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The most likely answer is that it will take the Linux model, with a foundation put together to fund Chrome's development. Then all of the parties interested in
by tsimionescu 2y ago
The most likely answer is that it will take the Linux model, with a foundation put together to fund Chrome's development. Then all of the parties interested in people having access to the Web, including Google, will have an incentive to fund this without requiring it to push their specific products.
- timschmidt 2y agoOne minor nit, it will be all parties interested in influence over future web standards and their eventual implementation.
- tsimionescu 2y agoRight, those would have the biggest incentive. But I'm sure good fundraisers will be bale to even get some large companies that aren't engaging in the standards at any level to throw some money to support a standard web browser, if they can convince everyone that without this there won't be a good way for people to access their web sites.
- timschmidt 2y agoI suspect that the leading reason browsers require so much investment and development effort is the ongoing effort to engineer them into heavily surveilled application delivery platforms. Most of the browsers in this list were developed by the open source community without major funding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers Though the same browsers tend not to support many of the newer standards. I kind of miss SGML, myself, and wonder if a slower pace of browser development and associated code churn might actually be more benefit than harm.
- josephg 2y agoChrome currently has far more paid full time engineers than the linux kernel does. I struggle to see how they get paid - except again, by charging search engines to be the default browser or something.
- jojobas 2y agoGoogle can keep engineers working on Chrome employed without having control over Chrome.
- wmf 2y agoBut why would they if they're forbidden from getting any benefit from Chrome?
- jojobas 2y agoWhy does everyone contribute to Linux?
- threatofrain 2y agoLinux is foundational to everyone and there isn’t an obvious alternative. What companies care about Safari vs Chrome? From the perspective of other companies, what’s wrong with Safari and Edge taking command?
- jojobas 2y agoFor starters, there's no Safari for anything other than Mac OS and iOS, and Edge is Chromium with some cosmetics from Microsoft.
- saati 2y agoThey are selling computers, distros, support, etc. built with/for linux.
- ajvs 2y agoA huge amount of their products require browser access, having a good UX to access them off in their best interest.
- jauntywundrkind 2y agoMaybe AI changed this, but.. Google is entirely where they are because the web is a powerful capable rich interesting place, that was able to rise & grow & flourish without the typical platform gatekeepers. In my view, Google's whole reason for making and continuing to fund Chrome have never ever changed: they want a great (and powerful, not small/retrogressive) open web. Because if the web falters, the proprietary platforms from yesterday can come back & reassert their control. Because if the web falters, information will be someplace where a Google can't index and link you to it. Google's existence depends entirely upon the web being a good place, a place for good sites, that people want to find & go to. The couple hundred million a year Google pays engineers to make the web good is a very affordable existential hedge, upon which the entire company of rests. A corollary to this is that attempts to tilt the web towards themselves - to take advantage o Chrome - risk poisoning the web & killing the golden goose. Which is why - imo - Google has taken web standards so seriously, and gone to such lengths to create an air of transparency around browser standards, starting the Intent to Ship process.