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0 pointsjustinschuh11y ago0 comments

Fair enough that v8 is an odd case, but it's an external dependency that predates Chrome/Chromium with its own core team, development processes, third-party obligations, and ecosystem. And accepting that, v8 does have third-party contributors (see their policy here: https://code.google.com/p/v8-wiki/wiki/Contributing). Plus, do you really take issue with the occasional quietly developed code drop, because isn't that pretty much how your team introduced asm.js support in Firefox?

Beyond JS engines, you must appreciate that dependencies and business relationships can get very odd when shipping something as big and complicated as a browser. Chrome/Chromium absolutely experiences this, but so does Mozilla. Take HTML EME, where Adobe's technical requirements have pretty much forced Mozilla to break Andreas' and Brendan's original promises on how much the closed-source CDM will be sandboxed. Then there's the h.264 situation, which is an odd multi-step dance to deliver binaries from Cisco, and is significantly more convoluted than Chrome's use of ffmpeg.

Regardless, I don't believe you're really trying to make the argument that Chromium is not a publicly developed open source project with a huge pool of non-Google contributors. Because you know that to simply be an indisputable fact, even if there is additional complexity around certain dependencies and platforms.

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azakai11y ago· 2 in thread

Of course I agree that the chromium project itself, as opposed to the chromium browser, is developed openly and in a nice way. There is no argument between us on that - it's a clear fact. And I agree that in a large project like a browser, compromises can be necessary when you must work with partners, as in the examples that you made. Good points.

But I strongly disagree on two things you mention:

Regarding asm.js, that is not how it was developed. It was from day 1 done on an open github repo,

https://github.com/dherman/asm.js/

There was never anything secret about it. (What would we have even gained by being secretive about it? Nothing.)

Also, in v8 the issue is not just CrankShaft and TurboFan, but as I mentioned, daily development. I file bugs when I find v8 failing on an emscripten output, and so I follow v8 commits. There is almost no public discussion on them - just patches, plus perhaps a review comment or two. No public bug with background, explanations, motivation, etc. The code is open, but development is clearly not.

I think it's obvious v8 is a major part of chromium, and it's completely unnecessarily developed in a non-open manner. So I think it's fair to say the chromium browser as a whole - as opposed to the chromium project itself - is not developed fully openly.

Another example is Dart. Dart is not yet part of chromium, but the plans to integrate it are public. Dart was developed secretly for a while, and in fact only became known unintentionally in a leaked email. It's not clear when it would have become public if not for that leaked email. Again, like with v8, this is unnecessarily closed development - there are no legal issues or partners that must be compromised with. It was just decided that v8 and Dart would be developed non-openly (for reasons I can't understand).

justinschuhOP11y ago

Do you really think a code drop from an obscurely named github repo qualifies as open development? Because it can just as easily be interpreted as hiding in the noise, particularly when the eventual asm.js unveiling was done as a giant PR blitz. Of course, you can argue that the secrecy was unintentional, but you can't really argue that it wasn't taken advantage of.

To your argument that Chromium is not developed fully openly, you must understand that Blink and Chromium contributors dwarf the v8 team by orders of magnitude, right (even the security team is a bigger)? And you understand that the difference in code size is even larger, right? I get that you're focused on JS because it's your area, but in the grand scheme it's only one of many, many important pieces. And if we're going to dig into it like this, do you really believe every part of Firefox would hold up to the same level of scrutiny? after all, Richard Stallman has made similar arguments about Firefox not being truly free.

Now for Dart. I just don't see Chromium approaching Dart the same way Mozilla approached asm.js. On the contrary, I strongly expect that dart.js will need to prove the viability and popularity of the language before Chromium includes any specific optimizations or support for it. As for the "leaks," I suggest you read the doc people are referencing and consider the timelines involved. Because, the content paints a very different picture, and the timelines don't at all align with what you're claiming.

As for why the Dart team follows their particular development practice, I don't know. They spun out of the original v8 team and aren't a part of Chrome team. However, I do know both Dart and v8 have some non-negligible testing and workflows tied to Google infrastructure. So, it may just be hard for them to switch, or maybe no one has ever made the case to do so. Honestly, have you tried just asking nicely rather than making accusations? I mean, you say you can't understand it, but your behavior seems to assume and voice the worst motivations for anything related to Google.

azakai11y ago

Well, asm.js was a research project for a few months. During those, it was open on github, it was discussed openly on IRC (e.g. #emscripten, for example when experimental commits came in to emit asm.js-like stuff), etc. During that time, we didn't know if it would work or just be a waste of time. So no blogposts were written, because what would we write? Most research projects fail, and are not worth making an effort to mention. One just develops them in the open and sees how things go.

What are you saying we should have done differently during the early research period of asm.js? (Honest question, this situation happens all the time with new research projects - I'd love to do better next time.)

And how exactly was the non-prominence "taken advantage of"? What benefit did we get from it?

I completely agree with you about chromium (the project) being open, and yes, clearly it is far larger than v8. Also, very likely I consider v8 to be more important than the average person, since JS is my area, that is a fair point.

Still, I don't want to go all the way to saying something like "v8 is negligible". It's not. JS is the only standardized programming language available for web pages. The JS writing community is huge. People writing websites use HTML, JS and CSS, with JS being pivotal. So JS does matter quite a lot, even if v8's size is small in comparison to the rest of chromium.

Hence, v8 not being developed openly is a black mark against the openness of the chromium browser. That seems an unavoidable conclusion. But it is open to debate on the amount - is v8 more or less important - of course.

I'm not sure what you think I'm claiming about Dart, if you think the timeline in the Dart document doesn't align with anything I said?

I apologize if it seems like I'm assuming the worst about Google's motivations regarding anything. I think I was pretty careful in not talking about motivations, because I don't know them. The facts are that v8 development is not fully open. And, it is a fact that I don't understand that. Not sure how that shows I think Google is being evil or anything like that? Not is anything I said an "accusation" about Google's motivations, as again, I tried to focus on the observable facts. (Or, did you make that statement referring to something else I said - if so, what?)

I have talked to v8 people, and I have asked questions about openness and development procedures and so forth. I also file bugs regularly and interact with them on the tracker. I admire the v8 developers - they are doing an amazing job! So I'm not someone from afar that is assuming the worst. I'm someone that likes the v8 project, tries to help out, and interacts with it, while at the same time is kind of puzzled and disappointed that it isn't developed openly. And I feel that reflects poorly on chromium. That's all.

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