Brave layoffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Brave layoffs

#141

Post by charcircuit » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 5:07 AM UTC

flagrant_taco wrote: post #138

charcircuit wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's browser engine is open source. You can reuse Google's browser engine meaning that you can focus on the features that differentiate your browser instead of implementing the spec like you suggest.

Exactly, in that model the only way to build a browser is to depend on someone else to implement the specs. It's not feasible to build a new browser, at best you can start with what Google implemented, including proprietary features, and go from there. At that point you likely don't understand the codebase fully and are going to be dependant on staying in sync with chromium to get new features. This model of starting…

>At that point you likely don't understand the codebase fully

It's faster to learn the part of the comebase you are interested in rather than building a whole browser engine.

>and are going to be dependant on staying in sync with chromium to get new features.

Being able to reuse the work Google is investing into th browser engine is a positive.

>There isn't much daylight between that and the often complained about limitation of Apple only allowing the use of WebKit on iOS.

The difference is you can make changes to the browser engine if you need.

Re: Brave layoffs

#142

Post by flagrant_taco » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 5:22 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #141

flagrant_taco wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, in that model the only way to build a browser is to depend on someone else to implement the specs. It's not feasible to build a new browser, at best you can start with what Google implemented, including proprietary features, and go from there. At that point you likely don't understand the codebase fully and are going to be dependant on staying in sync with chromium to get new features. This model of starting…

>At that point you likely don't understand the codebase fully It's faster to learn the part of the comebase you are interested in rather than building a whole browser engine. >and are going to be dependant on staying in sync with chromium to get new features. Being able to reuse the work Google is investing into th browser engine is a positive. >There isn't much daylight between that and the often complained about li…

I think we're just thinking about very stiffener goals for the web. I'm not interested in a version of the web that is driven by one browser or company, even if it can technically be modified or tweaked as long as you don't diverge see enough to break upstream compatibility.

Re: Brave layoffs

#143

Post by flagrant_taco » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 5:26 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #140

flagrant_taco wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The open web is dead if the only option is to base every browser on a Google core. How do specs fit into this if every browser is just a UI shell around chrome? Where is the competition driving innovation of the web platform when the only competitive landscape is how pretty you can make your toolbars and bookmarks? We need independent groups of passionate people making sure that the web platform is focused on the bes…

>How do specs fit into this if every browser is just a UI shell around chrome? The browser engine is open source. You can make changes and proposals with your own fork. If you are making a browser for musicians you could try and advance the WebMIDI spec and add new functionality to it and then try to get it standardized. But as a browser developer you don't want to me spending your time implenting specs that other pe…

What you're describing is the opposite of the whole point of specifications. The aim wasn't to circle around a single implementation, it was to define feature specifications that would allow multiple vendors to build cross-compatable web browsers.

What would be the point of open specifications if there was only a single implementation?

Re: Brave layoffs

#144

Post by charcircuit » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 7:50 AM UTC

flagrant_taco wrote: post #143

charcircuit wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How do specs fit into this if every browser is just a UI shell around chrome? The browser engine is open source. You can make changes and proposals with your own fork. If you are making a browser for musicians you could try and advance the WebMIDI spec and add new functionality to it and then try to get it standardized. But as a browser developer you don't want to me spending your time implenting specs that other pe…

What you're describing is the opposite of the whole point of specifications. The aim wasn't to circle around a single implementation, it was to define feature specifications that would allow multiple vendors to build cross-compatable web browsers. What would be the point of open specifications if there was only a single implementation?

>What would be the point of open specifications if there was only a single implementation?

I never said there was? When you write the first implementation then there will only be a single implementation, but that's how counting works. 1 comes after 0. Anyone is free to write another implementation.

Re: Brave layoffs

#145

Post by charcircuit » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 7:56 AM UTC

flagrant_taco wrote: post #142

charcircuit wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At that point you likely don't understand the codebase fully It's faster to learn the part of the comebase you are interested in rather than building a whole browser engine. >and are going to be dependant on staying in sync with chromium to get new features. Being able to reuse the work Google is investing into th browser engine is a positive. >There isn't much daylight between that and the often complained about li…

I think we're just thinking about very stiffener goals for the web. I'm not interested in a version of the web that is driven by one browser or company, even if it can technically be modified or tweaked as long as you don't diverge see enough to break upstream compatibility.

Your original comment was about competition between browsers. For browsers to compete they don't all need to have their own browser engine written from scratch.

Web standards are not driven by one browser or one company. That would still be true if everyone based their browsers off of Blink.

Re: Brave layoffs

#146

Post by MikusR » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 10:25 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #46

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't we collectively putting our time/effort etc.. into making Firefox the singular and best FOSS browser ever? Because the leadership is hellbent on copying Chrome but worse and investing in utterly pointless endeavors instead of making a good browser. It's a shame. Giving money to the Mozilla Foundation is the same as throwing it to a black hole. I hope a new truly FOSS browser shows up and catches on that…

Isn't that because Firefox itself basically makes no money? I know about Google's deal with them but it seems like Mozilla is trying to diversify away from them.

Firefox is the only thing that makes money. The problem is that the money made by Firefox was not invested back into Firefox. As a result market share fell. Less market share leads to less money from search deal.

Re: Brave layoffs

#147

Post by antifa » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

Georgelemental wrote: post #60

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #19

I'm going to treat this like a product engineering discussion User Story: As a Private Citizen and Engineer, I want a graphical multi-input interface to load, view, interact with and post documents to remote and local HTTP servers ("web-browsing") on any personal computing device. I want web-browsing to have out of the box default security and privacy guardrails that are well documented can be disabled or modified by…

Brave's CEO (Brendan Eich) used to be co-founder and CEO of Mozilla. They kicked him out because in 2008 he donated $1000 of his money to an unapproved political cause. Can't put time/effort into something that is more interested in virtue signalling than improving.

> improving

ah yes my favorite important improvements that I totally use daily like adding crypto tokens to chrome and crypto spam notifications on android

Re: Brave layoffs

#148

Post by flagrant_taco » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 1:57 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #145

flagrant_taco wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're just thinking about very stiffener goals for the web. I'm not interested in a version of the web that is driven by one browser or company, even if it can technically be modified or tweaked as long as you don't diverge see enough to break upstream compatibility.

Your original comment was about competition between browsers. For browsers to compete they don't all need to have their own browser engine written from scratch. Web standards are not driven by one browser or one company. That would still be true if everyone based their browsers off of Blink.

There isn't any real browser competition when the only difference is in what the UI around the actual web browser is. The browser experience is what actually renders the web page, not the menu system around it.

We wouldn't need standards at all if everyone used the same browser engine. Whoever owns the engine, likely Google, would make the engine however they choose and could change core fundamentals of how the web itself works.

Many devs were up in arms when a GitHub issue raised the idea of effectively DRMing the internet. Google can bake that right into chromium if they want to, and if they were the only browser engine they could easily get away with closed sourcing chromium and only shipping binaries so the feature can't be disabled or removed.

Web standards in that world would be an internal discussion at Google, likely driven entirely by their business needs. There's no browser competition there, the open web would be completely dead.

Re: Brave layoffs

#149

Post by the_third_wave » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 3:15 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #114

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this a hypothesis that we can specify and test? Is this how we would approach this problem? It sounds more like a cynical write-off, not a actual strategy There is nothing to test, it's why I stopped using Firefox. Check the Mozilla foundation page for all the crap they fund instead of the browser. Look how much the UI looks like Chrome, even little things like clicking the searchbar expanding it outside its bou…

> Check the Mozilla foundation page for all the crap they fund instead of the browser. Notwithstanding that, they still put out firefox. And Firefox is a far superior browser to any of the alternatives if you care about user-centric control and privacy. So to anyone who cares even a little about being able about these things, supporting Firefox is the way to go. If a mythical even-better browser shows up, great. But…

> Notwithstanding that, they still put out firefox

Firefox was created by pre-Baker Mozilla which was an organisation focused mostly on - to coopt the terminology used by those who coopted Mozilla later - "software justice". When Eich was ousted (for voicing an opinion he shared with people like Barack Obama [1]) and Baker took his place she set a course towards different goals: Mozilla was going to focus more on social justice because it was not enough to only build software. She clearly did not realise - or did not care - that it was through creating viable open alternatives to proprietary browsers and related software that Mozilla was in fact doing the best it could towards achieving the aim of a more just world.

Baker needs to be ousted, she can go lead some NGO somewhere if she wants to fly social justice flags. Let Mozilla be led by those who understand that software freedom is an integral part of freedom of information access and an open internet which are essential to counteract the tendency towards authoritarianism which has plagued society since the dawn of time.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/33750...

Re: Brave layoffs

#150

Post by charcircuit » Sun, Oct 08, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

flagrant_taco wrote: post #148

charcircuit wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your original comment was about competition between browsers. For browsers to compete they don't all need to have their own browser engine written from scratch. Web standards are not driven by one browser or one company. That would still be true if everyone based their browsers off of Blink.

There isn't any real browser competition when the only difference is in what the UI around the actual web browser is. The browser experience is what actually renders the web page, not the menu system around it. We wouldn't need standards at all if everyone used the same browser engine. Whoever owns the engine, likely Google, would make the engine however they choose and could change core fundamentals of how the web i…

>There isn't any real browser competition when the only difference is in what the UI around the actual web browser is.

I am not suggesting that people only make UI changes. I am suggesting that there is value in reusing work that already exists.

>The browser experience is what actually renders the web page, not the menu system around it.

Chromiums renderer is going to be fine for most people looking to build a browser. People building a browser should focus onan building what makes their browser unique. Not every browser is setting off to create a new rendel engine.

>We wouldn't need standards at all if everyone used the same browser engine.

There still would be a need for cross industry collaboration on how to move the web forward. If Clang was the only C++ compiler there still is a benefit on having the standards process and working groups figuring out how to evolve the language.

>Whoever owns the engine, likely Google, would make the engine however they choose and could change core fundamentals of how the web itself works.

This is a problem with browser marketshare and not browser engine marketshare.

>and if they were the only browser engine they could easily get away with closed sourcing chromium and only shipping binaries so the feature can't be disabled or removed.

Other browsers can work together on developing on top of the last public release of chromium. This is still less work than all of these browser developers independently creating their own browser engines.