5 ms·

Servo 2023 Roadmap

129 points by bpierre 4y ago

defrost 4y ago
The Servo Parallel Browser Engine Project Servo is a prototype web browser engine written in the Rust language. It is currently developed on 64-bit macOS, 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Windows, and Android. Servo welcomes contribution from everyone. https://github.com/servo/servo https://github.com/servo/servo
blopp99 4y ago
I just wanna say, I dislike the trend of software projects taking generic names from the electronic world. Sometimes makes it confusing to search. Other than that good luck with your project!
- Rhedox 4y ago
  As opposed to the uniquely-software name "Gecko". :)
  - nine_k 4y ago
    If you search for "gecko engine", the combination is unusual enough to make the first hit correct. If you search for "servo engine", the DDG's SERP is full of servo motor hits, fairly legitimate. I dislike the inclination to use jolly word play like that, instead of giving things distinct, unique names, like Kodak, Google, or Linux.
    - jszymborski 4y ago
      "Servo browser engine" should fix that for you.
- sorry_outta_gas 4y ago
  chatgpt wants to name it 'BlazeFx'
brundolf 4y ago
Is Servo still under Mozilla, or has it been reborn as an independent project?
- hestefisk 4y ago
  It’s independent, I believe.
- newscracker 4y ago
  A bit lazy to search right now and provide links, but Mozilla laid off most of the Servo team members a few years ago. So it’s not really been under Mozilla for all practical purposes. My understanding is that some of that work was, and continues to be, integrated into Gecko. But the momentum of replacing Gecko (a huge endeavor in itself) has been lost.
- ravisutrave 4y ago
  https://servo.org/blog/2020/11/17/servo-home/ https://servo.org/blog/2020/11/17/servo-home/ The Servo Project is excited to announce that it has found a new home with the Linux Foundation.
- mdasen 4y ago
  It's not under Mozilla. You can see in their charter: https://servo.org/governance/charter/ https://servo.org/governance/charter/ > the Servo open source project, which has been established as Servo Project a Series of LF Projects, LLC (the "Project"). LF Projects, LLC ("LF Projects") is a Delaware series limited liability company. LF Projects holds the registered trademark for Servo® (https://lfprojects.org/policies/trademark-policy/ https://lfprojects.org/policies/trademark-policy/) LF Projects is an affiliate of the Linux Foundation. So, it's maybe-independent as one of a "Series of LF Projects". LF Projects holds the trademark directly and is an affiliate of the Linux Foundation and whatever that means (does the Linux Foundation control LF Projects?). While it looks like LF Projects doesn't control the "Servo Project a Series of LF Projects, LLC" directly, its charter says they need to comply with the policies of LF Projects which seems like it effectively gives them control of Servo (since they could simply change their policy to say that). It's definitely independent of Mozilla. Whether it's truly independent is up for debate, but I think for practical terms it's independent. I don't think LF Projects or the Linux Foundation are looking to flex power in a weird way. They're just trying to provide a home for it.
thrwawy74 4y ago
Whatever way this goes, to claw back uses from Chrome, Firefox with Servo must support the Chrome Embedded Framework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework
- adzm 4y ago
  That's a pretty heavy ask. The CEF is very closely tied to the internals of chromium. That said, it would be beneficial if they had a similar framework that could be used as an alternative.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Why must Firefox support CEF? To encourage more Firefox forks?
  - fabrice_d 4y ago
    In general, providing embedding support helps your web runtime being used more widely. In the case of CEF, it's a quite old and not very modern embedding API, so I would tread lightly. On Android Gecko is easy to embed using the GeckoView component, but I have no idea if it's successfully used in non-Mozilla projects.
- bongobingo1 4y ago
  I thought the whole point was to be an alternative to CEF?
tianqi 4y ago
As a robot developer, I get confused about the name. It would be great with calling it something like Stegosaurus or Golem, but I think it doesn't seem helpful to use a tech term with a clear meaning to name something else totally different also in tech field. Really catching irrelevant attention.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  This seems like a weird complaint about an 11 year old project.
  - taskforcegemini 4y ago
    the claim may be as old
- mkj 4y ago
  But isn't Golem kind of a synonym for Robot? Every choice has problems!
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    Golem is more of a magically-powered robot-like thing. Not something that comes up often in real life.
- cpeterso 4y ago
  FWIW, the name “Servo” is a reference to the robot Tom Servo on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
- nindalf 4y ago
  As a Hebrew speaking palaeontologist, I would get confused about “golem” or “Stegosaurus”.
mkj 4y ago
Who is funding the new work? https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ "Servo to Advance in 2023" Good to see it happening. Even if it doesn't directly get used as a major browser, being open source it might find new uses elsewhere.
- chearon 4y ago
  Igalia is funding it by providing 4 employees: https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/
p-e-w 4y ago
Of all the baffling decisions Mozilla made over the past few years, abandoning Servo is the most incomprehensible one. Servo was a critical open source project, and had the potential to decide whether the "open web" will still be a thing 10 years from now. Unless continuing to work on Servo was literally threatening Mozilla's existence, cancelling it doesn't make any sense from a long-term perspective. Seeing this announcement, I'm cautiously optimistic about Servo's future, but it's hard to imagine it ever again picking up the momentum it once had. And considering that the web platform is becoming ever more complex, any hope of disrupting the browser engine oligopoly is probably lost by now.
- ilyt 4y ago
  If someone wanted to sneaklily ruin open source project and make sure it will never recover marketshare, Mozilla's decisionmaking would be basically instruction manual.
  - p-e-w 4y ago
    Really makes you wonder, doesn't it? Intelligence agencies have budgets measured in the tens of billions of dollars, and an obvious interest in all security-critical software being controlled by "friendly" corporate entities. So, which one is the "conspiracy theory": That Firefox and similar software is being actively sabotaged by three-letter agencies, or that those agencies have nothing to do with Firefox's downfall despite that downfall furthering their goals? Somehow, the second option seems even less likely than the first.
    - Luker88 4y ago
      > Intelligence agencies No need to think about intelligence agencies, classic corporate greed is more than enough. Even without bribes Google did put a lot of money in mozilla, it takes very little to give hints like "do this or the money goes away". And then there's always classic incompetence, that can be indistinguishable from malice.
      - 4y ago
stuaxo 4y ago
This is great. There are many places where embedding makes sense that don't even need the browser to be 100% compliant, vendors may also pay for some feature to be finished.

Servo 2023 Roadmap

129 points by bpierre 4y ago

The Servo Parallel Browser Engine Project Servo is a prototype web browser engine written in the Rust language. It is currently developed on 64-bit macOS, 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Windows, and Android. Servo welcomes contribution from everyone. https://github.com/servo/servo https://github.com/servo/servo

blopp99 4y ago

I just wanna say, I dislike the trend of software projects taking generic names from the electronic world. Sometimes makes it confusing to search. Other than that good luck with your project!

Rhedox 4y ago
As opposed to the uniquely-software name "Gecko". :)
- nine_k 4y ago
  If you search for "gecko engine", the combination is unusual enough to make the first hit correct. If you search for "servo engine", the DDG's SERP is full of servo motor hits, fairly legitimate. I dislike the inclination to use jolly word play like that, instead of giving things distinct, unique names, like Kodak, Google, or Linux.
  - jszymborski 4y ago
    "Servo browser engine" should fix that for you.
sorry_outta_gas 4y ago
chatgpt wants to name it 'BlazeFx'

brundolf 4y ago

Is Servo still under Mozilla, or has it been reborn as an independent project?

hestefisk 4y ago
It’s independent, I believe.
newscracker 4y ago
A bit lazy to search right now and provide links, but Mozilla laid off most of the Servo team members a few years ago. So it’s not really been under Mozilla for all practical purposes. My understanding is that some of that work was, and continues to be, integrated into Gecko. But the momentum of replacing Gecko (a huge endeavor in itself) has been lost.
ravisutrave 4y ago
https://servo.org/blog/2020/11/17/servo-home/ https://servo.org/blog/2020/11/17/servo-home/ The Servo Project is excited to announce that it has found a new home with the Linux Foundation.
mdasen 4y ago
It's not under Mozilla. You can see in their charter: https://servo.org/governance/charter/ https://servo.org/governance/charter/ > the Servo open source project, which has been established as Servo Project a Series of LF Projects, LLC (the "Project"). LF Projects, LLC ("LF Projects") is a Delaware series limited liability company. LF Projects holds the registered trademark for Servo® (https://lfprojects.org/policies/trademark-policy/ https://lfprojects.org/policies/trademark-policy/) LF Projects is an affiliate of the Linux Foundation. So, it's maybe-independent as one of a "Series of LF Projects". LF Projects holds the trademark directly and is an affiliate of the Linux Foundation and whatever that means (does the Linux Foundation control LF Projects?). While it looks like LF Projects doesn't control the "Servo Project a Series of LF Projects, LLC" directly, its charter says they need to comply with the policies of LF Projects which seems like it effectively gives them control of Servo (since they could simply change their policy to say that). It's definitely independent of Mozilla. Whether it's truly independent is up for debate, but I think for practical terms it's independent. I don't think LF Projects or the Linux Foundation are looking to flex power in a weird way. They're just trying to provide a home for it.

thrwawy74 4y ago

Whatever way this goes, to claw back uses from Chrome, Firefox with Servo must support the Chrome Embedded Framework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework

adzm 4y ago
That's a pretty heavy ask. The CEF is very closely tied to the internals of chromium. That said, it would be beneficial if they had a similar framework that could be used as an alternative.
paulryanrogers 4y ago
Why must Firefox support CEF? To encourage more Firefox forks?
- fabrice_d 4y ago
  In general, providing embedding support helps your web runtime being used more widely. In the case of CEF, it's a quite old and not very modern embedding API, so I would tread lightly. On Android Gecko is easy to embed using the GeckoView component, but I have no idea if it's successfully used in non-Mozilla projects.
bongobingo1 4y ago
I thought the whole point was to be an alternative to CEF?

tianqi 4y ago

As a robot developer, I get confused about the name. It would be great with calling it something like Stegosaurus or Golem, but I think it doesn't seem helpful to use a tech term with a clear meaning to name something else totally different also in tech field. Really catching irrelevant attention.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
This seems like a weird complaint about an 11 year old project.
- taskforcegemini 4y ago
  the claim may be as old
mkj 4y ago
But isn't Golem kind of a synonym for Robot? Every choice has problems!
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  Golem is more of a magically-powered robot-like thing. Not something that comes up often in real life.
cpeterso 4y ago
FWIW, the name “Servo” is a reference to the robot Tom Servo on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
nindalf 4y ago
As a Hebrew speaking palaeontologist, I would get confused about “golem” or “Stegosaurus”.

mkj 4y ago

Who is funding the new work? https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ "Servo to Advance in 2023" Good to see it happening. Even if it doesn't directly get used as a major browser, being open source it might find new uses elsewhere.

chearon 4y ago
Igalia is funding it by providing 4 employees: https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/

p-e-w 4y ago

Of all the baffling decisions Mozilla made over the past few years, abandoning Servo is the most incomprehensible one. Servo was a critical open source project, and had the potential to decide whether the "open web" will still be a thing 10 years from now. Unless continuing to work on Servo was literally threatening Mozilla's existence, cancelling it doesn't make any sense from a long-term perspective. Seeing this announcement, I'm cautiously optimistic about Servo's future, but it's hard to imagine it ever again picking up the momentum it once had. And considering that the web platform is becoming ever more complex, any hope of disrupting the browser engine oligopoly is probably lost by now.

ilyt 4y ago
If someone wanted to sneaklily ruin open source project and make sure it will never recover marketshare, Mozilla's decisionmaking would be basically instruction manual.
- p-e-w 4y ago
  Really makes you wonder, doesn't it? Intelligence agencies have budgets measured in the tens of billions of dollars, and an obvious interest in all security-critical software being controlled by "friendly" corporate entities. So, which one is the "conspiracy theory": That Firefox and similar software is being actively sabotaged by three-letter agencies, or that those agencies have nothing to do with Firefox's downfall despite that downfall furthering their goals? Somehow, the second option seems even less likely than the first.
  - Luker88 4y ago
    > Intelligence agencies No need to think about intelligence agencies, classic corporate greed is more than enough. Even without bribes Google did put a lot of money in mozilla, it takes very little to give hints like "do this or the money goes away". And then there's always classic incompetence, that can be indistinguishable from malice.
    - 4y ago

stuaxo 4y ago

This is great. There are many places where embedding makes sense that don't even need the browser to be 100% compliant, vendors may also pay for some feature to be finished.