
Google Forks WebKit And Launches Blink, A New Rendering Engine - jordn
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/03/google-forks-webkit-and-launches-blink-its-own-rendering-engine-that-will-soon-power-chrome-and-chromeos/
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crimsonzagar
This is just a personal opinion, but for a browser I'd always support and
_use_ a not-for-profit one. No matter how fast, or perceptibly fast, an
offering from a business entity is.

Here is why: 1. Tomorrow you, the billion dollar enterprise, will force real
identity even more vehemently. 2. I certainly don't want to see a constant hum
of ads. 3. I don't want to turn my computer into a wide-mouth bucket for
chrome apps, for example, which have higher than normal access and rights on
my disk.

Your browser could _potentially_ take me back into an era of 'download-yet-
another-snoopy-app' into your machine yeah! Put it all behind a curated garden
and keep me happy within. Where web on tablets and smartphones is today. Nope,
not for me.

~~~
jmillikin
Current popular browsers are:

    
    
      * Firefox
      * Chrome / Chromium
      * Internet Explorer
      * Safari
      * Opera
    

All of them are produced with the aim of benefiting their parent corporations
in some way -- for example, Mozilla Corp rents the default search engine
setting to Google for hundreds of millions per year.

I currently use Firefox and Chromium as my primary browsers, because they are
the only popular browsers that are open-source and therefore the only browsers
I fully trust. Despite coming from "business entities", neither browser shows
me ads, requires me to enter a government-approved name, or requires me to
install third-party applications.

~~~
asadotzler
"All of them are produced with the aim of benefiting their parent corporations
in some way -- for example, Mozilla Corp rents the default search engine
setting to Google for hundreds of millions per year."

You've crafted a sentence that will mislead people.

Mozilla did not, and does not, make Firefox in order to generate search
revenue. Mozilla makes Firefox to directly advance Mozilla's non-profit,
public benefit mission to improve the Web.

Firefox is not produced with the aim of generating revenue. It never has been
and it never will be.

------
ChuckMcM
_" the decision to fork WebKit was entirely driven by the engineering teams
and solely based on the fact that the engineers felt constrained by the
technical complexity of working within the WebKit ecosystem."_

Is this code for "They wouldn't take our changes so we said, 'Fork it!' and
made our own." ?

~~~
mooism2
_“Currently, the majority of WebKit reviewers are from Google (95), with Apple
coming in second (59)... Google is also currently responsible for the vast
majority of commits to the WebKit repository...”_

Doubtful.

~~~
coldtea
Numbers are doubtful?

I mean, sure, one could fabricate them, but why, especially if he can easily
be caught doing it? Those are things anybody can verify by looking at the
repository stats.

Here's what I found with a cursory look: Google has overtook Apple in commits
2-3 years already:

[http://blog.bitergia.com/2013/02/06/report-on-the-
activity-o...](http://blog.bitergia.com/2013/02/06/report-on-the-activity-of-
companies-in-the-webkit-project/)

Older stats (already Google on top):
[http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2010/02/webkit-...](http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2010/02/webkit-
commits.html)

And a TechCrunch article on the issue:
<http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/06/google-apple-webkit/>

~~~
mooism2
Sorry, I meant that the suggestion in the comment I was replying to (that
Google was forking because they couldn't get their changes in) was doubtful,
not that the figures I quoted from the article were doubtful (I was using them
as justification for my comment).

------
sergiotapia
_IT BEGINS_

We're switching out the cluster __ __that was IE6 for Google Chrome. Mozilla,
save us; you're our only hope.

Opera is going to contribute to Blink as well, so I guess there's that.

~~~
AaronFriel
On the contrary, this saves us from WebKit being the new Trident from IE6.

------
yalogin
This could also be code for we are implementing features that we don't want to
contribute to WebKit.

------
Lightning
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5489025>

------
vacri
Please, when you make a new project, please, please don't use a pre-existing
English word. Perl? Great name. Searchable. You won't be contaminated and
neither will you contaminate others. Tumblr? Same thing.

Python? Well, has a lot of groundswell so now tech 'owns' the name, but you
contaminate other people's search.

Rust? (or a million other projects without python's heft) The reverse issue.

Blink also has the problem of already being a word used occasionally in web
design (bad or otherwise).

~~~
JamesAcorn
'Chrome' used to refer to the GUI elements that surround a webpage -
scrollbars, back button etc. Google changed that.

Google will effectively Google-bomb the web development word 'blink' too. It
is no big loss.

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ricardobeat
"A Short Translation from Bullshit to English of Selected Portions of the
Google Chrome Blink Developer FAQ"

<http://prng.net/blink-faq.html>

------
yardie
Well, talk about taking your ball and going home. News like this is something
I would have assumed from Apple rather than Google (based on the amount of
code they've contributed).

Maybe it's political, maybe it's technical but this is a bit of news I
expected yet didn't see coming.

------
dchichkov
"Don't Blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away.
And don't Blink. Good Luck."

------
chesh
By forking WebKit Google is fucking Apple

------
OGinparadise
Duh! Chrome, Youtube, Maps, Android and virtually everything serve Google's
$$$$ making efforts. Same applies to Microsoft and other large corps, no
matter how much they spin.

So I use Firefox and will use for as long as they are independent.

~~~
teej
You do realize that Google pays Firefox $300M a year, making them at least
_somewhat_ aligned to the business of Google?

~~~
OGinparadise
Yes, and I suspect that Firefox is, at least, not going to work against the
way it makes its money (ads) but the alternative browsers have bigger
conflicts of interest.

~~~
laumars
Opera?

Plus with their switch to Blink on the horizon, even the old complaints about
rendering compatibility are soon to be moot.

~~~
myko
> Duh! Chrome, Youtube, Maps, Android and virtually everything serve Google's
> $$$$ making efforts.

Following the above logic wouldn't Opera not fit the bill either, considering
it serves only to make money for Opera?

~~~
laumars
If Opera was non-free or pushed Opera owned services, then I would agree. But
they don't.

In fact, how does Opera generate income?

~~~
OGinparadise
Probably by Google alone [http://www.zdnet.com/opera-google-extend-search-
deal-for-two...](http://www.zdnet.com/opera-google-extend-search-deal-for-two-
years-7000002997/)

Google has bought placement on all non-MS major browsers and portals.

