Stephen Shankland’s report from 2020 notes a number of people suggesting that Chromium as a whole could be moved out of Google entirely and into an independent foundation, such as the Linux Foundation. That’s not what is happening now, but it’s another step toward larger organization outside of the web’s dominant browser and advertising provider (though Google is still one of the supporters).
One can only hope this is the first step toward a larger trend. LF stewardship of the Chromium project wouldn’t be perfect, but it’s still much better than the current situation of it being controlled by one company, be it Google or whoever they’ll forced to sell Chrome to.
My read of the situation is that this was driven by Google rather than LF (as in I think Google approached LF about the idea first) in an effort to give then an argument that the court shouldn’'t take Chrome away from them (the only way Google would ever give up control over Chrome).
I’m not sure. The courts intends for Google to sell Chrome, not Chromium. Even if they gave guarentees that Chromium will become independant, the coourt’s likely to tell them to sell Chrome anyway (as they could still apply monopolistic practices like service bundling without control over Chromium, not to mention they could ‘fork’ LF’s Chromium later to make their own).
The way I see it, this is more Google being scared shitless about Chrome’s new owner being shitty, promote their own services instead of Google’s, and disrespect web standards (or depecreates the ‘standards’ Google implemented in Chromium without the approval of other browers, or standard bodies). That could cause MASSIVE issues for them, and the loss of business that could cause would be tremendous, in a way that’s far worse than giving up control on Chromium.
To me, his seems more like the nuclear option of Google saying that if they can’t own Chromiulm, then nobody can as a way to cut their losses.
One can only hope this is the first step toward a larger trend. LF stewardship of the Chromium project wouldn’t be perfect, but it’s still much better than the current situation of it being controlled by one company, be it Google or whoever they’ll forced to sell Chrome to.
My read of the situation is that this was driven by Google rather than LF (as in I think Google approached LF about the idea first) in an effort to give then an argument that the court shouldn’'t take Chrome away from them (the only way Google would ever give up control over Chrome).
I’m not sure. The courts intends for Google to sell Chrome, not Chromium. Even if they gave guarentees that Chromium will become independant, the coourt’s likely to tell them to sell Chrome anyway (as they could still apply monopolistic practices like service bundling without control over Chromium, not to mention they could ‘fork’ LF’s Chromium later to make their own).
The way I see it, this is more Google being scared shitless about Chrome’s new owner being shitty, promote their own services instead of Google’s, and disrespect web standards (or depecreates the ‘standards’ Google implemented in Chromium without the approval of other browers, or standard bodies). That could cause MASSIVE issues for them, and the loss of business that could cause would be tremendous, in a way that’s far worse than giving up control on Chromium.
To me, his seems more like the nuclear option of Google saying that if they can’t own Chromiulm, then nobody can as a way to cut their losses.