an IP that can be blocked, over a protocol (HTTP/3, QUIC) so complex and opaque that almost no F/OSS implementation exists, and takes away transparency over regular DNS resolution, that is.
- xorcist 6y agoThe play around control of DNS infrastructure is an interesting one, and it will be exciting to see how that plays out over the coming decade. Should a trifecta of corporates control resolution, it would be only natural for alternative roots. Over a certain market penetration threshold this could form a perfect moat. Everything that made AlterNIC and its ilk fail is irrelevant now.