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Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

#11

Post by mikewest »

doe88 wrote: post #9

> Google also argues that the decision will introduce greater diversity into the browser ecosystem and might mitigate concerns that the mobile Web in particular was becoming a WebKit monoculture. Ahah so much hypocrisy condensed in this sentence. Yeah it's constraining to share code and have compile time #defines but if every vendor did the same there wouldn't be any common project.

The web is the common project, right? We're all working together to put together powerful and performant windows into the web, and we work together at places like the W3C and WhatWG to construct a common vision of what that means.

Diversity in implementation is a great way of hammering out the exact contours of the standards that govern the common project...

Re: Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

#14

Post by doe88 »

mikewest wrote: post #11
doe88 wrote: post #9

> Google also argues that the decision will introduce greater diversity into the browser ecosystem and might mitigate concerns that the mobile Web in particular was becoming a WebKit monoculture. Ahah so much hypocrisy condensed in this sentence. Yeah it's constraining to share code and have compile time #defines but if every vendor did the same there wouldn't be any common project.

The web is the common project, right? We're all working together to put together powerful and performant windows into the web, and we work together at places like the W3C and WhatWG to construct a common vision of what that means. Diversity in implementation is a great way of hammering out the exact contours of the standards that govern the common project...

This is a fallacious argument in this context, this is a pretext, that's why I used the word 'hypocrisy'. And also I really think that a so called 'diversity' of implementations of open source projects may only really be sustainable for large companies with big resources to do things on their own and know they don't need to rely on anybody. But ask yourself, now, what if Apple decided that for being competitive with Google they must do the same thing and ditch everything that don't suit to their plans? And what if Samsung does the same and Blackberry and so on... would it be great for diversity? Would it be great for small vendors? I don't think so. Excuse me but in this case I don't praise this kind of diversity.

Edit: I didn't know I replied to a Google employee, just s/Google/your company/ in my post.

Re: Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

#15

Post by jsnk »

hp50g wrote: post #12

This reads like: "We're not sharing our stuff anymore as it's costing too much". A the risk of sounding like a paranoid nutbag, with stuff like NaCl, SPDY, Dart etc, it sounds like Google have their own agenda.

Aren't all those projects you mentioned open source and licensed to be useable by anyone?

Re: Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

#16

Post by hp50g »

mikewest wrote: post #11
doe88 wrote: post #9

> Google also argues that the decision will introduce greater diversity into the browser ecosystem and might mitigate concerns that the mobile Web in particular was becoming a WebKit monoculture. Ahah so much hypocrisy condensed in this sentence. Yeah it's constraining to share code and have compile time #defines but if every vendor did the same there wouldn't be any common project.

The web is the common project, right? We're all working together to put together powerful and performant windows into the web, and we work together at places like the W3C and WhatWG to construct a common vision of what that means. Diversity in implementation is a great way of hammering out the exact contours of the standards that govern the common project...

Pfft. The Web is run by businesses, not some star trek style council where everyone speaks in turn and there is a common good.

WhatWG was formed because the W3C design by committee approach was too slow for some businesses to gain an advantage.

W3C is a paid up list of various exchange top 500 companies who can afford to pay up for standards.

It's a giant pissing match.

Re: Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

#17

Post by pnathan »

hp50g wrote: post #12

This reads like: "We're not sharing our stuff anymore as it's costing too much". A the risk of sounding like a paranoid nutbag, with stuff like NaCl, SPDY, Dart etc, it sounds like Google have their own agenda.

Er.

I would fully expect that a company would have its own agenda. Google's is/was organizing the world's information. It's a bit, um, something, to expect that they don't have an agenda, ne?

Re: Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

#18

Post by hp50g »

jsnk wrote: post #15
hp50g wrote: post #12

This reads like: "We're not sharing our stuff anymore as it's costing too much". A the risk of sounding like a paranoid nutbag, with stuff like NaCl, SPDY, Dart etc, it sounds like Google have their own agenda.

Aren't all those projects you mentioned open source and licensed to be useable by anyone?

Does that actually matter?

All these are as well:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd208104.aspx

Would you consider building on top of them? No because they are not 100% vendor neutral. They serve the vendor, not the consumers of the technology.

Re: Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

#19

Post by baddox »

hp50g wrote: post #12

This reads like: "We're not sharing our stuff anymore as it's costing too much". A the risk of sounding like a paranoid nutbag, with stuff like NaCl, SPDY, Dart etc, it sounds like Google have their own agenda.

Everything is still going to be open source.

http://www.chromium.org/blink/developer-faq#TOC-Is-this-goin...

Re: Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine

#20

Post by hp50g »

pnathan wrote: post #17
hp50g wrote: post #12

This reads like: "We're not sharing our stuff anymore as it's costing too much". A the risk of sounding like a paranoid nutbag, with stuff like NaCl, SPDY, Dart etc, it sounds like Google have their own agenda.

Er. I would fully expect that a company would have its own agenda. Google's is/was organizing the world's information. It's a bit, um, something, to expect that they don't have an agenda, ne?

Indeed, and that is my point.

Why would you build the tool to organize the world's information on top of a platform designed to serve a single vendor rather than the user and consumer of the technology?

Google are playing a little game here similar to the antics Microsoft got up to in the early '00s.

All it takes is some level of adoption and then a diversion away from this and all the other vendors spend forever playing catch up, forcing market dominance.

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