Mozilla has 1.4 BILLION dollars that they are spending on some AI bullshit.
That's billion with a B. So if you held out hope that filling out surveys or shitposting through it might turn this ship around, no. That much money has an event horizon.
Mozilla is cooked.
https://jwz.org/b/yk2n
@jwz@mastodon.social My read is that Google—Mozilla's main funding source these days—have ordered them to spend money on AI (meanwhile supplying the money to do so). No mainstream browser may remain uncompromised by the grift. amirite?
@cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social well, in Google's case the pressure is most likely internal. For Mozilla it'd be interesting to see if there was a gentle push from the outside or if this is inbred^W in-board general idiocy.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social Consider that Mozilla being cooked has a few decades of history.
Back around 2007ish, I was working with a few folk who either came from or later went to Mozilla. Anyhow, some of them were involved with the XHTML 2.0 spec.
Which was finished.
But then got ditched.
Because Googleites insisted a "living spec" was the right thing, which can only be implemented by whoever throws the most money at it, and we now have HTML5 and a browser engine monopoly.
And Mozilla?
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social Mozillans didn't like it, but Mozilla also considered a unified web more important than open standards, where the definition of "open" includes practically open to implementors.
So fuck you very much for two decades running, Mozilla.
@jens@social.finkhaeuser.de @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social
IIRC the WHATWG was set up before Google had its own browser (I think it was Mozilla + Opera + Apple at the time?) and it almost made sense, although there was no reason to ditch XHTML 2.0 altogether. What really drives me mad is that EVEN IF one could consider the XEvent and XForms interface to be suboptimal for the kind of “dynamic” web that was being pushed (possibly by Google behind the scenes) that was really no reason to throw away the whole of XHTML 2.
@jens@social.finkhaeuser.de @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social
There are still so many features that had been introduced there (client-side includes with fallback, “everything is a link”, etc) that are still sorely missing 8-(
I wonder if there was also a growing dislike for XML in general behind this choice? (hurr durr namespace confusing). It's ironic that we have to thank MS for pushing for the little support of XML in browsers we still have (and they are now working on removing 8-/).
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social Yes, the WGs were running in parallel for a while. Of course, you don't come up with something like that in a few days. But chrome I'm fairly sure was a thing already.
@jens@social.finkhaeuser.de @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social IIRC the WHATWG was created in 2004, but Chrome is from 2008. I think Google might have been putting pressure on Mozilla & Opera to push for the whole “web app” angle because of their forays into Gmail and Maps that started around that time. When Chrome was first released the WHATWG and the W3C had already been armwrestling on «who gets to decide what HTML is» for one or two years, and with Chrome entering the fray the W3C basically gave up.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social Indeed. https://www.w3.org/standards/history/xhtml2/
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social WHATWG started in 2004, with Mozilla, Google, Apple and Microsoft.
Apple forked KHTML into WebKit in 2005.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social The line is straight when you know the route it took, seemingly coincidental otherwise.
But as the HipCrime Vocab defines "coincidence": you weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on.
And, err, though I'm in danger of exhausting my quote quota, the proof is in the proverbial pudding.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social As you will note by some research, in April 2005, so before the publication of WebKit, there was already discontent in the KHTML community in how Apple was developing WebKit as a fork.
How can that be? They complied with the letter, but not the spirit of the GPL. https://web.archive.org/web/20050428230122/http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/1001
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social by the way, @lisamelton@mastodon.social might have some views.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social @lisamelton@mastodon.social At any rate, Dave Hyatt was a former Mozilla dev who switched to Apple and started Safari, and so this entire thing.
He was also representing Apple at WHATWG from what I understand.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social @lisamelton@mastodon.social And then we know how much Google pays Apple yearly since, well... neither 2004, the WHATWG start, nor 2008, the Chrome start, but... did you guess when?
2005.
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-apple-iphone-search-engine-safari-deal-20-billion-2022-2024-5
It's all coincidence until it isn't.
Google's enclosure of the web has over two decades of history, back when their motto was still "Don't be Evil".
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social The WHATWG position paper is from 2004: https://www.w3.org/2004/04/webapps-cdf-ws/papers/opera.html
The working draft cited there edited by Google. Full authors at the bottom:
https://whatwg.org/specs/web-forms/current-work/
XHTML 2.0 specs have been sitting in decision limbo since 2002, when it was finished: https://www.w3.org/2007/03/XHTML2-WG-charter
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social The last bit of glue, which I can only give you second hand from personal acquaintances I shall not out here, is the frustration in XHTML WG about Google and Apple blocking adoption with ever more spurious reasons.
There's probably an archive of minutes somewhere.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social The public archive of XHTML starts in 2007, but the private part requires membership.
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xhtml2/
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social I mean, there's also that Mozilla Corporation was launched in 2005, and crypto turd Marc Andreessen decided that was a good moment to heap praise on the new CEO https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972656_1972712_1974235,00.html
Tumultous times, which weren't all dark. Firefox started making waves after this.
So here's another thing to contemplate.
jwz
Charlie Stross
