More predictability around the handling of privacy and security is a great example! That's also one of the top ~3 concerns I hear from Google chromium engineers too. I personally think its worth investing more in that area for all chromium stakeholders.
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Replying to @RickByers @tobie and
I hear this also from folks who depend on Chromium to build their browsers: They end up side-stepping Blink’s governance by turning prefs off in their products, or using PING as a proxy to put the break on features (or ask Mozilla folks to jointly voice concerns).
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Replying to @marcosc @RickByers and
These are product choices. If the flags aren't flexible enough, that's one thing. That flags need flipping is simply the result of disagreement, which is both healthy and rational.
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Replying to @slightlylate @RickByers and
Completely agree - flags are great! My impression of what's not so great is not really having much say in engine direction (and having to fight proxy battles for/against features through W3C or other means instead of via blink-dev).
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Replying to @marcosc @RickByers and
Fighting *against* features is implicitly asking to edit the choices of other embedders. That's the work of flags in a well-run project pre-consensus.
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Replying to @slightlylate @RickByers and
That would be true if what Blink shipped wasn't also seen as "The Web Platform"
. Therein lies the problem: in that by flipping flags one can be painted "anti-Web", when some features perhaps should never been implemented in the first place (a failure of governance).2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes -
Replying to @marcosc @RickByers and
Moved goalposts. We have ways for products built on Chromium to disagree. That's part of why there are more Chromium browsers today than any other sort. What we don't have is a single product. Each makes choices and competes in the market. Products have engine choice too!
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Replying to @slightlylate @RickByers and
Engine choice? Really? The only choice is, switch of Blink or be forced to WebKit on iOS. Mozilla has GeckoView in the works, but will be challenging to make it competitive unless it also ships by default on Android.
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Replying to @marcosc @RickByers and
Any embedder can fork at any time. That's foundational to OSS and why we work so hard to keep the Chromium community open and healthy (aspersions of non-participants not withstanding). If we fail, they fork. We remember what pushed us to it and aspire to do better.
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Replying to @slightlylate @RickByers and
Again, you can't say "fork any time". That's not realistic. It cost a squillion dollars and pain to do that. Look how screwed that mobile fork of Gecko is right now... they are stuck on a super old version of Gecko unlikely to ever update. It's not feasible for small players.
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Wait, isn't that because upstream totally abandoned them & ripped out support infra? Doesn't invalidate it as a choice, however. Particularly in a world of multiple OSS engines to choose from.
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Replying to @slightlylate @RickByers and
That's the point: Forker beware. Upstream has no obligation to support anyone downstream. And the cost of handling the deluge of patches everyday is super high. Forking seems infeasible, at best - which is why we've not seen it happen very often in the last 15 years.
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Replying to @marcosc @RickByers and
One presumes anyone who has been doing this long enough understands that forking can be as traumatic & risky as product cancellation/spinoff. The thing about this example is that the gamble paid off! It's upstream that harmed itself (mostly).
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