Post #4023272

2026-07-22 22:12 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.social/@sarahjamielewis/116959309031485270 Many have asked: "Ok, this sounds great, how on earth do we get there?" From the few conversations I have now had: no single project believes they will ever have enough capacity to do browser dev v.s. patch work. And no one will commit to exploration without some assurance that the base will receive long-term active development. Absent some leap of faith, it's likely up to a new project to commit to building that base, and getting it to a stage where those projects feel like it can happen.

Replies (4)

@sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social 2026-07-22 22:17

I don't think that is the most efficient way of bootstrapping this thing - given the amount of effort these projects are already expending purging the same garbage functionality from Firefox release after release I think there is a world where a joint effort results in more-capacity (especially if committing to developing that base independently after a point) But I have no way of proving that, and thus a new project might be the only practical way of bootstrapping this thing.

Open ##4023271
@ferrix@mastodon.online 2026-07-22 22:26

@sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social angry that it's nbd to light a trillion dollars on fire in service of fake thinking for negative return, but writing a browser core that would help humanity is utterly unviable. Closest seems to be servo

Open ##4146036
@crabbypup@cosocial.ca 2026-07-22 23:29

@sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social Fundamentally, it's not unlike what happened when CentOS stream happened and a bunch of CentOS community projects started working together to ensure they had access to the base RPM packages so they would be able to continue existing. And probably a similar amount of work.

Open ##4146038
@jripley@mastodon.social 2026-07-22 23:38

@sarahjamielewis@mastodon.social A large part of the problem is that the web standards process has become utterly captured by corporate interests. (I half-jokingly refer to this as the Web Standards Industrial Complex). It didn't used to be overwhelmingly complex—it's was a choice, perhaps not entirely deliberate, but one which corporate interests had no incentive to avoid. I think it what would help is if prominent members of the _open_ web helped reduce, and define the minimal spec they actually need.

Open ##4146040