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By the love of all thats holy, I still don't understand how the development of an entire operating system can be reasonably coordinated by a (admittably singlul

By the love of all thats holy, I still don't understand how the development of an entire operating system can be reasonably coordinated by a (admittably singlularly competent) sole finnish guy in a bathrobe from home, while a comparably simple webbrowser needs a foundation, a company, a ceo, a code of conduct, all those outreach and social-action programmes etc... Or maybe, is all that cesspool of ineffectiveness and virtue-signaling the product and the webbrowser just the cashcow and the name at this point?

maple3142 5y ago
I think the main difference between OS kernel and browser is the former can decide what they need to support, but the latter need to be compatible in order to render existing website. IMO, Building a new browser is more similar to building a Windows-compatible operating system.
hnlmorg 5y ago
Modern webbrowsers are hugely more complicated to implement than a kernel with no user space and very limited driver support (as Linux was back when it was a single person operation). In fact modern webbrowsers are bordering on being an operating system in their own right. They're already a virtual machine, with their own run times, plus one of the most complicated document markup standards known to man (and to make matters worse, it's not just as simple as supporting correct standards, they have to support incorrect usages of those standards too because webdevelopers often use deprecated standards, tags or even just use those tags wrongly and people still expect those sites to render). Lets not forget that JS isn't just a simple interpreter like in the 90s. There's 3D rendering with WebGL, audio rendering with WebMidi, real time communications with WebRTC, location services, WASM, and so on and so forth. Let's also not forget that HTML, CSS, JS, etc are not the only standards a browser needs to support, there's GIF, JPEG, SVG, video formats and audio formats too. There are network protocols like HTTP, FTP, SSL/TLS. And HTTP is non-trivial these days because there's multiple revisions of it, each different significantly from the previous. There's websockets, binary encodings, MIME types, etc. And all of that isn't even touching on the UI. Even just supporting a modern multi-platform native desktop UI is more than a single persons job. And that's before any of the complexities mentioned above.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  This severely underestimates the complexity of the Linux kernel.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    We're not talking about modern Linux though. Modern Linux isn't "coordinated by a (admittably singlularly competent) sole finnish guy in a bathrobe from home,", there's now a team of people involved. Sure there is a hierarchy with someone taking the lead but isn't that true for most operations? Even the Mozilla foundation has a Chair (Mitchell Baker) and Executive Director (Mark Surman). Linux hasn't been a single person operation since the 90s.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      The "guy in a bathrobe" is still the lead and has the final say. Is he compensated anywhere near what Mozilla's CEO is? In fact is the total comp of all the people significantly involved in Linux kernel development anywhere near the total comp of Mozilla's C-suite? I doubt it.
      - hnlmorg 5y ago
        You're now making a tangential argument about whether people are being paid their worth and frankly that's never been the case. Most of us developers, devops and sysadmins are paid an obscene wage compared to many critical services like nursing. Is it fair? Probably not. But that doesn't have any baring on the complexity of Linux vs Firefox.
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Prices are determined by supply and demand, so there is no merit in claiming a person writing software has an obscene earnings compared to a nurse. Not to mention that you can get into all kinds of nonsense like “the team of software developers made something that saved millions of man hours enabling nurses to help many more patients”. But that is neither here nor there. However, you can compare the people in the same business, such as those writing software for operating systems and web browsers and compare the cost and productivity in both.
vadfa 5y ago
Chrome keeps adding more and more features to the web standards to make sure no one else can keep up with the price of implementing them, and Mozilla likes sucking Google's cock until they gag, so they accept and put all of them in Firefox. Not to mention all the absurd overhead you pointed out. All of Mozilla's wounds are self-inflicted.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  Mozilla are in a no-win situation: - implement the standards and they get blamed for dancing to Google's tune - don't implement the standards and people quickly drop Firefox because it doesn't support "the modern web" The only way Mozilla can compete is to play along. So it's better they do that and take the criticism than ending up obsolete through stubbornness.
  - vadfa 5y ago
    Mozilla could've banded together with Apple to refuse to implement things (Safari doesn't implement many of the things Google proposes).
    - RealStickman_ 5y ago
      Safari has nothing to loose by standing against Google. People on iPhones will still (have to) use Safari. Firefox stands to loose the last few percents of browser market share they have.
forgotpwd16 5y ago
First, Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. Second, nowadays web browsers are fairly big beasts, perhaps even more than the complex machinery that Linux is. If lines of code are any measure Firefox and Chromium are above it[1][2][3]. Finally, Mozilla isn't making only Firefox. [1]: https://www.openhub.net/p/firefox/analyses/latest/languages_summary https://www.openhub.net/p/firefox/analyses/latest/languages_... [2]: https://www.openhub.net/p/chrome/analyses/latest/languages_summary https://www.openhub.net/p/chrome/analyses/latest/languages_s... [3]: https://www.openhub.net/p/linux/analyses/latest/languages_summary https://www.openhub.net/p/linux/analyses/latest/languages_su...
jamienicol 5y ago
Linux is a kernel, not an entire operating system. Lots of companies contribute, it has a foundation, and I'm sorry to break it to you but it even has a code of conduct. What makes you think a web browser is comparatively simple compared to a kernel?
NelsonMinar 5y ago
What a ridiculously disingenuous comment. You realize there's a whole Linux Foundation, right? And multiple enormous companies and a whole open source community that are the actual developers of the entire operating system?

maple3142 5y ago

I think the main difference between OS kernel and browser is the former can decide what they need to support, but the latter need to be compatible in order to render existing website. IMO, Building a new browser is more similar to building a Windows-compatible operating system.

hnlmorg 5y ago

Modern webbrowsers are hugely more complicated to implement than a kernel with no user space and very limited driver support (as Linux was back when it was a single person operation). In fact modern webbrowsers are bordering on being an operating system in their own right. They're already a virtual machine, with their own run times, plus one of the most complicated document markup standards known to man (and to make matters worse, it's not just as simple as supporting correct standards, they have to support incorrect usages of those standards too because webdevelopers often use deprecated standards, tags or even just use those tags wrongly and people still expect those sites to render). Lets not forget that JS isn't just a simple interpreter like in the 90s. There's 3D rendering with WebGL, audio rendering with WebMidi, real time communications with WebRTC, location services, WASM, and so on and so forth. Let's also not forget that HTML, CSS, JS, etc are not the only standards a browser needs to support, there's GIF, JPEG, SVG, video formats and audio formats too. There are network protocols like HTTP, FTP, SSL/TLS. And HTTP is non-trivial these days because there's multiple revisions of it, each different significantly from the previous. There's websockets, binary encodings, MIME types, etc. And all of that isn't even touching on the UI. Even just supporting a modern multi-platform native desktop UI is more than a single persons job. And that's before any of the complexities mentioned above.

Nextgrid 5y ago
This severely underestimates the complexity of the Linux kernel.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  We're not talking about modern Linux though. Modern Linux isn't "coordinated by a (admittably singlularly competent) sole finnish guy in a bathrobe from home,", there's now a team of people involved. Sure there is a hierarchy with someone taking the lead but isn't that true for most operations? Even the Mozilla foundation has a Chair (Mitchell Baker) and Executive Director (Mark Surman). Linux hasn't been a single person operation since the 90s.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    The "guy in a bathrobe" is still the lead and has the final say. Is he compensated anywhere near what Mozilla's CEO is? In fact is the total comp of all the people significantly involved in Linux kernel development anywhere near the total comp of Mozilla's C-suite? I doubt it.
    - hnlmorg 5y ago
      You're now making a tangential argument about whether people are being paid their worth and frankly that's never been the case. Most of us developers, devops and sysadmins are paid an obscene wage compared to many critical services like nursing. Is it fair? Probably not. But that doesn't have any baring on the complexity of Linux vs Firefox.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Prices are determined by supply and demand, so there is no merit in claiming a person writing software has an obscene earnings compared to a nurse. Not to mention that you can get into all kinds of nonsense like “the team of software developers made something that saved millions of man hours enabling nurses to help many more patients”. But that is neither here nor there. However, you can compare the people in the same business, such as those writing software for operating systems and web browsers and compare the cost and productivity in both.

vadfa 5y ago

Chrome keeps adding more and more features to the web standards to make sure no one else can keep up with the price of implementing them, and Mozilla likes sucking Google's cock until they gag, so they accept and put all of them in Firefox. Not to mention all the absurd overhead you pointed out. All of Mozilla's wounds are self-inflicted.

hnlmorg 5y ago
Mozilla are in a no-win situation: - implement the standards and they get blamed for dancing to Google's tune - don't implement the standards and people quickly drop Firefox because it doesn't support "the modern web" The only way Mozilla can compete is to play along. So it's better they do that and take the criticism than ending up obsolete through stubbornness.
- vadfa 5y ago
  Mozilla could've banded together with Apple to refuse to implement things (Safari doesn't implement many of the things Google proposes).
  - RealStickman_ 5y ago
    Safari has nothing to loose by standing against Google. People on iPhones will still (have to) use Safari. Firefox stands to loose the last few percents of browser market share they have.

forgotpwd16 5y ago

First, Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. Second, nowadays web browsers are fairly big beasts, perhaps even more than the complex machinery that Linux is. If lines of code are any measure Firefox and Chromium are above it[1][2][3]. Finally, Mozilla isn't making only Firefox. [1]: https://www.openhub.net/p/firefox/analyses/latest/languages_summary https://www.openhub.net/p/firefox/analyses/latest/languages_... [2]: https://www.openhub.net/p/chrome/analyses/latest/languages_summary https://www.openhub.net/p/chrome/analyses/latest/languages_s... [3]: https://www.openhub.net/p/linux/analyses/latest/languages_summary https://www.openhub.net/p/linux/analyses/latest/languages_su...

jamienicol 5y ago

Linux is a kernel, not an entire operating system. Lots of companies contribute, it has a foundation, and I'm sorry to break it to you but it even has a code of conduct. What makes you think a web browser is comparatively simple compared to a kernel?

NelsonMinar 5y ago

What a ridiculously disingenuous comment. You realize there's a whole Linux Foundation, right? And multiple enormous companies and a whole open source community that are the actual developers of the entire operating system?