> I'm all for innovation, but don't pretend that this is
> some altruistic plan by Google and Apple to move the web
> forward. It's about the same thing it was for Microsoft,
> keeping users tied to THEIR browser.
If Google cared about keeping users tied to Chrome, I suspect they would do more to discourage use of their greatest competitor's browser (Safari).
> Let's take Google Chrome's NaCl. It's eerily
> reminiscent of ActiveX is it not? Sure, Google open
> sourced it, but Mozilla and others have repeatedly
> criticized it. The web is not about sandboxing native
> code and creating some kind of Frankenstein platform
> within a platform where one can execute "native" code
> in a web browser. I mean, it's friggin' stupid. But
> it's OK because Google open sourced it and proposed it
> as a standard, right?
The difference between ActiveX and NaCl is that ActiveX can only be used on IE and Windows, by design, but NaCl could be implemented by any browser vendor and run on any OS (so long as the user has an x86 processor).
Also, NaCl is more of a prototype than a marketed product. Its obvious potential security issues prevent a more widespread adoption, and criticism from Mozilla (et al) are generally more on the technical aspects. The underlying goal of being able to safely execute native code is extremely important to the continued development of browsers as general-purpose operating systems (a goal I personally disagree with, but whatever). Someone needs to figure it out, and having an early first step proposed as an open spec is a good start.
> Or how bout Dart? Let me rush out and build my next
> application in Dart, because it's going to be
> standardized right? I mean, Google open sourced it so
> everyone could implement it!
I don't even know what you're arguing here; if NaCl is a prototype, then Dart is a tech demo, and one not even officially developed by Google. Chrome doesn't support it, and probably never will. You're essentially complaining that Google allows its employees to work on personal projects related to web browsers.
> There are some good things (WebM, SPDY) that have come
> out of Google, but those were incremental improvements
> and they allowed for graceful degradation or were
> alternatives to existing things.
Everything is an incremental improvement, or an alternative to existing things.
Also, NaCl is more of a prototype than a marketed product. Its obvious potential security issues prevent a more widespread adoption, and criticism from Mozilla (et al) are generally more on the technical aspects. The underlying goal of being able to safely execute native code is extremely important to the continued development of browsers as general-purpose operating systems (a goal I personally disagree with, but whatever). Someone needs to figure it out, and having an early first step proposed as an open spec is a good start.
I don't even know what you're arguing here; if NaCl is a prototype, then Dart is a tech demo, and one not even officially developed by Google. Chrome doesn't support it, and probably never will. You're essentially complaining that Google allows its employees to work on personal projects related to web browsers. Everything is an incremental improvement, or an alternative to existing things.