Of course. We can also imagine scenarios where we fall into another browser monoculture and fail to take the web in the best possible direction, right? As I said, there’s tension, that’s a *good* thing, even when it’s painful. It keeps us all honest and doing our best.
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Replying to @plinss @mikesherov and
Now we're getting somewhere! Browser monocultures of yore happened pre-OSS. How does that change the calculus? Browser monoculture implies engine monoculture, but the inverse isn't strictly true, right?
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Replying to @slightlylate @mikesherov and
You’re not seriously saying engine monoculture would be a good thing, are you? And FWIW, Gecko went open source in the 90s, prior to the monoculture desert. Having an open source engine isn’t enough to prevent that.
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Replying to @plinss @mikesherov and
I'm not making claims that monoculture is good *or* bad. It presents risk, tho. In MSFTs example, big realised risk was disinvestment. On Gecko; wasn't NN/Mozilla's shipping engine until the 00s, right? I ran the nightlies, but it wasn't 1.0 until 2002, IIRC.
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Replying to @slightlylate @plinss and
So what is an ideal scenario? Imagine multiple engines all compatible about 99% of features all the time, exploring the frontier of new features separately, but safely, then quickly converging. Assuming such a scenario represents a competitive platform, that's pretty
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Replying to @slightlylate @plinss and
To enable that ideal scenario, Blink invests massively in compat, tests, OT infra, process, etc. One concern now is that we've done a huge amount to get compat for existing features but are pulling away on investment levels for new work, endangering competitiveness.
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Replying to @slightlylate @plinss and
Investment levels predict outcomes. Multiple impls require multiples on base impl investment + fixed compat (tests, standards) overhead. Our proprietary competition doesn't bear these costs. OSS is one cost-sharing approach; we can imagine others.
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Replying to @slightlylate @plinss and
In a scenario where the web is succeeding, all of these costs are investments in resilience. In scenarios where it's losing, they look more like competitive drag. So we should try to situate ourselves in the competitive analysis and weigh up risks from that perspective.
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Replying to @slightlylate @plinss and
I wonder if maybe we'd benefit from some independent reliable source of data and analysis on the health and competitiveness of the web platform? I respect the "we shouldn't believe the web is in trouble just because Google says so" argument.
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Replying to @RickByers @plinss and
It's hard to read the various mobile ecosystem surveys (e.g. ComScore) and come away optimistic. Would love further confirmation and data to show if/when we turn it around, but AFAICT the arguments for "the web's fine" aren't particularly grounded.
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If anything, public data only makes the case that there's the *potential* for a sliver of hope, not that things are OK. Part of this, I suspect, is an experiential grounding of those who care in an unrepresentative sample.
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Replying to @slightlylate @RickByers and
One idea: we could sponsor moving more of this existing analysis out from behind pay walls?
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& Web Standards TL; Blink API OWNER
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