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Comment by taf2 | Hacker News Reader

I am sure I'm a minority on this thread - but does anyone else think that if the engine is being developed in the open as open source then competition is not a good thing. I believe it's similar to having io.js and node.js - together it is a stronger platform. To this end, I think it would have made a lot of sense for MS to collaborate with webkit/blink and vice versa... that's the true spirit of open source IMO... I don't believe the web is stronger with more rendering engines and more JS runtimes... I think it's weaker. What would make it stronger is more open source and more collaboration. We have to be very happy that MS is taking the first step in this direction. Open Sourcing ChakraCore is a huge first step and now integrating it with other systems as well . I just hope over the next 10 years we see more collaboration between webkit, blink, gecko, and trident... as well as the JS engines...

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>>> I don't believe the web is stronger with more rendering engines and more JS runtimes... I think it's weaker

I disagree. I'm happy to see numerous JS engine implementations that embrace a common standard. If you have just one common code base you also have a common set of bugs. Competition is a great way to raise the bar and try out radically different design approaches. Take GCC and LLVM for example - who can argue that friendly competition hasn't helped them both immeasurably? Link Time Optimization, C++14 compliance - choice is a good thing.

The place for that part of cooperation is the standards bodies. Having good, frequent communication between parties means that everyone can build their own implementation in their own style, yet still have an end product that renders thing the same. One engine may want to focus on raw speed at the cost of memory consumption, one may want the opposite, a third may want to strike a balance, and getting all of those parties cooperating would be like herding cats. So no, competing engines are a good thing, because it results in you being able to choose the best tool for the job, instead of needing to compromise.

> I am sure I'm a minority on this thread - but does anyone else think that if the engine is being developed in the open as open source then competition is not a good thing

GCC vs EGCS, Xemacs vs Emacs, X.org vs Wayland, KDE vs Gnome, Firefox vs Chrome, GCC vs LLVM, etc., etc.

Competition is good even for Open Source projects.

If "together" means Google is involved, I absolutely prefer the separation. Google has repeatedly screwed me over by letting their products stagnate and, sometimes, killing them off. I find it incredibly frustrating that so much of my work and digital life rely on the whims of Google.

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