
Mozilla’s Servo Team Joining Mixed Reality - qdot76367
https://blog.servo.org/2018/03/09/servo-and-mixed-reality/
======
vvanders
> Coming in to 2018, we see virtual and augmented reality devices
> transitioning from something just for hardcore gamers and enterprises into
> broad consumer adoption.

Every time I see phrases like this I just cringe. As someone who spent a ton
of time in the gamedev/3D UI space I've yet to see anything about VR that
points to be being successful in anything other than small markets. I think
there are some amazing applications in architecture and gaming but I really
don't see something you have to strap to you face making the mainstream in a
meaningful way.

I really hope this doesn't dilute Servo's effort too much because they've been
doing awesome stuff lately.

~~~
andybak
Forget "useful" for a moment. How does good VR make you feel? Have you not had
any "wow" moments?

I'm constantly surprised how blown away people are when they try (real) VR for
the first time. That's what makes me optimistic about it as a medium.

~~~
rqs
The problem I think, is how many people will actually pay that money to be
"blown away" one time, and how many people will pay to be "blown away"
multiple times after.

We had few "VR experience center"s in our little city, they were popular when
they just opened, but now most of it are closed.

So, I think "blown away" is not enough, usefulness is important.

~~~
bsimpson
I remember playing a VR game at a mall kiosk in the 90s. I realize that the
component miniaturization that came along with mobile phones has huge
ramifications for the cost and quality of VR, but it's not like there haven't
been people thinking about VR content for 25 years.

Maybe the barrier to entry for VR hardware is low enough now that some small
team will invent something that makes it a must-have, but I remain as
skeptical now as I was when Oculus first hit the hype train. I haven't really
used an Oculus or a Vive, so I hope this isn't coming from a place of abundant
ignorance, but VR just feels like hype feeding hype. I haven't heard a VR
concept that justifies it yet. The only one I even want to try is Tilt Brush.

~~~
andybak
> I haven't really used an Oculus or a Vive, so I hope this isn't coming from
> a place of abundant ignorance,

There's only one way to find out. I'm over a year into VR ownership and it
still fascinates me.

------
jntrnr
There are some questions around Servo as a result of the announcement, so I
just wanted to jump in and talk a bit more about what’s going on. tl;dr -
Servo is Mozilla’s vehicle for web engine research, and continues to be a
major source of new tech for Firefox. But we’re also adding a more direct path
to product for Mixed Reality.

Servo has produced lots of great browser tech. We're seeing that tech make its
way into Firefox with Stylo and the Quantum release, and there's on-going work
to bring even more tech into Firefox, like the WebRender work that you can try
out in the latest nighlies. Servo's goal is to create the best technology for
working with both current and upcoming web standards, which means
collaborating with multiple product teams, from Firefox to Mixed Reality to
other, future explorations.

There’s still a long road to full compatibility with the existing web in all
of Servo’s components, and it will take time to get there. In the meantime,
though, there are emerging technologies where Mozilla believes it is vital for
the open web to play a central role. One of these is Mixed Reality (which
refers to both Virtual and Augmented Reality), a space that’s getting a ton of
attention from all of today’s tech giants.

Mixed Reality is interesting for Servo in two different respects. First, it’s
a huge opportunity: it’s early days and content is brand new, so there’s no
long tail of web compat to worry about; we can get products built on Servo to
market relatively quickly. By putting open web tech on the cutting edge,
Mozilla can help ensure that Mixed Reality doesn’t become yet another siloed
technology.

But second, the constraints of Mixed Reality will help us push Servo
technology to the limit: we need to achieve 75 or 90 frames per second per eye
to make a workable product. The research advances here will pay huge dividends
back in traditional browser engines like Firefox.

In short, this is a “yes, and” shift. Servo continues to be about building the
best browser tech, period, for use across Mozilla’s products. The increased
emphasis on Mixed Reality represents an opportunity to push that tech further,
sooner. And the organizational change within Mozilla Research reflects a
closer collaboration between the teams needed to make that happen.

~~~
sanxiyn
I distinctly recall Servo presentation in 2012. It started: "web browsers are
written in C++. It is bad for humanity."

Web browsers are still written in C++. It is still bad for humanity.

Emphasis on mixred reality may or may not solve that problem sooner. Sometimes
the quickest way can seem roundabout. But I am skeptical.

~~~
Sylos
I think, that does actually work out.

The problem for humanity is not that browsers are written in C++, it's that
browsers have lots of security vulnerabilities.

Being written in C++ is not helpful with that, but it's not integral to the
problem. It's not impossible to produce C++-code that doesn't have
vulnerabilities, it just requires a lot of effort and often years of battle-
testing to close all of them.

But Firefox's source code has for the most part had those years of battle-
testing. It's probably safer than if you'd completely rewrite it in Rust, at
least in the short term.

Where the use of Rust can deflect most vulnerabilities is in new code. And
that's what Mixed Reality is. It's gonna need to be in the browser at some
point in the near future and it is a big chunk of new code. It also has harsh
performance requirements, meaning they'll have to work with parallelism, which
is where C++ is particularly error prone.

~~~
drakenot
So we continue to play wack-a-mole with the C++ codebase rather than develop
in a language that makes whole classes of exploits impossible?

Firefox is not safe. It’s been routinely exploited by law enforcement and
hackers alike.

~~~
Sylos
Trust me, if Mozilla actually had a choice in the matter, they would opt for
just having it all in Rust, too.

But there is no choice. Rewriting Firefox from scratch is going to take
decades. Firefox has to continue to function in the meantime. They do
occasionally replace components with equivalent Rust components from Servo,
and that's so far been a great success, but it's still scary as all heck to
take a software that millions of people depend on in their daily life and
wholesale replacing the CSS engine, URL parser or media decoder in it.

Besides that, it's not like Chrome/Opera, IE/Edge or Safari are bastions of
security. Users can't go anywhere that's decisively safer.

------
znpy
Once again Mozilla does its best: derailing good projects in unrelated
contexts for unknown (and weakly supported) reasons.

~~~
PedroBatista
I would like to disagree, but I can't.

Firefox OS all over again.

------
88e282102ae2e5b
Genuine question: Are there non-toy-related uses for AR/VR that exist? Or is
that typical assumption that the applications will emerge only once the
technology exists?

~~~
larsberg
Certainly, it's early stages, which is why we (Mozilla Research / Emerging
Technologies) are investing in it.

We're seeing a lot of industrial use of AR in manufacturing and industrial
settings, though consumer use is still less common. If you have't come across
it, this HBR article is one of the best public materials:
[https://hbr.org/2017/11/a-managers-guide-to-augmented-
realit...](https://hbr.org/2017/11/a-managers-guide-to-augmented-reality)

VR is certainly still emerging as a platform and trying to get out of its
hardcore gaming and training/corporate silos. We really believe from early
user data and some more advanced markets (e.g., China) that standalone VR
headsets and great cross-platform social experiences will help it reach more
users.

All that said: I don't personally know what the "instagram of VR" will be,
though I certainly wish I did :-)

~~~
wpietri
I get why people are excited, and maybe these technologies really will go
somewhere this time. But the first commercial AR systems are 25 years old [1],
and VR had a wave of popularity in the 90s as well . [2]

The only way we can really call today the "early stages" of either of these
technologies is by imagining a future where they dominate. But that's the very
thing we should be questioning. I note that pretty much anything 3D has a long
history of being heralded as the "early stages" of a revolution that never
came.

The most obvious example here is 3D video. We're at the tail end of a boom in
3D movies, a technology that now only gets applied to certain high-priced,
effects-heavy blockbusters, and could well vanish. There was an even shorter
3D TV boom. [3] And of course there was the 50s boom in anaglyph (aka colored
glasses) 3D. [4]

But previous to that there was the ViewMaster, which was imagined to have all
sorts of potential. In WW II, the US military bought 100,000 viewers because
they thought the magic of 3D would be better for training soldiers. [5] And
this history goes back to at least the Brewster Stereoscope, which sold
250,000 units in the 1850s, and was also expected to be revolutionary. [6]

Given the many waves of hype in this era, I think we should be careful of
thinking that we are on the path to some sort of destiny. Smart people have
been fooled before. It's perfectly possible that this will be just another
hype cycle whose main result is a bunch of dusty old hardware in the junk
shops of 2050.

[1] [http://www.augmented-reality-games.com/history.php](http://www.augmented-
reality-games.com/history.php)

[2] [https://killscreen.com/articles/failure-
launch/](https://killscreen.com/articles/failure-launch/)

[3] [https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-
finally-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-finally-
falls-down-dead/)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_film#The_%22golden_era%22_(...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_film#The_%22golden_era%22_\(1952%E2%80%931954\))

[5] [http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2015/08/24/did-
the-...](http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2015/08/24/did-the-u-s-
military-buy-millions-of-viewmaster-reels-during-world-war-ii/)

[6]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscope#Brewster_stereosco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscope#Brewster_stereoscope)

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "The only way we can really call today the "early stages" of either of these
> technologies is by imagining a future where they dominate."

I'd suggest domination is not a prerequisite for success. Let's imagine a
scenario where only 5% of the world population uses VR or AR on a regular
basis. That's still a market of millions of people, but it's not at the level
of world domination. Not every new technology has to replace the one before,
it's far more common for old and new technologies to co-exist.

~~~
wpietri
Maybe. But at this level of hype, I think that sort of niche success means
people can't really call what's going on today the "early stages" of anything.
Instead today would more be the bubble before the crash.

The ViewMaster is a fine example there. It's a neat novelty technology! I
loved mine when I was a kid. People still love them today. Is it successful?
Sure. Do millions of people own them? Definitely. But in retrospect the DoD
purchase of 100k viewers doesn't seem like the early stages of anything.

Or think of satellite phones. The Iridium program was massively hyped, and it
was a technical success. But commercially it never took off. Satellite phones
are still available today, and there are circa a million subscribers. Was the
1990s hype the "early stages"? Again, in retrospect I'd say no.

So sure, domination isn't necessary for success. But I think future domination
is necessary to retroactively justify the hype and investment of our current
era.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Regarding justifying the hype, people are always going to hype new tech
they're interested in, regardless of its commercial potential (I realise VR is
nothing new, but this current generation of devices has already made further
inroads into the mainstream compared to their predecessors). I don't think
hype requires justification, it's just a reflection of what humans get excited
about. To put it another way, imagine someone you know told you they were
going on holiday to somewhere you've already been before, and they were really
excited about having the chance to go there. Even if you didn't think this
place was that great, would you expect them to justify their excitement?

As for investment, you have a point. Perhaps the level of investment will
prove to be a mistake, but at this point in time we don't really know how big
of a demand there will be for VR and AR. I'd struggle at this stage to predict
how it will end up, but what I can say is that I can see evidence supporting
the prediction that they'll be mainstream, as well as evidence supporting the
prediction that they'll be niche. We probably won't know with any certainty
until after the second or third generation of current devices is on the
market, as that's the point where they're likely to take off commercially if
they're going to. Speculation before that point can be fun, but I don't think
it'll change the outcome.

~~~
wpietri
Excitement is a feeling, which nobody has to justify. Hype is a behavior, and
people can and should be held responsible for their behaviors.

Especially so given that hyping something is "to promote or publicize (a
product or idea) intensively, often exaggerating its importance or benefits".
It's not a neutral act. And in the commercial context, the purpose of hype is
generally, in one way or another, to put money in the pockets of the person
doing the hyping.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Excitement is a feeling, which nobody has to justify. Hype is a behavior,
> and people can and should be held responsible for their behaviors."

Depends who's doing the hyping. If it's a potential consumer, then hype is
derived from excitement, and the same rules that apply to the justification of
excitement would apply to the justification for hype. On the other hand, if
it's a company hyping their products, then they may not be led by their
feelings, but I don't see the harm in it either. What do you lose out on if a
company is hyping their products?

~~~
wpietri
If you honestly cannot imagine any negative effects of a hype cycle,
especially when I just quoted the fact that hype involves "exaggerating its
importance or benefits", then I really don't think I can help you.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Do I think there's anything wrong with the current hype cycle for VR? No. The
way I see it, If someone knows they're being sold to, then they can assess
that sales pitch accordingly.

What's more interesting to me is that you're implying that this hype (a.k.a.
advertising) is having a negative impact on you, even if you don't intend to
buy the product yourself. What's the worst case scenario here? That some
investors make a bad investment?

~~~
wpietri
If you honestly cannot imagine any negative effects of a hype cycle,
especially when I just quoted the fact that hype involves "exaggerating its
importance or benefits", then I really don't think I can help you.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Repeating yourself just highlights you don't know how to respond to someone
questioning something you hold as unquestionably true. It's not healthy to
hold onto anything as unquestionably true, so you have my condolences. Perhaps
we have different views of what the hype cycle is, but it doesn't look like
you're willing to explore that further. If you were willing to explore it
further, picking a previous example where the hype cycle has either ended or
is coming to an end, such as for smartphones (which appear to be largely seen
as a commodity now), how would you describe the damage caused by the hype
cycle?

~~~
wpietri
It's not my job to educate you. It's not that I don't know how. It's that I
think it's a waste of my time. I made that clear once and you ignored that. I
repeated it because you apparently wouldn't take the hint. Which you ignored
again, with more lazy, entitled waffle.

If you would like to make it my job to educate you, my casual consulting rate
is $250/hour, 10 hour minimum, paid in advance to MBO Partners in Virginia.
Until then, adieu.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "If you would like to make it my job to educate you, my casual consulting
> rate is $250/hour, 10 hour minimum, paid in advance to MBO Partners in
> Virginia. Until then, adieu."

Forgive me if I pass on being enlightened on something as trivial as hype. I
hope you teach something more substantial to those clients paying $250 an
hour.

~~~
wpietri
Imagine my relief.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I'd imagine ignorance is bliss.

------
forapurpose
Does this mean Servo will exist only as a mixed reality platform, and they are
abandoning the independent next-generation browser project? EDIT: Is it an
organizational change - i.e., does the Servo team now report to Mixed Reality?

~~~
larsberg
Servo will continue to be a next-generation browser engine and a place where
we'll be doing a lot of experimentation on new standards and implementation
techniques. I'm sure the community will also continue to use it for all sorts
of cool things!

Joining up with the mixed reality team is more about how the Mozilla staff
working on Servo will be focusing their time and some of the desire we have
for things we want to do for mixed reality that are a little invasive and
early-stage of the standards process to be experimenting with inside of
existing production browser engines.

With regards to a full browser, there's still a pretty big gap before Servo
could stand on its own in a browser
([https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Remaining-
work](https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/Remaining-work) ). Filling that list
out is not a higher priority for the Mozilla staff over getting the stuff done
we need to experiment with delivering the web on VR & AR devices.

~~~
phkahler
>> Filling that list out is not a higher priority for the Mozilla staff over
getting the stuff done we need to experiment with delivering the web on VR &
AR devices.

So building a fully functional browser is not higher priority than getting the
half-baked browser working in a niche environment? I'm half joking here, and
half serious. How is a browser supposed to look differently in VR? And why
does it need to be aware of the fact that it's in VR? People are still
developing interaction and navigation methods in VR.

~~~
larsberg
> How is a browser supposed to look differently in VR?

Great question! Some of the best early work on this was done by ex-Mozilla,
current-Google employee Josh Carpenter - check out:

[http://www.joshcarpenter.ca/declarative-3d/](http://www.joshcarpenter.ca/declarative-3d/)
[http://www.joshcarpenter.ca/vr-browsing-
explorations/](http://www.joshcarpenter.ca/vr-browsing-explorations/)

There's a lot we can do that is even beyond these early explorations to
deliver new features to developers to experiment with and users to try soon
via Servo, alongside GeckoView in new VR/AR-focused browser products.

If you take a look at the link I provided above on remaining work and rough
estimates to get things just working in Servo (and not FULLY web compat),
you're looking at an effort of several years for the entire team, and that's
assuming the web platform both stayed still and went ahead and finished
writing all the tests and specs for everything on the web that is today
neither tested nor fully spec'd. I don't see that in the cards for 2018.

~~~
rocky1138
So is this the end of the attempt to make Servo into a fully web compatible
competitor to go up against/replace Gecko, et al? Was that ever the goal,
really? It seemed like Servo was a "let's see if we can do it" and now it's
changed into a "what's the point of putting all this effort into making one
more 2D web renderer when we can be at the forefront of 3D web renderers?"

Not passing judgement on anything with the above statement. Just trying to
make sense of it all.

~~~
Manishearth
We're still working on web compatibility; that's not changing.

But I don't think we've ever had a concrete goal to have a standalone Servo
browser. Parts of servo in firefox? Sure. Trying out new ideas? Sure.
Embedding servo a la electron or WebkitView? Sure. But Servo as a standalone
browser has always been a "maybe someday" thing -- we've never worked
_against_ it, but I don't recall us ever explicitly targeting it, though I
think most of us have always had some hope that we'll reach that point
eventually.

~~~
devit
What about the concept of turning Gecko into Servo piece by piece?

That is, continuing the Quantum work until there is either no C++ code left,
or the C++ code left can turned off via config option ("prefer perfect
security over perfect compatibility") while still having a browser that works
on the vast majority of the web.

~~~
kibwen
Servo components will continue to be uplifted into Gecko (e.g. WebRender and
Pathfinder are on track to be in Firefox later this year). But ever since
Servo's original announcement people from Mozilla have been explicitly saying
that people should _not_ expect Servo to wholesale replace Gecko in Firefox.

------
PudgePacket
From the way the title is phrased it sounds like the servo team is leaving
servo to work on mixed reality, quite misleading.

~~~
noway421
Exactly what I thought, I'm still not sure whether it's another "Advancing our
amazing bet".

------
RaleyField
Am I the only one thinking VR for consumers won't happen for the same reason
3D television didn't happen 5(?) years ago?

It's too clumsy. If you aren't gonna walk with it then it's 360 display that
makes you vomit, and if you are gonna walk with it not every consumer has huge
empty room where that's feasible. Most of us have couch or desk at home where
we consume media, not empty warehouse. I predict whatever Mozilla thinks they
are doing it will fail for the same reasons Google Glass failed spectacularly
or why after years already spent on VR I don't see anybody outside koolaid-
drinking techies owning one set.

Mozilla has one good consumer project that can realistically be completed
(browser in type-safe language) and getting the team behind it bogged down
with tech that's immature and doomed to failure is unfortunate.

~~~
Sylos
Servo is actually not typically viewed as realistically completable. Even
Firefox, which is being developed full-pelt, is behind on web standards (like
any other browser is).

So, for Servo to catch up to the current state of Firefox and to then also
keep pace with new web standards, it would have to be developed much quicker
than Firefox is being developed. So, that would require more than double the
development capacity that Mozilla currently has, as they can't drop Firefox
development either.

There is some points that could alleviate this: <ul> <li>A smaller project
grows quicker, <li>it being written in Rust might speed up development in the
long run and <li>several components are now shared between Firefox and Servo,
meaning that the development and maintenance work is shared as well, <ul> but
it still is far away from realistically completable.

Which is also not what the project is meant to be. It's a research project.
Trying out new things, creating components that can be used in Firefox, and
doing experiments with VR or similar are exactly what it can be used for.

~~~
RaleyField
It's helluva more completable then any VR project Mozilla is going to try. It
will be another Firefox phone project.

And you don't have to repeat 20 years of Firefox to complete Firefox, a lot of
it were dead-ends like XUL (themed GTK would do), a lot of it were non-
essential features like Pocket and a lot of it were rewrites and mistakes that
they won't have to repeat and like you said being written in Rust should speed
things along. Lastly, I don't care if Servo is released standalone or if
Firefox gets replaced by Servo like the ship of Theseus, all I care about is
browser that is less explodable, otherwise I'll continue on Chrome.

~~~
Sylos
They already have completed VR projects:
[https://vr.mozilla.org/](https://vr.mozilla.org/)

Pocket required essentially no work. They bought an existing service and stuck
a fancy bookmark for it into Firefox.

And well, I'm mainly just repeating what Mozilla devs have said. They are
deeper into the matter than both us, they can better judge just how much work
it is. And it's easy to forget just how complex web browsers are. None of the
major browsers use a browser engine which's development started in this
millenium for exactly this reason.

I'm also not aware of Chrome being less explodable. I'd say, it's more
explodable with its malware-filled extension store, default unencrypted sync
service and annecdotally a vulnerability like this [1] being left unfixed for
years and careless behaviour like this [2].

[1]: [https://github.com/anttiviljami/browser-autofill-
phishing](https://github.com/anttiviljami/browser-autofill-phishing)

[2]: [https://www.wired.com/story/chrome-yubikey-phishing-
webusb/](https://www.wired.com/story/chrome-yubikey-phishing-webusb/)

Firefox used to have a worse security architecture, but it's essentially
equivalent now. The only real difference that I'm aware of, is that Firefox by
default groups processes for tabs, meaning if a webpage manages to exploit a
major vulnerability in Firefox to gain control of the process it's being
executed in, then it has access to 1/4 of your tabs and therefore might
potentially be able to steal sensitive data, whereas in Chrome it would then
also have to exploit a vulnerability in the OS to do that.

~~~
RaleyField
> They are deeper into the matter than both us

Or execs are driving a bus into the wall. It wouldn't be the first time that
happened for sure.

> I'm also not aware of Chrome being less explodable.

It used to be. It only took them 10 years to enable sandboxing.

> with its malware-filled extension store

And no rational person installs extensions from it for that reason without
first checking who stands behind the extension.

> then it has access to 1/4 of your tabs and therefore might potentially be
> able to steal sensitive data

So essentially not equivalent.

------
hammerandtongs
"""We will continue to experiment with things like DOM to texture. It is still
difficult to allow web content to be part of a 3D scene."""

This is the most important missing piece, are their bugs for this?

Until we have html/dom textures in vr I just don't see webvr being very
successful.

Just like the headset isolates you from the room, the lack of normal web
content in vr/mr is very isolating.

~~~
ericflo
I think they will never do this for DRM and security reasons :(

~~~
pcwalton
DRM doesn't factor into this. canvas.drawWindow() has been a thing (for
addons) since 2005: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/CanvasRende...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/CanvasRenderingContext2D/drawWindow)

~~~
ericflo
That's pretty cool - so you can just render DRMed video to a texture and
record that texture to get around the new DRM stuff?

~~~
Sylos
You can also set up a camera in front of your monitor and just record the
whole thing. DRM has never been functional. Best it can do, is deflect the
average user from just quickly sending it to his friend. But anyone with any
motivation can easily get around it.

~~~
ericflo
I'm honestly really glad to hear this

------
sp332
The amount of negativity in this thread is crazy. With Microsoft pushing VR &
AR right into the operating system, and headsets < $300 becoming commonplace,
not to mention the iPhone X being built around the AR tech, you'd think people
might get the hint that things have changed.

Anyway, I was just wondering if the Servo team had seen the work Elevr had
done on basic interaction design? They lost funding last year but I thought
they had a ton of work done.

~~~
thomastjeffery
"Things have changed".

That's being a bit liberal. Sure, [AV]R is going to be important in the next
few years, but it certainly won't be _mandatory_. People will still be using
flat monoscopic (not stereoscopic) displays.

The work Mozilla has put into Servo is clearly very useful _right now_. There
is still _a lot_ of work to be done on Servo, and on Rust itself. Are you
really that surprised that some of us are wary of splitting that team's
priorities to work on something like [AV]R?

------
skyzyx
When I first heard the announcement about Firefox OS a handful of years ago, I
thought to myself “that’s a bad idea. They should stay focused instead of
stretching themselves too thin.”

You’re still not as fast or battery-efficient as Safari on macOS, so for me,
Mozilla has more work to do on its core products before jumping onto a new
tech project (like Firefox OS) that doesn’t even have a clear use in the
market.

You’re not Sony. You’re not Facebook. Focus on what you’re good at now, let
those guys find the market and the killer apps, THEN jump into AR.

You still have more work to do where you are. Tell the product people to shut
up. FOCUS. Fewer features, better quality.

------
perilunar
> We will continue to experiment with things like DOM to texture. It is still
> difficult to allow web content to be part of a 3D scene.

Microsoft's Chromeffects did this in 1998. It was pretty amazing, but alas,
got canned less than a year later.

------
NamPNQ
And they still make something VR/AR on rustlang ;)

------
zdfjkhiuj
That's a pity. I was thinking that maybe Mozilla was getting back on track and
making a no-nonsense web browser. Instead they're diverting resources to yet
another gimmicky fad.

~~~
digi_owl
> making a no-nonsense web browser

I fear that ship has long sailed.

------
Vinnl
I really like all the questions and remarks being placed here by people who
have experience with the challenges of MR or are unclear about the goals of
Servo, and the Mozilla people interacting here.

For those of you simply dismissing whatever's happening because VR has been
hyped before and it didn't pan out this time, I'd highly recommend this post:
[https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3124-give-it-five-
minutes](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3124-give-it-five-minutes)

