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Today's Topics:
1. Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club
(Stephen Loosley)
2. Re: Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club (David)
3. Re: Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club (David)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2025 23:19:22 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club
(.. not sure if we?re building the Web we want? or the Web Google wants." ?)
By Thomas Claburn Fri 10 Jan 2025
https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/10/google_linux_foundation_chromium/
While Google awaits a decision about whether it will be required to sell its
Chrome browser as an antitrust remedy, the search giant has joined with the
Linux Foundation to announce an initiative to support the open source Chromium
project upon which the Chrome browser depends.
The project, called Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers, aims "to foster a
sustainable environment of open-source contributions towards the health of the
Chromium ecosystem and financially support a community of developers who want
to contribute to the project, encouraging widespread support and continued
technological progress for Chromium embedders," explained Shruthi Sreekanta,
technical program manager at Google, in a blog post.
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/supporters-of-chromium-based-browsers
Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, which gets at least
$500,000 annually from Google for its platinum membership fee [PDF], said the
browser foundation support group will "provide much-needed funding and
development support for open development of projects within the Chromium
ecosystem," without specifying the source or amount of that funding.
The Linux Foundation did not immediately respond to a request to clarify the
funding arrangements. The Register understands that all the members will be
contributing funds.
According to Sreekanta, Google last year made more than 100,000 commits to the
Chromium code base, representing about 94 percent of the contributions.
Google's hope is that other organizations building their browsers on Chromium
will step up their contributions.
The Chromium project has become the de facto standard foundation for web
browsers since Microsoft in 2018 announced that it would release a new version
of its Edge browser based on Chromium and its underlying Blink engine,
effectively sunsetting Microsoft's Trident engine.
Google Chrome ? Chromium plus some proprietary features ? already has a
dominant global browser market share of about 68 percent, a figure made even
more expansive when other Chromium-based browsers such as Brave, Microsoft
Edge, Opera, and Vivaldi, among others, are included.
News:
Tired of begging, Microsoft now trying to trick users into thinking Bing is
Google
Microsoft Edge takes a victory lap with some high-looking usage stats for 2024
UK ICO not happy with Google's plans to allow device fingerprinting
Firefox ditches Do Not Track because nobody was listening anyway
The popularity of Chromium, a testament to the cost and technical challenge of
competing with Google's monopoly-funded stable of software engineers, helps
with web standardization but threatens to eclipse alternative technologies,
specifically other browser engines, as more organizations jump on the bandwagon.
There are presently three actively supported browser engines ? Google's Blink,
Apple's WebKit, and Mozilla's Gecko ? and a few niche or in-progress engines
like Goanna and Servo. Browser engines handle the parsing and rendering of web
pages and include an engine for running JavaScript (e.g., V8 in Blink,
JavaScriptCore in WebKit, and SpiderMonkey in Gecko).
Apple has managed to make its Safari browser, powered by its WebKit engine, the
second most popular browser with a global market share of about 17 percent,
aided by self-preferencing defaults and platform rules that require all iOS
browsers ? though not in Europe anymore ? to be built upon WebKit. It remains
to be seen whether Safari could sustain that position in the absence of the
platform distribution advantages bestowed by Apple.
Mozilla's Firefox browser, powered by its Gecko rendering engine, is also not a
part of the Chromium ecosystem. And its global market share, just 2.47 percent
in December 2024, according to StatCounter, has dwindled significantly as the
Chromium ecosystem has grown. Mozilla did not immediately respond to a request
for comment.
Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers is likely to benefit those committed to
the Chromium world.
"Microsoft is pleased to join this initiative which will help drive
collaboration within the Chromium ecosystem," said Meghan Perez, VP of
Microsoft Edge, in a statement.
"This initiative aligns with our commitment to the web platform through
meaningful and positive contributions, engagement in collaborative engineering,
and partnerships with the community to achieve the best outcome for everyone
using the web."
Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner told The Register, "We welcome this effort and we
support it. We have not signed up yet, but we expect to do so in the future. We
have been in contact with other members already."
Even so, if the Chromium ecosystem gets stronger still, it could further
diminish the browser diversity.
As web developer Rachel Nabors observed in 2018, "Chrome has the most resources
and leads the pack in building the Web forward to the point that we can?t be
sure if we?re building the Web we want? or the Web Google wants." ?
--
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2025 11:00:13 +1100
From: David <[email protected]>
To: link <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Cc: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [LINK] Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love
club
Message-ID: <4951577.GXAFRqVoOG@ulysses>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
On Monday, 13 January 2025 11:49:22 PM AEDT Stephen Loosley wrote:
> Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club
>
> (.. not sure if we?re building the Web we want? or the Web Google wants." ?)
That sounds to me like a great way to initiate a Linux fork devoted to
independence from big business.
Browsers are NOT part of the Linux kernel, so why does the LF need to get
involved at all? I guess Google's first step is to introduce functions in the
kernel which support Chromium, then they gradually get more involved and
introduce "enhancements" which support the Google business model.
Let's hope the LF are smart enough to avoid being sucked in.
_David Lochrin_
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2025 11:00:13 +1100
From: David <[email protected]>
To: link <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Cc: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [LINK] Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love
club
Message-ID: <4951577.GXAFRqVoOG@ulysses>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
On Monday, 13 January 2025 11:49:22 PM AEDT Stephen Loosley wrote:
> Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club
>
> (.. not sure if we?re building the Web we want? or the Web Google wants." ?)
That sounds to me like a great way to initiate a Linux fork devoted to
independence from big business.
Browsers are NOT part of the Linux kernel, so why does the LF need to get
involved at all? I guess Google's first step is to introduce functions in the
kernel which support Chromium, then they gradually get more involved and
introduce "enhancements" which support the Google business model.
Let's hope the LF are smart enough to avoid being sucked in.
_David Lochrin_
------------------------------
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