Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#271

Post by pcwalton » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:44 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #266

pcwalton wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In late 2018, using Rust is a lot more serious of a proposal. But, in practice, I don't think the case for Rust in the browser would be nearly as compelling if we hadn't shown that it can be done. That's one strong reason for browser engine diversity: different engines can try different things. I think it's fair to say that a Rust proposal would have been dead-on-arrival a couple of years ago. It'd be seen as far too…

A very nice property of open source software is that you can fork it, "show that it can be done" without having to start from scratch, and if the results are provably better, get your approach adopted. The trickiest part is the proving that the different approach technology is enough better to warrant a switch. Very often, new approaches don't live up to expectations (not saying this is the case for the tech you're t…

1. This is actually discouraged for many projects (e.g. LLVM), because of the possibility that someone does a lot of work and then their results are not accepted.

2. The issues here don't have to do with whether the technology "works" (it does), but rather "developer velocity" and other more social/political concerns.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#272

Post by munificent » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

pcwalton wrote: post #123

munificent wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the bad state to be in is: * There is a number of implementations of the same platform. * Those implementations are competing and the market encourages them to be in -compatible with each other. You can avoid that bad state by having an explicit standard and applying pressure on all implementations to meet that standard. It usually comes at the expense of slower innovation. But another viable way to avoid tha…

So whether the Web can run on Rust-based parallel engine components should be beholden to the reporting structure at Google? Let's be clear: that is the future you are advocating.

Wow, easy there.

I'm guessing this is a stressful day around the Mozilla watercooler. This is bad news for Mozilla. Web authors will target the behavior supported by a majority of user browsers. With many independent browsers, there is no implementation majority, just a plurality. Majority behavior only comes from a standard and all implementers are incentivized to work with that standard.

When there's only a few, it's possible for a single one to become the de facto "standard". The web is effectively moving to a first-past-the-post election. Because Microsoft is adopting Chromium, Mozilla's engine and Safari may very quickly become minority ones.

This might suck for users, but that's not entirely clear. Obviously, in a perfect world, there would be infinite engineers building infinite implementations of every platform. In reality, every engineer-hour spent working on, say, a new implementation of COBOL is an hour not spent on software that might impact more users' lives in more important ways.

Maybe a couple of commodity web browsers and engineers working on other more important stuff is better for society? How many implementations of CSS does the world really need?

Either way, I'm not advocating anything. I'm more interested in understanding what are the causes and effects — both bad and good — of a platform going from three implementations to two. I'm approaching this as sociology, not as someone who has skin in the game.

I do work for Google and did work as part of the Chrome org, but I don't have enough expertise to make any claims about whether this is an overall good or bad thing for the world. I'm just interested in all of the consequences.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#273

Post by pkasting » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:55 PM UTC

pcwalton wrote: post #247

pkasting wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our team is staffed by engineers. We respond well to discussions of tradeoffs. If you'd like to present a proposal for writing parts of Chromium in Rust and speak in depth to the exact costs and benefits, we'd absolutely consider it. I know this because we _have_ been doing some of this consideration; a number of people on the team have floated the idea of using Rust for some parts of Chromium. But a real plan to do…

In late 2018, using Rust is a lot more serious of a proposal. But, in practice, I don't think the case for Rust in the browser would be nearly as compelling if we hadn't shown that it can be done. That's one strong reason for browser engine diversity: different engines can try different things. I think it's fair to say that a Rust proposal would have been dead-on-arrival a couple of years ago. It'd be seen as far too…

Rust as a language was significantly less mature a few years ago; I think that's the bigger factor here.

It certainly doesn't hurt to do compelling things in Rust in a browser engine, but doing compelling things in Rust in some other project entirely would also be motivating.

To look at it from another angle, Mozilla itself had a reason to try to tackle some problems with Rust. It didn't need a competing browser engine using Rust in order to move forward with that plan. And the plan wasn't "well, we'll try this because we can somehow fall back on a competing engine if this doesn't work". So if your argument were true, I don't see how Mozilla could have moved on this either.

In the end people do things because the potential benefit justifies the costs and risks, and having a competitor do something is not the only way of determining potential benefit.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#274

Post by kiriakasis » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:56 PM UTC

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…

Because it is not about edge being worse or too expensive, is in good part about having electron apps run better and with more battery efficiency. so the choice is to either implement the whole v8 API on their engine or use v8.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#275

Post by pkasting » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:59 PM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #257

pkasting wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not what I meant by raising this incident. The top-level reply spoke about marketing something as better than a competitor, then switching to that competitor, and the cognitive dissonance involved. The PowerPC to Intel switch is another example of that pattern: marketing your option as superior to a competitor up until the moment you discard your current path for the competitor.

It's meant to illustrate that this is hardly the only time this has happened, and that one should think carefully about not only whether marketing is accurate but whether it's comprehensively addressing everything you might care about.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#276

Post by kiriakasis » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 12:00 AM UTC

pkasting wrote: post #199

techsupporter wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (i'm used to chrome, my information is in chrome, I'm used to the dev tools in chrome, and I personally and selfishly have no reason to switch to Edge, even if it's technically better) Yep, the same can be said for Firefox. There are hundreds of threads with hundreds of comments on places like Hacker News and Reddit and Ars Technica, all grousing about how Google is the behemoth that is taking over, Chrome is bloat…

Chromium is open-source too, so if there's problems with it, our hope is that people come contribute and fix them.

But that is not the point. Chromium is a very very nice browser and it is better for everyone (Chromium included) is it is not the only one.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#277

Post by kiriakasis » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 12:06 AM UTC

DannyB2 wrote: post #252

Klathmon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you distrust them both for sure you should prefer keeping them in competition.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#278

Post by KamBha » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #192

techsupporter wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (i'm used to chrome, my information is in chrome, I'm used to the dev tools in chrome, and I personally and selfishly have no reason to switch to Edge, even if it's technically better) Yep, the same can be said for Firefox. There are hundreds of threads with hundreds of comments on places like Hacker News and Reddit and Ars Technica, all grousing about how Google is the behemoth that is taking over, Chrome is bloat…

It's also hard. Despite the complaints of Google dominance, Chrome is just a really good browser. I tried to switch to Firefox Quantum earlier this year as my daily driver. I had some minor annoyances, but I ended up switching back to Chrome for the devtools.

I use Firefox day in and day out and the only time I have found myself using Chrome is when I have to do profiling and even then that is because profiling tools in all browsers kinda sucks.

I have often wondered what is the killer feature that Chrome dev tools has that Firefox does not that forces people to switch back to Chrome as this seems to be a common refrain and while I don't work on the dev tools I sometimes wonder what awesome feature I am missing in Chrome...

In some cases, I actually find Chrome lacking. For example, the ability to see what events are attached to a dom element.

DISCLAIMER: I do not work on the developer tools for Chrome or Firefox and don't do much CSS.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#279

Post by jsgo » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 12:22 AM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #253

jsgo wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Edg…

I don't disagree with anything you're saying here, but I don't know what it has to do with Microsoft having a say in how Chromium/Blink is developed or what directions it may take.

Re: Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration

#280

Post by pcwalton » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 12:26 AM UTC

munificent wrote: post #272

pcwalton wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So whether the Web can run on Rust-based parallel engine components should be beholden to the reporting structure at Google? Let's be clear: that is the future you are advocating.

Wow, easy there. I'm guessing this is a stressful day around the Mozilla watercooler. This is bad news for Mozilla. Web authors will target the behavior supported by a majority of user browsers. With many independent browsers, there is no implementation majority, just a plurality. Majority behavior only comes from a standard and all implementers are incentivized to work with that standard. When there's only a few, it…

> Maybe a couple of commodity web browsers and engineers working on other more important stuff is better for society? How many implementations of CSS does the world really need?

Shouldn't users have the best possible CSS engine? If there's only one, and it's beholden to the reporting structure at Google, then disruptive innovations are less likely to happen.

People who don't work at Google should be allowed to develop the Web platform, without asking Google for permission.