6 ms·

The slide I showed is not misleading. NaCl is not portable, PNaCl is still not ready for prime time based on Google's own actions, and you protest too much and

The slide I showed is not misleading. NaCl is not portable, PNaCl is still not ready for prime time based on Google's own actions, and you protest too much and do not practice what you preach. "Mozilla" meaning me, bzbarsky, blizzard (previously), roc on the plugin-futures list, others have been forthright compared to the mostly-silent other browser vendors, who haven't even spoken via corporate or individual channels on this non-issue apart from my pal Maciej at Apple coining "Active G" to refer to Pepper. If this circumstance makes you shoot us, the messengers, you need to read more Greek tragedy! We're telling you why NaCl/Pepper are a no-sale among all the non-chromium browsers. You don't like the reasons we give, but that's no justification for your ascribing to us bad motives or a dishonest agenda or techniques ("propaganda"). We have been perfectly clear about the unacceptably high cost of Pepper, and the single-company control problem of all of NaCl/PNaCl/Pepper. Your own misstatements are yours, and you should retract or not based on their righteous or wrongful nature, not on what anyone else does. That you excuse your conduct based on your grievance with us is thoroughly broken, as a piece of moral reasoning. At this point you are perfectly clear: you want a free lunch (from all browsers, but especially from Firefox), we won't give it to you, so you call us names and imply that we act out of bad motives. That makes you persona non grata in my book. Good luck!

othermaciej 14y ago
I've expressed my personal opinions about NaCl here on HN before too: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611
- haberman 14y ago
  For what it's worth, I think the comment you linked is far more fair and balanced criticism. If all of the statements I was hearing from Mozilla people sounded like that, I would have no beef.
  - BrendanEich 14y ago
    Maciej and I agree, but you are holding Mozilla to a different standard from Apple. Another reason I'm striving to ignore you (for both our sakes).
  - othermaciej 14y ago
    I have a different writing style from Brendan, but I don't think there is any significant substantive difference between what he said in this thread and what I said almost 2 years ago. (Although, the fact that PNaCl is still an experiment and not the mainstream of NaCl nearly two years after I wrote my comment should be further cause for concern.)
    - haberman 14y ago
      The significant substantive differences, to me as a reader, are: - You don't make final-sounding judgments like "never" or "non-starter" that preemptively reject any future evolution of the technology. - Your criticisms are highly pragmatic and specific, such that it is clear what hurdles the technology would have to clear to address them, and you don't close the door to the idea that they could (even if it seems unlikely to you). - You don't fall back on ideological arguments like native code as a "social ill" that would suggest that your true objections run deeper than what any technical improvements could possibly address. Thank you for that.
      - BrendanEich 14y ago
        The purpose of my "final-sounding judgments" is to cut the crap in the short term that keeps getting dumped on Mozilla by you and others with an enlarged sense of entitlement, and an unjustified assumption that NaCl/PNaCl + Pepper is somehow "better" in the large, and so should get free support from non-Chrome browsers. If you think overcoming some hurdles enumerated by Maciej will get PNaCL and Pepper support into Safari (where, BTW, Pepper is closest to porting cleanly by any measure, e.g., patch size), you're dreaming. Remember, I did not coin the funny "Active G" phrase. That shoe was fit by the guy you're trying to suck up to here. If an indefinite-future-tense, and therefore worthless, promise from me to be open to portable SuperPNaCl in 2020, will get you to stop bashing Mozilla and flattering Apple, then here it is. Indeed my plan is for JS to evolve and mutate to be that portable object format for native code to compile to. Emscripten is a promising sign along this path. And the PNaCl folks are targeting JS too, I hear, so this looks like a common goal. Now can you stop defaming Mozilla? /be
haberman 14y ago
> At this point you are perfectly clear: you want a free lunch Nope, I wanted a footnote that says "they're working on it." That is about 97% of what I wanted from this discussion. ES6 isn't "ready for prime time" either, being an unfinished spec, and yet the entire presentation was about that. You're comparing JavaScript's future with NaCl's present, and not mentioning that it is Google's stated purpose to remove the glaring limitation that is the basis of your discounting it as a technology (at least as far as that slide is concerned). How is that not misleading? I have never once suggested, in a single one of my messages on this thread, that non-Chromium browsers should adopt NaCl/Pepper in their current form (in fact I have said exactly the opposite, that I can understand their reasons for not wanting to), and yet you continue to attribute this viewpoint to me, calling me "astoundingly naive" for it, and issuing no retraction for that (despite all the retractions you demand from me). How is this the moral high ground? I would be happy (more than happy, actually) to completely retract my statement, since it certainly gives me no pleasure to think that you would mislead your audience, but you are declining to demonstrate that I was wrong or that you have an interest in being entirely forthcoming with your audience. By pressuring me to retract my statements while feeling free to say what you want I feel you are bullying me. I'm not a huge fan of how you are ascribing inaccurate viewpoints to me and calling me names for them, and yet I am not demanding that you retract it all or I will discount your existence as a person (incredibly harsh, by the way).

othermaciej 14y ago

I've expressed my personal opinions about NaCl here on HN before too: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611

haberman 14y ago
For what it's worth, I think the comment you linked is far more fair and balanced criticism. If all of the statements I was hearing from Mozilla people sounded like that, I would have no beef.
- BrendanEich 14y ago
  Maciej and I agree, but you are holding Mozilla to a different standard from Apple. Another reason I'm striving to ignore you (for both our sakes).
- othermaciej 14y ago
  I have a different writing style from Brendan, but I don't think there is any significant substantive difference between what he said in this thread and what I said almost 2 years ago. (Although, the fact that PNaCl is still an experiment and not the mainstream of NaCl nearly two years after I wrote my comment should be further cause for concern.)
  - haberman 14y ago
    The significant substantive differences, to me as a reader, are: - You don't make final-sounding judgments like "never" or "non-starter" that preemptively reject any future evolution of the technology. - Your criticisms are highly pragmatic and specific, such that it is clear what hurdles the technology would have to clear to address them, and you don't close the door to the idea that they could (even if it seems unlikely to you). - You don't fall back on ideological arguments like native code as a "social ill" that would suggest that your true objections run deeper than what any technical improvements could possibly address. Thank you for that.
    - BrendanEich 14y ago
      The purpose of my "final-sounding judgments" is to cut the crap in the short term that keeps getting dumped on Mozilla by you and others with an enlarged sense of entitlement, and an unjustified assumption that NaCl/PNaCl + Pepper is somehow "better" in the large, and so should get free support from non-Chrome browsers. If you think overcoming some hurdles enumerated by Maciej will get PNaCL and Pepper support into Safari (where, BTW, Pepper is closest to porting cleanly by any measure, e.g., patch size), you're dreaming. Remember, I did not coin the funny "Active G" phrase. That shoe was fit by the guy you're trying to suck up to here. If an indefinite-future-tense, and therefore worthless, promise from me to be open to portable SuperPNaCl in 2020, will get you to stop bashing Mozilla and flattering Apple, then here it is. Indeed my plan is for JS to evolve and mutate to be that portable object format for native code to compile to. Emscripten is a promising sign along this path. And the PNaCl folks are targeting JS too, I hear, so this looks like a common goal. Now can you stop defaming Mozilla? /be

haberman 14y ago

> At this point you are perfectly clear: you want a free lunch Nope, I wanted a footnote that says "they're working on it." That is about 97% of what I wanted from this discussion. ES6 isn't "ready for prime time" either, being an unfinished spec, and yet the entire presentation was about that. You're comparing JavaScript's future with NaCl's present, and not mentioning that it is Google's stated purpose to remove the glaring limitation that is the basis of your discounting it as a technology (at least as far as that slide is concerned). How is that not misleading? I have never once suggested, in a single one of my messages on this thread, that non-Chromium browsers should adopt NaCl/Pepper in their current form (in fact I have said exactly the opposite, that I can understand their reasons for not wanting to), and yet you continue to attribute this viewpoint to me, calling me "astoundingly naive" for it, and issuing no retraction for that (despite all the retractions you demand from me). How is this the moral high ground? I would be happy (more than happy, actually) to completely retract my statement, since it certainly gives me no pleasure to think that you would mislead your audience, but you are declining to demonstrate that I was wrong or that you have an interest in being entirely forthcoming with your audience. By pressuring me to retract my statements while feeling free to say what you want I feel you are bullying me. I'm not a huge fan of how you are ascribing inaccurate viewpoints to me and calling me names for them, and yet I am not demanding that you retract it all or I will discount your existence as a person (incredibly harsh, by the way).