Hacker News Reader

Comment by richliss | Hacker News Reader

The Mozilla Foundation needs to be a for the greater good political foundation, give up the Firefox tech and lobby for the Chromium rendering technology to become a standard and the Chromium team to become a global public utility under the W3 or similar. Every browser manufacturer then licences and customises the experience around that rendering technology.

Having a single rendering technology to support would be preferential but it's direction can't be controlled by just Google.

Of course this would then mean the end of the Foundation and Mitchell Baker's $3m per year so will never happen.

View on HN

> Having a single rendering technology to support would be preferential

Really? I prefer there are a few, but mostly compatible techs in that space. This is the VM that runs almost all desktop (client) software these days. Having only one implementation would IMHO be a disaster.

Java has only single dominant JVM, but in several flavours. It is doing fine.

JVM has many competing implementations[1]. Also it is not used by clueless end users, but by tech workers. They will protest is JVM gets "phone home" "features" and other bloatware privacy-killing crap.

End users of browsers do not have this insight into their tools.

Yes, Oracle's JVM is dominant (but not on Android, which is a huge installed base). So is Chrome in browser land. Still good that Java has many, and FF exists.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines

Same with the Linux kernel and it's got a larger codebase than Chromium.

I hear this argument, and it makes sense...

But a lot of us still pucker up if you mention the word "IE6" and we never want to risk going down that path again. :)

There's a balance between diversity and monopoly that can be struck.

If there is just one implementation, is it really a standard anymore?

In my opinion if there is only chromium left it is the sign that http/html/css/js needs to be replace with something new that would allow healthy competition without being funded by a multi billion company

That's EXACTLY what GP is talking about, Chromium being transferred to the W3C and out of Google's hands. Or did I also misread it?

Yes you are correct - I did mean that Chromium rendering technology and team would be transferred to the W3 (or equivalent) and out of Google's hands.

> Having a single rendering technology to support would be preferential

I disagree. Monocultures never work out well for users.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com