[skybrian]

It would be weird for a mustache-twirling villain to give most of their source code to their competitors, hence allowing them to start out compatible with nearly every website on the Internet.

(With a bit of DRM needed for video, so those competitors can't be pure open source. But still, it's not going to stop Microsoft.)

The article admits to this, then kind of ignores it.

[pwinnski]

It would not be weird at all for a mustache-twirling villain to pretend not to be a villain, right? Perhaps to loudly tout one's open-source credentials while moving more and more core android functionality into proprietary licensed code, or even just to have a plausible defense in the event of anti-trust activity.

[CharlesColeman]

> It would be weird for a mustache-twirling villain to give most of their source code to their competitors, hence allowing them to start out compatible with nearly every website on the Internet.

No it wouldn't, if the mustache-twirling villain's indent was control. Those competitors are following most if not all of Chrome's implementation decisions, and economically they're highly incentivized follow whatever Google does.

[skybrian]

Google didn't follow all of Safari's decisions, and eventually they forked WebKit. Why shouldn't Microsoft do something similar when they have different goals?

They'd likely remain mostly compatible because all browser vendors do try to follow web standards nowadays. But maybe not more than Safari and Chrome are compatible. And it helps maintain Microsoft's veto on web standards (like Firefox has vetoed previous Chrome proposals).

[pcwalton]

> Why shouldn't Microsoft do something similar when they have different goals?

They explicitly said they wouldn't fork Chromium.

[skybrian]

Sure, for now, and maybe for years. Chrome upstreamed patches to WebKit for a while.

But the point is, they can fork, so that means Chrome doesn't have full control.

[anoncake]

Microsoft couldn't maintain a Trident-based browser compatible with the Google-controlled web. They won't be able to maintain one based on Blink either.

[CharlesColeman]

> Google didn't follow all of Safari's decisions, and eventually they forked WebKit. Why shouldn't Microsoft do something similar when they have different goals?

Didn't Microsoft recently throw in the towel with Edge, and switch to Chromium, because they thought it was too much trouble to maintain their own engine?

[skybrian]

Yes, it's a smart move that frees up the engineering effort that was previously devoted to catching up to Chrome, rather than improving on it. How they redeploy them isn't something we can tell from the outside.

There are occasional debates on Hacker News about when you should rewrite your codebase. Similar arguments apply here: when should you rewrite someone else's codebase?

[ionised]

Villains who twirl their moustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged.

-- Jean-Luc Picard, Captain, USS Enterprise