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submitted 1 year ago by hedge@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[-] jalda@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

[Google got] into open source software and it seems those survived the experience

Not really. Google is responsible for the open source browser Chromium, which is the base for Google Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, etc. They dominate the browser market, and they use their position to implement features outside the web standard. Their competitors (mainly Firefox) are not able to implement the non-standard features, driving them out of the market. Classic Embrace-Extend-Extinguish.

Google got into the Linux space

Technically, both Android and Chromebok are Linux-based. But Google has done everything possible so that they aren't part of the "Linux space", to the point that Android uses a fork of version 3.x of the Linux kernel (regular Linux is now at version 6.x).

[-] abhibeckert@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Google is responsible for the open source browser Chromium

Pretty sure that was Apple, not Google. Google joined the party later and they weren't the only one. By the time Google forked WebKit the other rendering engines (used by the FireFox and old versions of IE) were pretty much gone.

Also, Now that Google has forked WebKit, we're back to two competing engines. And at least on the websites I run our traffic is about 45% each (and 10% other). That's actually more healthy than it used to be (95% IE).

Private companies embracing open source browsers fixed a broken platform, it didn't embrace/extend/extinguish.

[-] MudMan@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Right. But you do notice how any of those scenarios fail to "extinguish" anything, right? I'm typing this on Firefox, which is still going strong and has negligible incompatibilities. Chromium didn't eradicate the competition by embracing open source, it did so by succeeding with their commercial product. The ONE competitor it didn't outright replace with its open source alternative is Firefox, in fact.

And in the other scenario Android simply forks and separates. Linux is clearly not threatened by Android or ChromeOS, and all of those remain viable, healthy alternatives to closed, paid competitors from Microsoft and Apple.

Can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either the open source environment based on Firefox and Linux is thriving or it's been dismantled by malicious adoption from commercial enterprises. Which is it?

[-] SchizoRamblings@vlemmy.net 1 points 1 year ago

Android is moving towards upstream linux, and chromeos is moving towards using wayland + the linux version of chromium

this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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