this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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Lets just take Firefox and make it the open source standard. If we all get behind it like we did for Blender, we might succeed.
I doubt it tbh.
For blender it's fine, but for browser engines it's different because of their sheer size, complexity, need to adhere and collaborate with others to form web standards, need for security experts, day one vulnerability patches, etc.
If Mozilla dies, random volunteers or existing projects like LibreWolf can't just pick up the slack.
Volunteers can't run a modern web engine, it takes hundreds of millions per year to upkeep.
There's a reason why we're down to just Google, Apple, and Mozilla. Nobody wants to foot the massive bill unless they have a damn good reason for doing so.
It's probably more expensive to maintain a browser engine than a full operating system at this point. It's truly insane how large and costly they are.
I'm sure Linus was told the same at some point.
The Linux kernel is actually a perfect example of this.
It's worked on by hundreds of companies, and the bulk of the work is done by a small number of megacorps.
If it was worked on by a group of volunteers doing bits whenever they had spare time, it'd be in a much less useful state right now.
You're seriously underestimating how large and complex web engines are. There's a reason we're down to 3 engines and the community hasn't been able to create one.
It's hard to do. It requires hundreds of millions a year to keep going.
If it were genuinely so trivial to maintain a browser engine, more would be doing it. Even easier, Firefox forks could take over maintaining the engine, as opposed to just tweaking the browser (not even having to work from scratch with a new engine). But they don't, for the reasons I've already mentioned.
KHTML was the basis of WebKit and then Blink/Chromium, so the community did make something. It was just overtaken by the corporate projects, for those same reasons you mention.
those days the web was way simpler than it is now. complexity has doomed every web engine not maintained by a mega corp (and some that were, Microsoft killed their own).
I feel like you missed the point.
Webengines are not more complex than a full OS, and yet, Linux works as a community driven project and Chromium does not.
The difference is that Linus is the one with final say in Linux, and he never sold out to a company. Chromium is Google.
It will never be a "community" project, because Google pumps so many resources into it. The goal is obvious: to make sure that it's always ahead of any competitors, and anyone willing to catch up would have to match Google spending.
The brilliant move here by Google was making it open source. This ensures that no other megacorp needs to fight them, as long as their interests are aligned.
Edge has died already. Safari will follow. The future is grim.
Nah, you're missing the point.
Again, maintaining a web engine takes hundreds of millions. It's no small task.
Volunteers can't do it.
We cannot simply take over from Mozilla if something happens. It needs corporate or governmental backing, a permanent workforce, management at the top who work on setting web standards alongside other companies, etc.
The Linux kernel was brought up against my argument, but it is in fact an argument for it. It is worked on by megacorps, and without that corporate funding would be little more than a tinkerer's side project.
Linux has the benefit of companies relying on it and therefore wanting to maintain it. Firefox doesn't. Businesses have chosen Chrome.
Linux is its own OS, not a Windows clone with the goal of binary compatibility.
With Web browsers the problem is in trying to deceive ourselves that the Web itself is a neutral space. It has long ago become a hostile space, controlled by the enemy. Its standards are intended to prevent pluralism.
Check out Ladybird tho, from serenity os project (it also works in Linux). It's developed by an open source community, and some companies are sponsoring it's development. It's not at a usable point, but it's development has been impressive. If more money is donated by other companies it could be an alternative, maybe
Of course they can't compete on the adversary's field when that adversary has bigger resources and monopoly in many areas.
What I don't understand is why nobody has tried to sell the idea of an alternative Web to the wider audience?
Like Gemini, only without the "minimal" and "non-commercial hobbyist" parts.
Without trying to follow Google/MS/etc on the path intentionally chosen to not be passable for others.
That would be excellent, but trying to convince everybody to move to a "new web" would be extremely difficult in itself, even before we start to think about the likes of Google that very much want to maintain the status quo
Just leverage the app mentality. They do have a hundred apps for every stupid thing. Just one more.
Arguably since mainly what people actually want from the Web is just a cross-platform document renderer/UI system, if you designed something new from the ground-up with zero legacy nonsense, well, those are both complex problems, but I somewhat suspect we'd end up with something better and easier to develop for than the Byzantine nightmare that is the web.
Network effects would limit growth, but I think as the web gets shittier and shittier there would be growth.
It's just that when people compare this to Linux vs Windows\MacOS - the correct comparison to what Mozilla is trying to do would be ReactOS vs Windows. Where's ReactOS? Right.
Yes, most customers want that and it's rather cheap to develop (not being childish, look at Gemini again, it just should be repeated with the same means, limiting extensibility of the standard, and different goals - one, more rich markup, two, some way to replace Flash of the olden days and\or the script nightmare of today without allowing the replacement to grow into a similar monster, three, some degree of content-based addressing, like in P2P, so that CDNs and big platforms would be less important, four, something to replace the centralized PKI system with all those wildcard certificates sometimes issued to bad guys and everybody saying oops).
People who want the Byzantine nightmare, or the ad-stuffing system with some websites existing today, are all on the other side. Only if the ad-stuffing system isn't really required for what we need to do, then those people should lose the competition and go bankrupt. I hope I'll see that happen.
That's certain.
There absolutely would, especially in the times of "there's an app for everything".
The issue is that Firefox needs an org to get the Widevine DRM from its vendor (Google). Without it, they can't support Netflix or Apple TV or YouTube.
Yet more proof that the DMCA needs to be repealed and DRM needs to be illegal.
Or we can just drop DRM from the Standard. It's honestly about 15 years past about time.
Okay have fun not using YouTube
Youtube vids doesn't use DRM, at least not for the free offerings.
In fact, via yt-dlp you can download Youtube stuff in a variety of free formats.
Cope.