Comment by jonathanyc
8 years ago
Firefox already includes parts of Servo, so it’s not a question of “how likely” it is to be used in production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_(Mozilla)
8 years ago
Firefox already includes parts of Servo, so it’s not a question of “how likely” it is to be used in production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_(Mozilla)
> so it’s not a question of “how likely” it is to be used in production.
I believe you misunderstood the comment unless it was changed. The commenter questioned the likelihood of it being developed into a product and you responded as of they had questioned the likelihood of any of it being used in production.
Fwiw, I agree with the commenter and am unsure how likely Mozilla is to develop it into a product. They do seem to incorporate pieces though.
I think you and the commenter share some misunderstanding. Could you distinguish what you mean by developing Servo into a product vs. “incorporating pieces”?
Are you saying that Mozilla eventually replacing Gecko’s style system, DOM, compositor, and networking system with Servo’s (as the article I linked describes) is just incorporating “pieces” of Servo?
The product that Mozilla is developing Servo into is Firefox. I don’t know what you expect—for Mozilla to replace Gecko with Servo all at once? For Mozilla to do the same thing they are doing now but just give it a new name?
> Could you distinguish what you mean by developing Servo into a product vs. “incorporating pieces”?
Do you remember seeing screenshots of "servo"? Running a Servo executable (or browserhtml or whatever) is/was a thing. It was branded as being developed as an alternative browser to FF. It was even using cannibalizing FF pieces (e.g. Spider Monkey) not the other way around.
> The product that Mozilla is developing Servo into is Firefox. I don’t know what you expect—for Mozilla to replace Gecko with Servo all at once? For Mozilla to do the same thing they are doing now but just give it a new name?
That is the case now, though they have names for the pieces, the name "Servo" still seems to be the name of the full browser (coopted by the VR group IIRC). It was what everyone expected to not necessarily replace FF all at once, but be developed alongside as an alternative. This history was clear, the name Servo as a whole browser was clear, and the misunderstanding is pretending that was not the case.
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That's not what I meant. I meant whether Servo the engine is likely to be a standalone product (on its own merits along with Gecko).
I think you misunderstand what a browser engine is, then—read the Wikipedia article I linked and tell me how the “stand-alone product” that Servo is going to be is not Firefox itself. Massive parts of Gecko have already been simply deleted from the codebase and replaced with components from Servo.
“Firefox” is not a browser engine, it is a browser UI. Gecko and Servo are browser engines.