"Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla • Hacker News Board

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#331

Post by asddubs » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 1:18 AM UTC

shock wrote: post #320

nonbirithm wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Open source" doesn't necessarily mean "practical to maintain." Can an open source organization maintaining a fork of Firefox in their free time in addition to the obligations of their regular job keep up with the hundreds of webcompat issues being filed and over 3,000 open issues on the preview version of Firefox on Android alone? And there also is a fork of XUL-era Firefox already, called Pale Moon, which various p…

> "Open source" doesn't necessarily mean "practical to maintain." Can an open source organization maintaining a fork of Firefox in their free time in addition to the obligations of their regular job keep up with the hundreds of webcompat issues being filed and over 3,000 open issues on the preview version of Firefox on Android alone? Blink (Chrome's engine) was once KHTML. KHTML was maintained entirely by volunteers,…

web technology, especially widely supported web technology, was moving at a much slower pace during the KHTML days though.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#332

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 1:57 AM UTC

seabrookmx wrote: post #285

alwillis wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no technical reason for iOS to not support alternative browsers from the start. Why would Apple allow other browser engines that are slower, less power efficient and don't respect user’s privacy at least as much as Webkit to run natively on iOS? Apple continues to add features to block ads from tracking users across the web and to lessen the impact of fingerprinting by trackers. Certainly Google has no intere…

> Why would Apple allow There's your problem. Apple doesn't own the device.. I do. Apple can "recommend" I use Safari all they want (not unlike MS does with Edge) but if I own the device I should have the right to run any software I want. Full stop.

That is what you think. It is not what Apple thinks. Which do you suppose wins more often?

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#333

Post by toastal » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 2:30 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #319

toastal wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the case of Apple, who killed Flash to help the open web, have knee-capped PWA support on their mobile platforms to force developers to leave their cut of sales through the App Store. It's pretty anti-competitive. I believe Valve's been a bit on edge (no pun intended), about Microsoft forcing games through their store as well. Mozilla was helping us out of these walled gardens. There's even the SSB support the…

> And in the case of Apple, who killed Flash to help the open web, have knee-capped PWA support on their mobile platforms to force developers to leave their cut of sales through the App Store. Knee-capped? For years Safari had the best PWA support compared to Android. And at first it even asked developers to make PWAs, and they said "no, we want native apps".

There's no push notification support, no background sync, offline support isn't good, they're wiping storage after 7 days, etc.

There isn't a defined spec sure, but they idea is to give Web Apps somewhat equal footing with native apps while having potential be more secure being tied to browser sandboxing, extensions, settings, etc. This doesn't appear to be in Apple's goals given those missing features. You can see devs begging for push notifications for years--and it works on desktop Safari.

At work, this is the specific feature we want above everything else in our PWA experience. Apple's been reluctant to say the least to allow repackaged Web Apps in their store, but can you blame developers when features like this are missing but present?

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

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Post by ncmncm » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #60

darthrupert wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it though? Most of it seems to be hype. It’s great that programming languages get researched and improved, but do they actually improve? How is improvement measured?

I don't think calling it mostly hype is anywhere near reasonable. It's a mature language with a large ecosystem in use by a variety of companies.

In ten years it will be mature, if anyone still uses it. If not, it will be because people who like Rust today are off chasing some new hotness.

Whatever the direct technical impact of the layoffs, the language's credibility has taken a huge blow. Its future was already uncertain, and is, being honest with ourselves, substantially moreso now.

There is a lot to like about Rust. I hope something survives.

A sequel--Dust?--could keep its strengths but focus at the outset on fast builds and better visibility into dependencies, to avoid NPM disease. There must be lots of ideas that it seemed too late for.

Maybe make it relatively easy to import old Rust code, to help get jumpstarted?

Rust's real reason to exist, to displace C, was not working, and may have been doomed from the outset. Rust has been taking users from Java, Go, and Python; and some C++, in places where coding has been hamstrung by archaic "style" restrictions. But very few C coders have moved. That may be just because any who might have jumped already had. (Some of those might have come over from a pause at Go.)

Rust is a far, far better language than Java and Go. It never had a chance against C++, which picks up more new users every single week than the total who have ever used Rust. If Rust or its sequel could give people on Java and Go a language with a future, that would be a seriously worthwhile achievement.

Making a borrow checker less strident would aid adoption; so you always know whether your code and each dependency are "clean", without being prevented from getting work done. The recent experience with that very fast GUI library with a few too many "unsafe" bits made a very deep impression. Nobody wants that experience, especially starting out. Code that is not borrow-clean would get clean soon enough if it is used; and, frankly, dead code never needs to be clean.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

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Post by ncmncm » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 3:54 AM UTC

eloff wrote: post #51

artursapek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect a bigger corp with a sustainable business model will scoop it up. Rust is too promising to die at this point.

I hope so, I bet on Rust for my latest venture. I'd be so sad to have to rewrite it in C++ down the road.

Probably start now.

C++20 is a much more fun language than C++11 was, which was itself overwhelmingly more fun than C++98 or C. C++23 and C++26 will continue the trend. If you are not constrained to shoehorn yourself into a C or C++98 environment, all the memory-safety worries Rust was supposed to help with fall away.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#336

Post by jbaber » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 3:59 AM UTC

rvz wrote: post #15

This shows that open-source in general is expensive for Mozilla but cheap for the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Google who own their own Web browsers and have other open-source programming languages maintained by some of their employees full time. The actual reality of this is that they are still kept alive by a direct competitor for decades and haven't made anything to generate significant sources of revenue. Maybe…

Hmm... Amazon should buy Firefox and keep it going for the good of humanity at a loss. Like its owner did for The Post.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

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Post by foota » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #334

foota wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think calling it mostly hype is anywhere near reasonable. It's a mature language with a large ecosystem in use by a variety of companies.

In ten years it will be mature, if anyone still uses it. If not, it will be because people who like Rust today are off chasing some new hotness. Whatever the direct technical impact of the layoffs, the language's credibility has taken a huge blow. Its future was already uncertain, and is, being honest with ourselves, substantially moreso now. There is a lot to like about Rust. I hope something survives. A sequel--Dus…

What grounds do you have for saying it's not a mature language? It's more than 10 years old. Subjectively I would feel as confident in safety and feature set as any other mainstream programming language.

I also strongly disagree that Rust has any sort of an uncertain future. It appears to be a well run and stable project. Regularly putting out releases from a variety of contributors.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#338

Post by BuckRogers » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:21 AM UTC

StevePerkins wrote: post #24

burtonator wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN community is going to hate on me for this but it's partially their own fault for spending money trying to differentiate in the browser. They should just focus on Chromium. It's going to win anyway. Mozilla has a small market share percentage and eventually the gap is going to be large enough they will have to abandon the FF code base anyway. It's looking like they're going to focus more on the consumer market…

For what it's worth, I agree with you. Chromium has won. It's the "Linux kernel" of web browsers. However, that DOESN'T necessarily mean that every Linux user has to run Ubuntu! I recently switched from Firefox to Vivaldi. Just because: 1. I got tired of nagging compatibility issues with websites that I can't easily do with out (e.g. bank and stock broker). 2. I dabbled with Opera once upon a time, and liked it. I do…

Your comment encouraged me to check out Vivaldi. I'm a very longtime FF user, since it was in beta. I'm one that primarily used Netscape in the 90s and Firefox being a successor meant something to me.

I'm impressed with Vivaldi. It pretty much has everything you could want built-in. This is exactly what Firefox needs to be in 2020. Tree style tabs (never my thing but nice to have as a built-in), adblocking (I'll always use uBlock Origin anyway out of performance paranoia but still good to see), unsmooth jittery scrolling option (just feels better), a dedicated search bar. I thought I was the only one who cared about a dedicated search bar still. Great stuff.

Mozilla should simply buy Vivaldi, rename it Firefox, hook it into their add-ons store, keep their existing iOS Firefox app, and add Firefox's exclusive features like secure Cloudflare DNS over HTTPS, container support, their excellent send link functionality to mobile etc.

I did use Opera for a time when it was first released and liked it, hearing Vivaldi is from those developers makes sense on how well done this is. Opera was more innovative than Firefox for the most part, in my opinion.

All that said, if I move off of Firefox it'll probably be to Edge. I never liked the idea of using a browser that isn't from a major vendor for overall support purposes. Microsoft has their own extensions store with most things in it already, so they're safe from Google's actions on that front. I see in Vivaldi you're directed to the Chrome store which makes me very uneasy. More uneasy than just using Gecko/Firefox (or my second choice, Edge).

Still impressed, this is what Firefox and Edge should be stealing ideas from. A "Vivaldi" from a major vendor is the best shot anyone has at attacking Chrome's marketshare, it's the only way at this point yet no one is doing it which seems so shortsighted.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#339

Post by klft » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:39 AM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #315

klft wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it would be feasible to fund a team of core developers directly by the community? A lot of people love Rust and might bei willing to contribute a small amount of money regularely to keep Rust independent from corporate politics.

I am not sure; to be honest, I am a bit skeptical of individuals being able to get enough money together. It's just math. We will always do our best to make sure that no one single company controls Rust, but we do also want Rust to be useful to industry, and so we do want to listen to our users, no matter where they come from.

It might be an interesting experiment for the ex-Mozilla rust team to launch a kickstarter (or similar) project to get them funded for one year.

So it would not be individuals but a team with some high-level goals they plan to work on for the next year.

I have no idea how many people would fund a project like this but it would be a fast and low cost experiment to find that out.

I would not position this as "the people vs. the industry", it would be just an additional option to move Rust forward.

Re: "Much" of the Rust/Wasmtime team hit by layoffs at Mozilla

#340

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 5:48 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #337

ncmncm wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ten years it will be mature, if anyone still uses it. If not, it will be because people who like Rust today are off chasing some new hotness. Whatever the direct technical impact of the layoffs, the language's credibility has taken a huge blow. Its future was already uncertain, and is, being honest with ourselves, substantially moreso now. There is a lot to like about Rust. I hope something survives. A sequel--Dus…

What grounds do you have for saying it's not a mature language? It's more than 10 years old. Subjectively I would feel as confident in safety and feature set as any other mainstream programming language. I also strongly disagree that Rust has any sort of an uncertain future. It appears to be a well run and stable project. Regularly putting out releases from a variety of contributors.

The norm is for well-run, stable language projects to fizzle. Even massively funded and legislated languages do: consider Pascal, Smalltalk, Ada, and Common Lisp. Ultimately, the numbers count.

C++ in 1990, at 10 years, was very far from mature. Rust has come up fast, but maturity, by definition, takes time.