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Comment on Mozilla CEO quits, org pivots, but what about Firefox?

TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

The Linux kernel is actually a perfect example of this.

It’s worked on by hundreds of companies. If it was worked on by a group of volunteers it’d be in a much less useful state right now.

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GhostMatter@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- long_chicken_boat@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  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).
  
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ByteJunk@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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.

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- TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Nah, you’re missing the point.
  
  Again, maintaining a web engine takes hundreds of millions. It’s no small task.
  
  We cannot simply take over from Mozilla if something happens. It needs corporate or governmental backing.
  
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