4 ms·

I have long wondered why Mozilla hasn't worked on a embeddable Gecko engine as an alternative to Electron. A long time ago, Mozilla did have the option to embe

I have long wondered why Mozilla hasn't worked on a embeddable Gecko engine as an alternative to Electron. A long time ago, Mozilla did have the option to embed Gecko into apps. It was badly-documented and difficult to use. A modern embeddable Gecko engine could be promoted as a modular, cross-platform alternative to Electron. The Gecko advantages: stripped-down, faster and less memory hungry than Electron (assuming these features can be achieved). The traction that Electron has gained as a cross-platform option for building apps is huge and is only set to get bigger (whether for better or worse). And yet, Mozilla is completely absent from this space dominated by Chromium/Electron. Imagine if thousands of developers place their trust in Mozilla because they have built their cross-platform apps using Gecko. They want to see Mozilla grow and succeed because they have a stake in seeing Gecko development succeed too. (And that could include large corporates sponsoring Mozilla to sustain development of Gecko.) Unfortunately, it is probably too late (or too unrealistic) for this to happen. Would any of the above revive Firefox? Possibly not. However, an embeddable Gecko engine may give Mozilla new opportunities.

dugmartin 5y ago
This existed for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL https://www-archive.mozilla.org/why/framework.html https://www-archive.mozilla.org/why/framework.html https://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/xul/joy-of-xul https://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/xul/joy-of-xul
insidedivision 5y ago
Unfortunately Mozilla seems having problems with managing larger products or changes. I was following recent (last year iirc) transition of Thunderbird from xul based extensions to webextensions - no updated roadmap, the new extension model was pushed to production while being only part ready. Examples provided by Mozilla team were outdated and some used features that were no longer available. Other features were not implemented, some worked for pop3 and not for imap accounts. This thing was and probably still is a mess. So while the product you described seems to have some potential, i can't imagine it being run by Mozilla and attracting developers.
fzzzy 5y ago
There was a project to do this, Positron. https://mykzilla.org/2017/03/08/positron-discontinued/ https://mykzilla.org/2017/03/08/positron-discontinued/ Revolving door management that has no clue what initiatives the previous management started and wants to start all their own initiatives really hurt Mozilla in the last 5 years.

dugmartin 5y ago

This existed for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL https://www-archive.mozilla.org/why/framework.html https://www-archive.mozilla.org/why/framework.html https://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/xul/joy-of-xul https://www-archive.mozilla.org/projects/xul/joy-of-xul

insidedivision 5y ago

Unfortunately Mozilla seems having problems with managing larger products or changes. I was following recent (last year iirc) transition of Thunderbird from xul based extensions to webextensions - no updated roadmap, the new extension model was pushed to production while being only part ready. Examples provided by Mozilla team were outdated and some used features that were no longer available. Other features were not implemented, some worked for pop3 and not for imap accounts. This thing was and probably still is a mess. So while the product you described seems to have some potential, i can't imagine it being run by Mozilla and attracting developers.

fzzzy 5y ago

There was a project to do this, Positron. https://mykzilla.org/2017/03/08/positron-discontinued/ https://mykzilla.org/2017/03/08/positron-discontinued/ Revolving door management that has no clue what initiatives the previous management started and wants to start all their own initiatives really hurt Mozilla in the last 5 years.