This teaches us that being open source is not enough. If it’s managed by big tech, it’s still not good. Technically, anyone can take the source and make a fork, but in practice, it’s rarely viable for smaller groups to take a big project and start maintaining it. The same applies to android
Excellent point. The way a project is governed should always be a consideration when evaluating software, especially for large and complex projects like a web browser that can’t easily be forked.
In the case of chromium, basically all the main developers are Google employees … so it’s no surprise there hasn’t been a viable fork.
I really wish we had something like the “linux kernel” of web browsers…
This teaches us that being open source is not enough. If it’s managed by big tech, it’s still not good. Technically, anyone can take the source and make a fork, but in practice, it’s rarely viable for smaller groups to take a big project and start maintaining it. The same applies to android
Excellent point. The way a project is governed should always be a consideration when evaluating software, especially for large and complex projects like a web browser that can’t easily be forked.
In the case of chromium, basically all the main developers are Google employees … so it’s no surprise there hasn’t been a viable fork.
I really wish we had something like the “linux kernel” of web browsers…
Chrome isn’t even opensource. It’s based on the Chromium open-source project.
Wrt all Google/Alphabet products: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/