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Sorry, but what the FUD is this? Chromium has never done anything of the sort. It's developed completely in the open and has a huge number of non-Google contrib

Sorry, but what the FUD is this? Chromium has never done anything of the sort. It's developed completely in the open and has a huge number of non-Google contributors committing code every day.

azakai 12y ago
Chromium proper is indeed developed in the open, but the Chromium browser as a whole is not, perhaps that's what was intended above, so there might be a confusion of terminology here. For example, v8 - a very important part of Chromium - is not developed fully openly: major features are developed secretly and land as surprises, like CrankShaft and TurboFan, and also daily development consists of patches landing with little or no public discussion behind them.
- justinschuh 12y ago
  Fair enough that v8 is an odd case, but it's an external dependency that predates Chrome/Chromium with its own core team, development processes, third-party obligations, and ecosystem. And accepting that, v8 does have third-party contributors (see their policy here: https://code.google.com/p/v8-wiki/wiki/Contributing https://code.google.com/p/v8-wiki/wiki/Contributing). Plus, do you really take issue with the occasional quietly developed code drop, because isn't that pretty much how your team introduced asm.js support in Firefox? Beyond JS engines, you must appreciate that dependencies and business relationships can get very odd when shipping something as big and complicated as a browser. Chrome/Chromium absolutely experiences this, but so does Mozilla. Take HTML EME, where Adobe's technical requirements have pretty much forced Mozilla to break Andreas' and Brendan's original promises on how much the closed-source CDM will be sandboxed. Then there's the h.264 situation, which is an odd multi-step dance to deliver binaries from Cisco, and is significantly more convoluted than Chrome's use of ffmpeg. Regardless, I don't believe you're really trying to make the argument that Chromium is not a publicly developed open source project with a huge pool of non-Google contributors. Because you know that to simply be an indisputable fact, even if there is additional complexity around certain dependencies and platforms.
  - azakai 12y ago
    Of course I agree that the chromium project itself, as opposed to the chromium browser, is developed openly and in a nice way. There is no argument between us on that - it's a clear fact. And I agree that in a large project like a browser, compromises can be necessary when you must work with partners, as in the examples that you made. Good points. But I strongly disagree on two things you mention: Regarding asm.js, that is not how it was developed. It was from day 1 done on an open github repo, https://github.com/dherman/asm.js/ https://github.com/dherman/asm.js/ There was never anything secret about it. (What would we have even gained by being secretive about it? Nothing.) Also, in v8 the issue is not just CrankShaft and TurboFan, but as I mentioned, daily development. I file bugs when I find v8 failing on an emscripten output, and so I follow v8 commits. There is almost no public discussion on them - just patches, plus perhaps a review comment or two. No public bug with background, explanations, motivation, etc. The code is open, but development is clearly not. I think it's obvious v8 is a major part of chromium, and it's completely unnecessarily developed in a non-open manner. So I think it's fair to say the chromium browser as a whole - as opposed to the chromium project itself - is not developed fully openly. Another example is Dart. Dart is not yet part of chromium, but the plans to integrate it are public. Dart was developed secretly for a while, and in fact only became known unintentionally in a leaked email. It's not clear when it would have become public if not for that leaked email. Again, like with v8, this is unnecessarily closed development - there are no legal issues or partners that must be compromised with. It was just decided that v8 and Dart would be developed non-openly (for reasons I can't understand).
    - justinschuh 12y ago
      Do you really think a code drop from an obscurely named github repo qualifies as open development? Because it can just as easily be interpreted as hiding in the noise, particularly when the eventual asm.js unveiling was done as a giant PR blitz. Of course, you can argue that the secrecy was unintentional, but you can't really argue that it wasn't taken advantage of. To your argument that Chromium is not developed fully openly, you must understand that Blink and Chromium contributors dwarf the v8 team by orders of magnitude, right (even the security team is a bigger)? And you understand that the difference in code size is even larger, right? I get that you're focused on JS because it's your area, but in the grand scheme it's only one of many, many important pieces. And if we're going to dig into it like this, do you really believe every part of Firefox would hold up to the same level of scrutiny? after all, Richard Stallman has made similar arguments about Firefox not being truly free. Now for Dart. I just don't see Chromium approaching Dart the same way Mozilla approached asm.js. On the contrary, I strongly expect that dart.js will need to prove the viability and popularity of the language before Chromium includes any specific optimizations or support for it. As for the "leaks," I suggest you read the doc people are referencing and consider the timelines involved. Because, the content paints a very different picture, and the timelines don't at all align with what you're claiming. As for why the Dart team follows their particular development practice, I don't know. They spun out of the original v8 team and aren't a part of Chrome team. However, I do know both Dart and v8 have some non-negligible testing and workflows tied to Google infrastructure. So, it may just be hard for them to switch, or maybe no one has ever made the case to do so. Honestly, have you tried just asking nicely rather than making accusations? I mean, you say you can't understand it, but your behavior seems to assume and voice the worst motivations for anything related to Google.
gcb0 12y ago
go find all the 3 (last time i counted) ways to enable "disable referrer header" that was present in the community version for months and removed by google in their 'big code blob release'
- justinschuh 12y ago
  Your response is utter nonsense. If you had any legitimate argument to make here you'd be citing something to support these wild accusations, but you have nothing of the sort.

Sorry, but what the FUD is this? Chromium has never done anything of the sort. It's developed completely in the open and has a huge number of non-Google contributors committing code every day.

azakai 12y ago

Chromium proper is indeed developed in the open, but the Chromium browser as a whole is not, perhaps that's what was intended above, so there might be a confusion of terminology here. For example, v8 - a very important part of Chromium - is not developed fully openly: major features are developed secretly and land as surprises, like CrankShaft and TurboFan, and also daily development consists of patches landing with little or no public discussion behind them.

justinschuh 12y ago
Fair enough that v8 is an odd case, but it's an external dependency that predates Chrome/Chromium with its own core team, development processes, third-party obligations, and ecosystem. And accepting that, v8 does have third-party contributors (see their policy here: https://code.google.com/p/v8-wiki/wiki/Contributing https://code.google.com/p/v8-wiki/wiki/Contributing). Plus, do you really take issue with the occasional quietly developed code drop, because isn't that pretty much how your team introduced asm.js support in Firefox? Beyond JS engines, you must appreciate that dependencies and business relationships can get very odd when shipping something as big and complicated as a browser. Chrome/Chromium absolutely experiences this, but so does Mozilla. Take HTML EME, where Adobe's technical requirements have pretty much forced Mozilla to break Andreas' and Brendan's original promises on how much the closed-source CDM will be sandboxed. Then there's the h.264 situation, which is an odd multi-step dance to deliver binaries from Cisco, and is significantly more convoluted than Chrome's use of ffmpeg. Regardless, I don't believe you're really trying to make the argument that Chromium is not a publicly developed open source project with a huge pool of non-Google contributors. Because you know that to simply be an indisputable fact, even if there is additional complexity around certain dependencies and platforms.
- azakai 12y ago
  Of course I agree that the chromium project itself, as opposed to the chromium browser, is developed openly and in a nice way. There is no argument between us on that - it's a clear fact. And I agree that in a large project like a browser, compromises can be necessary when you must work with partners, as in the examples that you made. Good points. But I strongly disagree on two things you mention: Regarding asm.js, that is not how it was developed. It was from day 1 done on an open github repo, https://github.com/dherman/asm.js/ https://github.com/dherman/asm.js/ There was never anything secret about it. (What would we have even gained by being secretive about it? Nothing.) Also, in v8 the issue is not just CrankShaft and TurboFan, but as I mentioned, daily development. I file bugs when I find v8 failing on an emscripten output, and so I follow v8 commits. There is almost no public discussion on them - just patches, plus perhaps a review comment or two. No public bug with background, explanations, motivation, etc. The code is open, but development is clearly not. I think it's obvious v8 is a major part of chromium, and it's completely unnecessarily developed in a non-open manner. So I think it's fair to say the chromium browser as a whole - as opposed to the chromium project itself - is not developed fully openly. Another example is Dart. Dart is not yet part of chromium, but the plans to integrate it are public. Dart was developed secretly for a while, and in fact only became known unintentionally in a leaked email. It's not clear when it would have become public if not for that leaked email. Again, like with v8, this is unnecessarily closed development - there are no legal issues or partners that must be compromised with. It was just decided that v8 and Dart would be developed non-openly (for reasons I can't understand).
  - justinschuh 12y ago
    Do you really think a code drop from an obscurely named github repo qualifies as open development? Because it can just as easily be interpreted as hiding in the noise, particularly when the eventual asm.js unveiling was done as a giant PR blitz. Of course, you can argue that the secrecy was unintentional, but you can't really argue that it wasn't taken advantage of. To your argument that Chromium is not developed fully openly, you must understand that Blink and Chromium contributors dwarf the v8 team by orders of magnitude, right (even the security team is a bigger)? And you understand that the difference in code size is even larger, right? I get that you're focused on JS because it's your area, but in the grand scheme it's only one of many, many important pieces. And if we're going to dig into it like this, do you really believe every part of Firefox would hold up to the same level of scrutiny? after all, Richard Stallman has made similar arguments about Firefox not being truly free. Now for Dart. I just don't see Chromium approaching Dart the same way Mozilla approached asm.js. On the contrary, I strongly expect that dart.js will need to prove the viability and popularity of the language before Chromium includes any specific optimizations or support for it. As for the "leaks," I suggest you read the doc people are referencing and consider the timelines involved. Because, the content paints a very different picture, and the timelines don't at all align with what you're claiming. As for why the Dart team follows their particular development practice, I don't know. They spun out of the original v8 team and aren't a part of Chrome team. However, I do know both Dart and v8 have some non-negligible testing and workflows tied to Google infrastructure. So, it may just be hard for them to switch, or maybe no one has ever made the case to do so. Honestly, have you tried just asking nicely rather than making accusations? I mean, you say you can't understand it, but your behavior seems to assume and voice the worst motivations for anything related to Google.

gcb0 12y ago

go find all the 3 (last time i counted) ways to enable "disable referrer header" that was present in the community version for months and removed by google in their 'big code blob release'

justinschuh 12y ago
Your response is utter nonsense. If you had any legitimate argument to make here you'd be citing something to support these wild accusations, but you have nothing of the sort.