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I trouble wrapping my mind with the anti-Chromium sentiment. Isn’t monopoly a good thing if it’s an open source monopoly? I don’t seem anyone complaining about

I trouble wrapping my mind with the anti-Chromium sentiment. Isn’t monopoly a good thing if it’s an open source monopoly? I don’t seem anyone complaining about the Android monopoly for example or the Linux kernel monopoly.

throwaway13337 6y ago
This is a good point. A standardized (and importantly open) platform that executes code exactly the same is the best to execute code on. Flash was terrific because you, as a developer, didn't need to wonder if it would run the same on every machine. It did. It was a major hit to my productivity when Flash went away. HTML5 never really replaced it - mostly due to browser compatibility issues. Flash was not open but chromium is. The future is oddly bright here.
notsureaboutpg 6y ago
>I don’t seem anyone complaining about the Android monopoly for example or the Linux kernel monopoly. It's funny because these are very hotly debated and detested monopolies, but I guess that discussion just never happens on hacker news...
aasasd 6y ago
Afaik Chromium is controlled by Google's devs. E.g. Google introduces quasi-standards because they benefit YouTube, without consulting anyone else. It's basically IE again. You might say ‘just fork it’, but I'll see how you do that and keep maintaining a full-featured browser. That would also make it not a monopoly. Chromium itself has features tied to Google. The ‘Ungoogled Chromium’ project is dedicated to undoing that. Likewise Android goes where Google wants it to go.
- bsclifton 6y ago
  Chromium might be Google dominated, but it's definitely an open source project. The reviewers I have worked with have been fair and have granted me more access as I've gotten more involved If you check the commit logs or the AUTHORS file, you'll notice a growing number of non-Google authors https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:AUTHORS https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:A... Microsoft notably has a big presence in the source code and at events like BlinkOn. As each of these folks get their code merged, they gain privs like merge access and start getting tagged as a reviewer in other's change lists
yoasif_ 6y ago
You might want to ask Huawei what they think about the Android monopoly. I think the same issues apply to Chromium, but not Linux. I think you can probably figure out why.

throwaway13337 6y ago

This is a good point. A standardized (and importantly open) platform that executes code exactly the same is the best to execute code on. Flash was terrific because you, as a developer, didn't need to wonder if it would run the same on every machine. It did. It was a major hit to my productivity when Flash went away. HTML5 never really replaced it - mostly due to browser compatibility issues. Flash was not open but chromium is. The future is oddly bright here.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago

>I don’t seem anyone complaining about the Android monopoly for example or the Linux kernel monopoly. It's funny because these are very hotly debated and detested monopolies, but I guess that discussion just never happens on hacker news...

aasasd 6y ago

Afaik Chromium is controlled by Google's devs. E.g. Google introduces quasi-standards because they benefit YouTube, without consulting anyone else. It's basically IE again. You might say ‘just fork it’, but I'll see how you do that and keep maintaining a full-featured browser. That would also make it not a monopoly. Chromium itself has features tied to Google. The ‘Ungoogled Chromium’ project is dedicated to undoing that. Likewise Android goes where Google wants it to go.

bsclifton 6y ago
Chromium might be Google dominated, but it's definitely an open source project. The reviewers I have worked with have been fair and have granted me more access as I've gotten more involved If you check the commit logs or the AUTHORS file, you'll notice a growing number of non-Google authors https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:AUTHORS https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:A... Microsoft notably has a big presence in the source code and at events like BlinkOn. As each of these folks get their code merged, they gain privs like merge access and start getting tagged as a reviewer in other's change lists

yoasif_ 6y ago

You might want to ask Huawei what they think about the Android monopoly. I think the same issues apply to Chromium, but not Linux. I think you can probably figure out why.