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I'm enjoying the constant competition. I'd like to see them continue to push the envelope.

chrischen 17y ago
The whole benefit of open source is so that stuff can be openly improved. If Chrome has a better javascript engine, then why not firefox and safari adopt it? They could always improve the Chrome version afterwards anyways (I'm assuming the V8 engine is indeed better). There really are only two browsers duking it out, Internet Explorer and the open source browser. Why? Because open source has no barriers to adopting it's own technology and can be considered one entity in theory. If one javascript engine is clearly superior why waste effort developing seperate open source implementations? It's not like the user interface where someone might prefer the style of firefox's javascript rendering over Chrome's. Competition even in open source is natural and should be encouraged, but they don't have to necessarily compete to improve. They can build on top of each other.
- blasdel 17y ago
  1) A browser's full JS implementation is pretty closely coupled with its rendering engine. Even Mozilla ties them together, and they have a long heritage of making chunks of browser functionality separate libraries for no goddamn reason. 2) In the real world open source software is about scratching your own itch, and has absolutely nothing to do with "what's best for users". Developers are highly invested in their own code, and are loath to rip it out and replace it with someone else's. It's extraordinarily rare for OSS projects to merge at all even when they are forks (and I can't think of a single example of non-forked projects merging).
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Yes that's the problem: emotional investment in their own code. But still the idea of open source is that everyone is free to use everything so that if someone sees something done better they can incorporate it into their own project right? They don't have to copy and paste stuff, but they can take the concept, idea, etc. If they don't and can't get over their investment, then they are doomed to failure eventually because those who do take the best stuff out there and build on top of it will have a technical advantage. So Firefox and safari are publicly contributed to, but they have different engines. Engines are probably the most difficult part of the browser right? It's essentially the definition of the browser. Well let's say the V8 engine is superior and Firefox and safari don't adopt it. Well they're operating not much too different from a proprietary source. Open source and commercial will both be invested in their products, the difference is that open source can pull from each other, and they should. So if V8 requires major code changes why not? And if Mozilla thinks it can improve it then they can fork it. But Mozilla probably won't do that. You're right most people are invested in their projects and so what happens in the open source world is that brand new projects get started instead, but I'm just saying it also makes sense to ditch when you known you've been beaten just because you can.
  - Zev 17y ago
    1) A browser's full JS implementation is pretty closely coupled with its rendering engine. Both Safari and Chrome use WebKit as a rendering engine.. 2) In the real world open source software is about scratching your own itch, and has absolutely nothing to do with "what's best for users". In this world, WebKit is open sourced by Apple and isn't some random user's side project that gets one patch a month. This means that decisions aren't made lightly, without second thought. Including the decision that was made to merge back with KHTML and Google's (slow) progress to move back to using WebKit trunk instead of their own fork.
  - Nwallins 17y ago
    > (and I can't think of a single example of non-forked projects merging). Merb and Rails.

The whole benefit of open source is so that stuff can be openly improved. If Chrome has a better javascript engine, then why not firefox and safari adopt it? They could always improve the Chrome version afterwards anyways (I'm assuming the V8 engine is indeed better). There really are only two browsers duking it out, Internet Explorer and the open source browser. Why? Because open source has no barriers to adopting it's own technology and can be considered one entity in theory. If one javascript engine is clearly superior why waste effort developing seperate open source implementations? It's not like the user interface where someone might prefer the style of firefox's javascript rendering over Chrome's. Competition even in open source is natural and should be encouraged, but they don't have to necessarily compete to improve. They can build on top of each other.

blasdel 17y ago
1) A browser's full JS implementation is pretty closely coupled with its rendering engine. Even Mozilla ties them together, and they have a long heritage of making chunks of browser functionality separate libraries for no goddamn reason. 2) In the real world open source software is about scratching your own itch, and has absolutely nothing to do with "what's best for users". Developers are highly invested in their own code, and are loath to rip it out and replace it with someone else's. It's extraordinarily rare for OSS projects to merge at all even when they are forks (and I can't think of a single example of non-forked projects merging).
- chrischen 17y ago
  Yes that's the problem: emotional investment in their own code. But still the idea of open source is that everyone is free to use everything so that if someone sees something done better they can incorporate it into their own project right? They don't have to copy and paste stuff, but they can take the concept, idea, etc. If they don't and can't get over their investment, then they are doomed to failure eventually because those who do take the best stuff out there and build on top of it will have a technical advantage. So Firefox and safari are publicly contributed to, but they have different engines. Engines are probably the most difficult part of the browser right? It's essentially the definition of the browser. Well let's say the V8 engine is superior and Firefox and safari don't adopt it. Well they're operating not much too different from a proprietary source. Open source and commercial will both be invested in their products, the difference is that open source can pull from each other, and they should. So if V8 requires major code changes why not? And if Mozilla thinks it can improve it then they can fork it. But Mozilla probably won't do that. You're right most people are invested in their projects and so what happens in the open source world is that brand new projects get started instead, but I'm just saying it also makes sense to ditch when you known you've been beaten just because you can.
- Zev 17y ago
  1) A browser's full JS implementation is pretty closely coupled with its rendering engine. Both Safari and Chrome use WebKit as a rendering engine.. 2) In the real world open source software is about scratching your own itch, and has absolutely nothing to do with "what's best for users". In this world, WebKit is open sourced by Apple and isn't some random user's side project that gets one patch a month. This means that decisions aren't made lightly, without second thought. Including the decision that was made to merge back with KHTML and Google's (slow) progress to move back to using WebKit trunk instead of their own fork.
- Nwallins 17y ago
  > (and I can't think of a single example of non-forked projects merging). Merb and Rails.