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> If Google ever discontinued Chrome support it would be picked up by the community in a flash. Of course it wouldn't. The number of people capable of managing

> If Google ever discontinued Chrome support it would be picked up by the community in a flash. Of course it wouldn't. The number of people capable of managing and developing a full-blown browser is minuscule. Even Microsoft gave up and went with Chrome in the end. Case in point: how many people picked up Servo? Hell, even Firefox?

marcosdumay 3y ago
To be fair, the number would increase a lot if Google stopped making the web hostile for other software.
- illiarian 3y ago
  What?
  - Ygg2 3y ago
    Google had long list of oopsies where Google services stopped working because of user agent rejecting non-Chrome browsers.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      What does it have to do with the number of people forking and developing their own browser? Agent string sibstitution/emulation has been a thing since time immemorial.
      - Ygg2 3y ago
        You make your own browsers and issue correct UA (User Agent) only for GMail to stop working. But works fine when issuing Chrome UA. I guess Google is staffed by Howler monkeys, or malicious. Source: https://archive.is/tgIH9 https://archive.is/tgIH9
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Pushing for whatever feature they fashion, pushing against stuff that they didn't create, doing things differently for no reason, making sure their software works badly on competitor platforms... What Google is doing isn't much different from the MS from the 90's, except that they didn't stop improving their browser. At least yet.
chrisco255 3y ago
Microsoft contributes to Chrome core now, as a result. So does Node.js, Brave, and a litany of other organizations that depend on Chrome/v8.
- illiarian 3y ago
  Yes, they do. And your point? That they are "a community that will pick up Chrome dveelopment in a flash"? That's not how it works. Browser development is prohibitively expensive. Even Microsoft, a trillion-dollar company, gave up on developing their browser. What makes you think that some magical community will just pick up the development of Chrome?
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    > And your point? That they are "a community that will pick up Chrome dveelopment in a flash"? That's not how it works. Yes it really is how it works. You see, Chromium is used by numerous teams and products already. Developers from these projects already contribute support and patches to Chromium on the regular. That's exactly how open source development works. > Browser development is prohibitively expensive. Even Microsoft, a trillion-dollar company, gave up on developing their browser. What makes you think that some magical community will just pick up the development of Chrome? Microsoft (especially Ballmer era MS) sucks at a number of things. That internet explorer was a bloated piece of trash beyond all repair is hardly an indication that browser development is beyond the capabilities of an open source community. It wasn't that it was "too expensive" for Microsoft to maintain IE. It's just that IE could not possibly compete with Chromium, because they were saddled with too much technical debt from years of bad decisions. Entire operating systems and databases are maintained by open source foundations. Have you ever heard of Linux? MS cannot compete with Linux at the server game. They waved the white flag on that battle a long time ago as well. Besides, when you fork a project, you don't have to instantly rebuild everything from scratch. A foundation would kick things off by prioritizing bug patches, security fixes, etc. The RFC process for deciding new web features is already handled by a consortium: https://www.w3.org/ https://www.w3.org/
  - bayesian_horse 3y ago
chrisco255 3y ago
Servo never had significant market share of any kind, but it has recently been picked back up by a foundation. Firefox has been outcompeted by Chrome and Mozilla has made a number of strategic blunders over the years. But by and large people stopped using Firefox because Chrome/Chromium was better on most metrics users care about. Even developers tend to use Chrome/Chromium because of the superior native debugging tools. But last I checked Firefox is still very much maintained by Mozilla.
- illiarian 3y ago
  The original statement was "If Google ever discontinued Chrome support it would be picked up by the community in a flash." Why doesn't community pick other browsers in a flash?
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    What other open source browsers have been left without maintainence? Ones with no market share? As mentioned, Servo was never really finished and yet it has recently been scooped up by the Servo Foundation. Mozilla still very much maintains Firefox. We have plenty of examples of open source databases, operating systems, libraries and languages leaving the major companies they were created at and being scooped up by a foundation or consortium to maintain. WebOS is a great example. Created by Palm as a mobile OS before they sold it to HP, who open sourced it. Now the primary contributor is LG, who uses it in smart tvs. But there's plenty of other examples in the open source world. Chromium is far too important, and there's already thousands of eyeballs on that code base. There would be a Chromium Foundation established very quickly if Google abandoned.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      > We have plenty of examples of open source databases, operating systems, libraries and languages leaving the major companies they were created at and being scooped up by a foundation or consortium to maintain. We have just as many left to die. We just don't know or don't talk about them anymore. > WebOS is a great example. Created by Palm as a mobile OS before they sold it to HP, who open sourced it. Now the primary contributor is LG, who uses it in smart tvs. Ah. So the mythical "community" that will scoop in and continue developing is a compani with a 60-billion yearly revenue. Got it. > Chromium is far too important, and there's already thousands of eyeballs on that code base. Eyeballs rarely, if ever, translate into understanding the codebase, or being able to do anything about it. > There would be a Chromium Foundation established very quickly if Google abandoned. Can I interest you in Apache Foundation where great amazing projects no longer supported by their original company go to slowly slide into oblivion?

marcosdumay 3y ago

To be fair, the number would increase a lot if Google stopped making the web hostile for other software.

illiarian 3y ago
What?
- Ygg2 3y ago
  Google had long list of oopsies where Google services stopped working because of user agent rejecting non-Chrome browsers.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    What does it have to do with the number of people forking and developing their own browser? Agent string sibstitution/emulation has been a thing since time immemorial.
    - Ygg2 3y ago
      You make your own browsers and issue correct UA (User Agent) only for GMail to stop working. But works fine when issuing Chrome UA. I guess Google is staffed by Howler monkeys, or malicious. Source: https://archive.is/tgIH9 https://archive.is/tgIH9
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Pushing for whatever feature they fashion, pushing against stuff that they didn't create, doing things differently for no reason, making sure their software works badly on competitor platforms... What Google is doing isn't much different from the MS from the 90's, except that they didn't stop improving their browser. At least yet.

chrisco255 3y ago

Microsoft contributes to Chrome core now, as a result. So does Node.js, Brave, and a litany of other organizations that depend on Chrome/v8.

illiarian 3y ago
Yes, they do. And your point? That they are "a community that will pick up Chrome dveelopment in a flash"? That's not how it works. Browser development is prohibitively expensive. Even Microsoft, a trillion-dollar company, gave up on developing their browser. What makes you think that some magical community will just pick up the development of Chrome?
- chrisco255 3y ago
  > And your point? That they are "a community that will pick up Chrome dveelopment in a flash"? That's not how it works. Yes it really is how it works. You see, Chromium is used by numerous teams and products already. Developers from these projects already contribute support and patches to Chromium on the regular. That's exactly how open source development works. > Browser development is prohibitively expensive. Even Microsoft, a trillion-dollar company, gave up on developing their browser. What makes you think that some magical community will just pick up the development of Chrome? Microsoft (especially Ballmer era MS) sucks at a number of things. That internet explorer was a bloated piece of trash beyond all repair is hardly an indication that browser development is beyond the capabilities of an open source community. It wasn't that it was "too expensive" for Microsoft to maintain IE. It's just that IE could not possibly compete with Chromium, because they were saddled with too much technical debt from years of bad decisions. Entire operating systems and databases are maintained by open source foundations. Have you ever heard of Linux? MS cannot compete with Linux at the server game. They waved the white flag on that battle a long time ago as well. Besides, when you fork a project, you don't have to instantly rebuild everything from scratch. A foundation would kick things off by prioritizing bug patches, security fixes, etc. The RFC process for deciding new web features is already handled by a consortium: https://www.w3.org/ https://www.w3.org/
- bayesian_horse 3y ago

chrisco255 3y ago

Servo never had significant market share of any kind, but it has recently been picked back up by a foundation. Firefox has been outcompeted by Chrome and Mozilla has made a number of strategic blunders over the years. But by and large people stopped using Firefox because Chrome/Chromium was better on most metrics users care about. Even developers tend to use Chrome/Chromium because of the superior native debugging tools. But last I checked Firefox is still very much maintained by Mozilla.

illiarian 3y ago
The original statement was "If Google ever discontinued Chrome support it would be picked up by the community in a flash." Why doesn't community pick other browsers in a flash?
- chrisco255 3y ago
  What other open source browsers have been left without maintainence? Ones with no market share? As mentioned, Servo was never really finished and yet it has recently been scooped up by the Servo Foundation. Mozilla still very much maintains Firefox. We have plenty of examples of open source databases, operating systems, libraries and languages leaving the major companies they were created at and being scooped up by a foundation or consortium to maintain. WebOS is a great example. Created by Palm as a mobile OS before they sold it to HP, who open sourced it. Now the primary contributor is LG, who uses it in smart tvs. But there's plenty of other examples in the open source world. Chromium is far too important, and there's already thousands of eyeballs on that code base. There would be a Chromium Foundation established very quickly if Google abandoned.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    > We have plenty of examples of open source databases, operating systems, libraries and languages leaving the major companies they were created at and being scooped up by a foundation or consortium to maintain. We have just as many left to die. We just don't know or don't talk about them anymore. > WebOS is a great example. Created by Palm as a mobile OS before they sold it to HP, who open sourced it. Now the primary contributor is LG, who uses it in smart tvs. Ah. So the mythical "community" that will scoop in and continue developing is a compani with a 60-billion yearly revenue. Got it. > Chromium is far too important, and there's already thousands of eyeballs on that code base. Eyeballs rarely, if ever, translate into understanding the codebase, or being able to do anything about it. > There would be a Chromium Foundation established very quickly if Google abandoned. Can I interest you in Apache Foundation where great amazing projects no longer supported by their original company go to slowly slide into oblivion?