[BrendanEich]

You wrote, very first comment at top:

"To dis NaCl on this basis and not even mention PNaCl is dishonest."

That was in response to my slides. You were calling me dishonest. Come on yourself!

You then went on about "propaganda" and scary salt crystals. Something is off right there. Mozilla doesn't make propaganda and we have a tiny fraction of Google's budget (which I can assure you has been deployed commercially to push NaCl).

I don't think your tone or content are balanced on any of this, and you at least climbed down on the salt crystals. Can you do likewise on the "dishonest"?

[haberman]

You seem a lot more interested in getting me to take back things than you are in taking back your misleading slide.

Substitute whatever adjectives you want if the ones I used offend you, but the point still remains that the most vocal criticism of (P)NaCl comes from Mozilla and it is anything but "balanced."

I would feel more inclined to issue an actual retraction if there was any indication that I was mistaken about this or that it would change.

That said I'm not really interested in arguing further, since we've clearly reached an impasse. I admire the work you have done with JavaScript, and I admire the work Mozilla has done over the years on many great products.

[BrendanEich]

The slide I showed is not misleading. NaCl is not portable, PNaCl is still not ready for prime time based on Google's own actions, and you protest too much and do not practice what you preach.

"Mozilla" meaning me, bzbarsky, blizzard (previously), roc on the plugin-futures list, others have been forthright compared to the mostly-silent other browser vendors, who haven't even spoken via corporate or individual channels on this non-issue apart from my pal Maciej at Apple coining "Active G" to refer to Pepper.

If this circumstance makes you shoot us, the messengers, you need to read more Greek tragedy!

We're telling you why NaCl/Pepper are a no-sale among all the non-chromium browsers. You don't like the reasons we give, but that's no justification for your ascribing to us bad motives or a dishonest agenda or techniques ("propaganda"). We have been perfectly clear about the unacceptably high cost of Pepper, and the single-company control problem of all of NaCl/PNaCl/Pepper.

Your own misstatements are yours, and you should retract or not based on their righteous or wrongful nature, not on what anyone else does. That you excuse your conduct based on your grievance with us is thoroughly broken, as a piece of moral reasoning.

At this point you are perfectly clear: you want a free lunch (from all browsers, but especially from Firefox), we won't give it to you, so you call us names and imply that we act out of bad motives. That makes you persona non grata in my book. Good luck!

[haberman]

> At this point you are perfectly clear: you want a free lunch

Nope, I wanted a footnote that says "they're working on it." That is about 97% of what I wanted from this discussion. ES6 isn't "ready for prime time" either, being an unfinished spec, and yet the entire presentation was about that. You're comparing JavaScript's future with NaCl's present, and not mentioning that it is Google's stated purpose to remove the glaring limitation that is the basis of your discounting it as a technology (at least as far as that slide is concerned). How is that not misleading?

I have never once suggested, in a single one of my messages on this thread, that non-Chromium browsers should adopt NaCl/Pepper in their current form (in fact I have said exactly the opposite, that I can understand their reasons for not wanting to), and yet you continue to attribute this viewpoint to me, calling me "astoundingly naive" for it, and issuing no retraction for that (despite all the retractions you demand from me). How is this the moral high ground?

I would be happy (more than happy, actually) to completely retract my statement, since it certainly gives me no pleasure to think that you would mislead your audience, but you are declining to demonstrate that I was wrong or that you have an interest in being entirely forthcoming with your audience. By pressuring me to retract my statements while feeling free to say what you want I feel you are bullying me. I'm not a huge fan of how you are ascribing inaccurate viewpoints to me and calling me names for them, and yet I am not demanding that you retract it all or I will discount your existence as a person (incredibly harsh, by the way).

[othermaciej]

I've expressed my personal opinions about NaCl here on HN before too: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2057611

[haberman]

For what it's worth, I think the comment you linked is far more fair and balanced criticism. If all of the statements I was hearing from Mozilla people sounded like that, I would have no beef.

[othermaciej]

I have a different writing style from Brendan, but I don't think there is any significant substantive difference between what he said in this thread and what I said almost 2 years ago.

(Although, the fact that PNaCl is still an experiment and not the mainstream of NaCl nearly two years after I wrote my comment should be further cause for concern.)

[haberman]

The significant substantive differences, to me as a reader, are:

- You don't make final-sounding judgments like "never" or "non-starter" that preemptively reject any future evolution of the technology.

- Your criticisms are highly pragmatic and specific, such that it is clear what hurdles the technology would have to clear to address them, and you don't close the door to the idea that they could (even if it seems unlikely to you).

- You don't fall back on ideological arguments like native code as a "social ill" that would suggest that your true objections run deeper than what any technical improvements could possibly address.

Thank you for that.

[BrendanEich]

Maciej and I agree, but you are holding Mozilla to a different standard from Apple. Another reason I'm striving to ignore you (for both our sakes).

[qwinter]

Please stop signing your posts.

[BrendanEich]

Why?

[robin_reala]

House style: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't sign comments, especially with your url. They're already signed with your username. If other users want to learn more about you, they can click on it to see your profile.

[BrendanEich]

Ok, sorry about violating house style. Old habits die hard.