I'm not as worried independent implementations become impossible as much as nobody wants to do them. Smaller backed projects like Ladybird and Flow get plenty far already for me to feel confident independent implementations are possible but, at the same time, Edge and Opera being moved to a Chromium base show it's very hard for independent implementations to align justification out of more than principle.
This would be less of a problem if there was more even control on the Chromium side. Right now the vast majority goes the way Google wants it to go, with minor control of what happens via e.g. Microsoft or other developers. If it were more shared it wouldn't be as big a concern that this one giant complicated machine grows ever more. I mean that's basically the reality of Linux in a lot of markets.
Yup. You can’t effectively fight an enemy by his rules.
Instead of writing new browsers - and getting them easily broken by Google again - we need to focus on stuff like providing an open YouTube mirror, or helping users jam AdSense with fictional data, or flooding YouTube with autogenerated videos… Lots of possibilities really.
Sorta tangential but its frustrating to me how Mozilla refuses to implement standards like web USB and bluetooth in the name of security (which is admirable), which gives Google even more incentive to add more APIs and extend them without any opposition.
91.3.2. Paul Maritz also explained to Intel representatives that Microsoft's response to the browser threat was to "embrace, extend, extinguish"; in other words, Microsoft planned to "embrace" existing Internet standards, "extend" them in incompatible ways, and thereby "extinguish" competitors.
McGeady testified that Maritz told Intel that Microsoft's strategy was to "embrace, extend, extinguish." McGeady, 11/9/98pm, at 53:17 - 54:8; McGeady, 11/10/98 am, at 21:22 - 23:19; GX 564.
McGeady testified that Microsoft was going to take Internet standards, like HTML, "and extend it to the point where it was incompatible with the Netscape browser and encourage people to develop to their version of HTML so that pages couldn't be read with Netscape's browser." McGeady, 11/9/98pm, at 55:7-14.
Russell Barck, an Intel executive, testified at his deposition that "in relation to Netscape, . . . Maritz . . . said the term 'embrace and smother' with respect to a strategy with respect to Netscape." Maritz, 1/26/99 am, 55:19 - 57:1.
Rob Sullivan testified at his deposition that Maritz said the phrase "embrace and smother." Maritz, 1/26/9am, 57:2-11. When asked about his understanding of the meaning of the embrace and smother concept, Sullivan testified that he "understood that concept to mean that Microsoft intended to deprive Netscape of revenue and viability." Microsoft would achieve this "by giving away their products, by embracing the Internet standards and extending them in a way that favored the Windows platform." Maritz, 1/26/99am, 58:16 - 59:8.
This is a 25 year old example of it being used externally by a Microsoft executive. This is not the same thing as the belief where every Microsoft team is locally applying this strategy.
