this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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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.