Yes, I understand that. But in my view, Microsoft is the one that might have had “a non Google-reliant engine” (if it’s true that they didn’t rely on Google code).
They just let us use it under their conditions, for the limited time they decided to make it available to us… but it was never “ours”. We were just contractually allowed to use it, but we didn’t really “have” it.
Yes, the matter of fact is that the reason why that choice was taken away is because everyone except MS was forbidden from “having” that engine. It might have still been alive today in some form had it not been an exclusive MS-owned thing.
Well, yeah, in that aspect, you’re correct. I meant that as a “we had a non Google-reliant engine”.
Yes, I understand that. But in my view, Microsoft is the one that might have had “a non Google-reliant engine” (if it’s true that they didn’t rely on Google code).
They just let us use it under their conditions, for the limited time they decided to make it available to us… but it was never “ours”. We were just contractually allowed to use it, but we didn’t really “have” it.
Semantics. I agree with you in principle, but the matter of fact is that we ended up with effectively zero choice over the browser engine.
Yes, the matter of fact is that the reason why that choice was taken away is because everyone except MS was forbidden from “having” that engine. It might have still been alive today in some form had it not been an exclusive MS-owned thing.