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Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#251

Post by pcwalton »

devwastaken wrote: post #179
no_wizard wrote: post #118

I'm still shocked that they went the Chromium route here. This would have been their chance to really, well, for lack of a better way of putting it: stick it to Google [0] I think it would have been far, far more impressive to use Quantum ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum ) or WebKit ( https://webkit.org ), with the added benefit that nw.js is already up and going for the Webkit engine (and likely would have suffice…

Firefox's internal code is a dumpster fire. I say that in the nicest way possible. Look at their 'jsapi' mailing list, they just break compatibility at will and don't properly version things. It doesn't have the same features v8 has with regards to isolation. I'm not sure if quantum is actually all that different from pre-57 minus servo, however servo isn't magic, and only a small portion of that is really rust. Over…

V8's API is also highly unstable.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#252

Post by DannyB2 »

Klathmon wrote: post #79
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #5

Man, this sucks. I really wish they had open sourced their new engine and stuck with it. I would have volunteered time porting it to Linux/POSIX as well.

This is probably going to get a bit "rant-ey", it's not directed at you, but at the ecosystem at large (and kind of at myself). Everyone keeps saying this, but nobody is actually doing anything about it. People (myself included) talk about how a monoculture is bad, but we still don't use Edge. We talk about how more competition in the browser space is a good thing, but we still complain when the latest features or se…

Yeah, I don't like monoculture.

Even if Edge did run on Linux and were open source . . .

. . . and I'm just being honest here, and I'm probably not alone . . .

I just don't trust Microsoft.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they've truly changed. I'm not trying to imply anything about Microsoft, but merely express my own internal feeling about them. I doubt I am alone.

This is not to imply that I trust Google either.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#253

Post by nojvek »

jsgo wrote: post #212
jbob2000 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a strong Microsoft voice on the Chromium project, it will probably act as a counter to the Google voice. And Quantum and WebKit are nowhere close to Chromium, they're picky to a fault about HTML and CSS, it's just annoying to develop for them. Nobody is competing on browser market share any more, that's a lost cause. With so much traffic going to mobile and apps now, it just doesn't make sense to be re-inventing…

Google forked Blink off of WebKit because they couldn't dictate the pace. I highly doubt that Microsoft is going to have much of a voice in the matter. I imagine they'll appreciate Microsoft essentially making Chrome work better within Windows, but that's about it. They'll accept pull requests, but doubt they'll give up much of anything in the way of control.

Microsoft is always free to fork Chromium.

Given how nodejs is still not fragmented (remember io.js), and things are getting along well, I am positive it can be done.

Microsoft has really shown it can do Open Source well and is willing to let go of its ego if it means more developers/users on their platform.

Also Google makes a shit ton of money off chromium through the search bar. Edge is chromium + bing bar.

If Edge doesn’t do stupid shit like log you in the browser, blast ads in your face, I am very willing to consider another browser.

Chromium won. It has the largest market share. V8 powers both chromium and nodejs. Google showed Microsoft that Open Source can be insanely profitable if there is a money making engine complementary to it.

Microsoft’s money makers are Azure, Office, Bing and surface devices. Open source software brings them a ton of good will and new users.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#254

Post by Klover »

bunnycorn wrote: post #208
holtalanm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, if you look at it now, webkit is BY FAR not the dominant engine. So, by your own logic, if Microsoft ends up in a disagreement with Google about the direction of chromium, whats to stop them from just forking it and becoming the new dominant engine? Chrome will only remain the dominant web browser as long as its users view it as worth the hassle. If Edge is built upon chromium in the future, I'm not going to si…

WebKit is the dominant engine because it's what powers Webviews on Android.

Not since android.. 6? It defaults to the chrome browser. You can choose the other chrome browsers too (beta dev canary if installed, via the developer settings) and the web view might actually also be chrome. WebKit on android is from ages ago.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#255

Post by nojvek »

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #90
VoxPelli wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that Samsung Internet, Brave, Opera, Electron etc is based on Chromium and at least Samsung Internet adding new features of their own to it, there are at least many other people working on the code base. I would guess that Microsoft would keep using Chorus rather than adopting V8, but if they aren’t, then V8 has contributions from eg. Node.js And as states in the article: Edge on Android and on ARM seems…

There's a crucial difference between "working on the code base" and having commit access. The committers are the gatekeepers and the steamrollers. What I'm effectively asking is this: 1. If Google opts to steer Chromium in a way that the community finds objectionable, could the community stop it? 2. If the community opts to steer Chromium in a way that Google finds objectionable, could Google stop it?

If google is a jerk to Microsoft, you can always fork. That is the beauty of open source software. The destiny is in your hands if you’re willing to put in the work.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#256

Post by WorldMaker »

fbelzile wrote: post #186
vezycash wrote: post #177

When Microsoft released Edge, they claimed bugs plagued IE because they couldn't update IE without OS updates. Edge as a "store app" would receive frequent updates, independent of Windows OS updates. They ended up tying Edge to Windows. And kept promising but never delivered. Instead of small frequent browser updates, we got large frequent OS updates. Maybe now that Edge's dead, they'll slow down the frequency of Win…

> MS also decided to tie Edge extension to the Windows store. I think this was a big mistake. I hope they mirror what Google is doing with the Chrome store. As a developer, I had to: 1) Port my Chrome extension into a UWP app 2) Embed another win32 exe to read/write SQLite databases because UWP don't do that. 3) Pay $100 to open a developer account 4) After compiling the extension, reading blogs to figure out how to…

Microsoft.Data.SQLite [1] is baked into the UWP for reading/writing SQLite databases, and has been since the Fall Creators Update last year (and that library exists in a backwards compatible way all the way back to the 2015 November Update if you have LTS support needs).

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/data-access/sql...

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#257

Post by vbezhenar »

pkasting wrote: post #198
egeozcan wrote: post #13

If Microsoft knew that Edge in its current state is inferior, why did they try so hard to make every windows user switch to it? I mean there was this "startup growth hacking" kind of craziness from a corporation and sudden admittance of defeat... It's very confusing. Edit: We all know why they want everyone to switch don't we, but think about all the now admittedly false marketing! It's not like they stopped the aggr…

Remember when Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel?

That’s not a correct comparison. They did not make PoeerPC CPUs. But if we will follow this analogy, Apple is expected to switch to their own CPU soon, getting independence and increasing their intellectual investments. Very different from MS who just gave up having a huge advantage of being able to ship anything on a main OS.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#258

Post by amatwl »

mrpippy wrote: post #159
mrpippy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I see zero chance that Edge will suddenly be ported back to Windows 7. And it would be almost as big of a shock if the Chromium-based Edge is not UWP.

I stand corrected--this is exactly what they're going to do. Take Win32 Chromium, rename it Edge, and build it for Win7, 8, and 10. What a huge blow to everyone at MS who believes in UWP. https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18128648/microsoft-edge-c...

UWP includes Win32 apps, as well (if they play well with appx/ MSIX).

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#259

Post by nojvek »

meandmycode wrote: post #213
alanfranzoni wrote: post #11

What I find a bit curious is that's a fully Chromium based browser, it's not simply based on the Blink rendering engine. So, it will be much closer (probably) to Chromium/Chrome than other blink-based browsers like Brave or Opera. I'd really like to understand the rationale behind this choice. What they'd like to leverage from Chromium that Blink alone wouldn't have?

As impressive as chakra is, V8 is the same in contrast to edgehtml to blink, they don't see the value of fragmenting support, and V8 really is getting very powerful, a blink+chakra browser would likely be more of a nightmare to developers

I disagree. Chakra is a lot more js spec compliant and close to v8 than edgehtml and blink.

They already had chakra working with nodejs.

Rendering engines are mammoth projects. I’ve contributed to Chakra, v8 and nodejs. They are somewhat manageable codebase. Blink codebase is insane.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#260

Post by tcd »

zbraniecki wrote: post #82
_nickwhite wrote: post #27

Could this be a bad thing for Firefox? Seems like Microsoft + Google is quite a rival to go against?

Firefox (by that I hope you mean Mozilla Project) cares about diversity and choice. Our Mozilla Manifesto [0] describes our vision of the balance between corporate and civic value of the Internet. I speak for myself - I believe that decrease in diversity of implementations of the Web standard and drift toward a monopoly is harmful to our vision of the Internet and ultimately will hurt the Open Web. [0] https://www.mo…

I mean, in all honesty, EdgeHTML wasn't ever really an engine that had much hope. IE has always been loathed, Edge just continued that trend. Their marketshare wasn't great, and tying browser updates to the OS as they did with IE was irresponsible for how browsers are shipped these days.

If Edge had 35% marketshare I'd be more concerned, but nobody was using it, and web developers hated trying to make their sites compatible.

Good riddance to IE/Edge of old :)

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