4 ms·

Servo’s New Home (2020)

59 points by AndrewDucker 4y ago

wmf 4y ago
How many people are working on Servo lately?
- iruoy 4y ago
  It's busier than I would've thought. https://github.com/servo/servo/pulse/monthly https://github.com/servo/servo/pulse/monthly
  - lordofgibbons 4y ago
    Almost all of those PRs are made by bots for updating dependencies
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  https://github.com/servo/servo/graphs/contributors?from=2021-12-19&to=2023-01-13&type=c https://github.com/servo/servo/graphs/contributors?from=2021... Most of the commits are updates to dependencies and the like. So basically, no one is, outside of preventing too much "bit rot" and some very occasional bugfixes.
DiabloD3 4y ago
From 2020, apparently.
- ajot 4y ago
  Yeah, I clicked while murnuring "Again?" but this is old news.
habitue 4y ago
Hmm, seems like the linux foundation is a nice retirement home for ex corporate projects that are popular enough that people feel sad seeing them die, but not actually popular enough to live. (See RethinkDB)
- TylerE 4y ago
  And aren’t written in Java (That’s Apache…)
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  How far is servo from a useable browser? What is it missing?
  - TylerE 4y ago
    Well, there is an open issue for “opening servo.org crashes servo”
    - seanw444 4y ago
      Now that's pretty funny.
      - galangalalgol 4y ago
        That is its default homepage now I just downloaded it to try. Works fine. Placement is off for some items, but i haven't found a page that simply doesn't work. I poked around wikipedia mostly though which is fairly benign. Both google and duck duck go jad search suggestions working. It isn't convenient, but it isn't hopeless either.
  - rubyist5eva 4y ago
    Last I heard the goal of servo isn't to have an actual browser, but basically build an engine that can be used somewhere else and that all the "good stuff" from Servo goes into Firefox, basically.
    - pavon 4y ago
      That was the goal under Mozilla. Now that they aren't paying for the work anymore, I would expect other employers (and volunteers) to want more out of it than a tech incubator for another project.
kavaruka 4y ago
Servo’s New Grave
indolering 4y ago
What was the status of Servo WRT suitability to replace Gecko? I vaguely remember that some of the parallel layout techniques didn't work out. Is Servo seen as a dead end or just too much work to get production ready?
- kenrick95 4y ago
  cmiiw the goal wasn't about replacing Gecko, but to incorporate ideas/components from Servo into Gecko itself
  - shmerl 4y ago
    That's becasue the other goal would be way longer term. But it's not a bad goal to use a complete replacement if they could get resources for it.
jyxent 4y ago
Interesting. Igalia is going to have 4 people working on Servo starting this month: https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > Servo’s mission is to provide an independent, modular, embeddable web engine, which allows developers to deliver content and applications using web standards. What is the business use case for this? As in, if each of those people costs $100k/yr, that's $400k/yr+ How will this product make (whoever is paying for it) money (profit)? If that answer is "it won't, not everything needs to make money", that's totally fine. Could you then explain why this company is willing to shell out at least $400k/yr to have 4 people work on it? What do they get out of it (if not money)?
  - chrisco255 4y ago
    Might want to read the company's profile for more info: https://www.igalia.com/about/history https://www.igalia.com/about/history They are an open source software consultancy. "Since 2010, Igalia has become the world’s leading web engines consultancy, and has been a top contributor to the WebKit and Chromium projects. Thanks to our excellent work, Igalia has since been accepted as a member of associations including the W3C, GENIVI, Automotive Grade Linux, the Khronos Group, and ECMA International." But off the top of my head with their focus on embeddable IOT devices, that alone is a good business case. Having CSS/HTML available to render to OLEDs, eink displays, smart watches, etc, would be super nice.
    - TylerE 4y ago
      What does this buy for your IoT use case that Chromium doesn’t?
      - chrisco255 4y ago
        Chromium doesn't run on most embeddables and is very memory and power hungry.
dshpala 4y ago
I wonder how hard it'll be to implement Android's WebView on top of Servo?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Narishma 4y ago
There's nothing new about this. It's from 2020.
dang 4y ago
Discussed at the time: Servo’s new home - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25125325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25125325 - Nov 2020 (309 comments)

59 points by AndrewDucker 4y ago

wmf 4y ago

How many people are working on Servo lately?

iruoy 4y ago
It's busier than I would've thought. https://github.com/servo/servo/pulse/monthly https://github.com/servo/servo/pulse/monthly
- lordofgibbons 4y ago
  Almost all of those PRs are made by bots for updating dependencies
Beltalowda 4y ago
https://github.com/servo/servo/graphs/contributors?from=2021-12-19&to=2023-01-13&type=c https://github.com/servo/servo/graphs/contributors?from=2021... Most of the commits are updates to dependencies and the like. So basically, no one is, outside of preventing too much "bit rot" and some very occasional bugfixes.

DiabloD3 4y ago

From 2020, apparently.

ajot 4y ago
Yeah, I clicked while murnuring "Again?" but this is old news.

habitue 4y ago

Hmm, seems like the linux foundation is a nice retirement home for ex corporate projects that are popular enough that people feel sad seeing them die, but not actually popular enough to live. (See RethinkDB)

TylerE 4y ago
And aren’t written in Java (That’s Apache…)
galangalalgol 4y ago
How far is servo from a useable browser? What is it missing?
- TylerE 4y ago
  Well, there is an open issue for “opening servo.org crashes servo”
  - seanw444 4y ago
    Now that's pretty funny.
    - galangalalgol 4y ago
      That is its default homepage now I just downloaded it to try. Works fine. Placement is off for some items, but i haven't found a page that simply doesn't work. I poked around wikipedia mostly though which is fairly benign. Both google and duck duck go jad search suggestions working. It isn't convenient, but it isn't hopeless either.
- rubyist5eva 4y ago
  Last I heard the goal of servo isn't to have an actual browser, but basically build an engine that can be used somewhere else and that all the "good stuff" from Servo goes into Firefox, basically.
  - pavon 4y ago
    That was the goal under Mozilla. Now that they aren't paying for the work anymore, I would expect other employers (and volunteers) to want more out of it than a tech incubator for another project.

kavaruka 4y ago

Servo’s New Grave

indolering 4y ago

What was the status of Servo WRT suitability to replace Gecko? I vaguely remember that some of the parallel layout techniques didn't work out. Is Servo seen as a dead end or just too much work to get production ready?

kenrick95 4y ago
cmiiw the goal wasn't about replacing Gecko, but to incorporate ideas/components from Servo into Gecko itself
- shmerl 4y ago
  That's becasue the other goal would be way longer term. But it's not a bad goal to use a complete replacement if they could get resources for it.

jyxent 4y ago

Interesting. Igalia is going to have 4 people working on Servo starting this month: https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> Servo’s mission is to provide an independent, modular, embeddable web engine, which allows developers to deliver content and applications using web standards. What is the business use case for this? As in, if each of those people costs $100k/yr, that's $400k/yr+ How will this product make (whoever is paying for it) money (profit)? If that answer is "it won't, not everything needs to make money", that's totally fine. Could you then explain why this company is willing to shell out at least $400k/yr to have 4 people work on it? What do they get out of it (if not money)?
- chrisco255 4y ago
  Might want to read the company's profile for more info: https://www.igalia.com/about/history https://www.igalia.com/about/history They are an open source software consultancy. "Since 2010, Igalia has become the world’s leading web engines consultancy, and has been a top contributor to the WebKit and Chromium projects. Thanks to our excellent work, Igalia has since been accepted as a member of associations including the W3C, GENIVI, Automotive Grade Linux, the Khronos Group, and ECMA International." But off the top of my head with their focus on embeddable IOT devices, that alone is a good business case. Having CSS/HTML available to render to OLEDs, eink displays, smart watches, etc, would be super nice.
  - TylerE 4y ago
    What does this buy for your IoT use case that Chromium doesn’t?
    - chrisco255 4y ago
      Chromium doesn't run on most embeddables and is very memory and power hungry.

dshpala 4y ago

I wonder how hard it'll be to implement Android's WebView on top of Servo?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Narishma 4y ago

There's nothing new about this. It's from 2020.

dang 4y ago

Discussed at the time: Servo’s new home - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25125325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25125325 - Nov 2020 (309 comments)