Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture ... and supporting multiple architectures over the years has led to increasing complexity ... we anticipate that we’ll be able to remove 7 build systems and delete more than 7,000 files—comprising more than 4.5 million lines
Last time I measured (late 2012) the entire mozilla-central repository was 4.488 million lines of code. So I don't believe that by simply streamlining things they'll be able to remove anything like 4.5 million lines. Perhaps an extra zero got inserted somewhere.
> Last time I measured (late 2012) the entire mozilla-central repository was 4.488 million lines of code.
Mozilla isn't WebKit.
> I don't believe that by simply streamlining things they'll be able to remove anything like 4.5 million lines.
I suppose you could compare WebKit repos against Blink repos once the latter is live to see exactly what is cut, but I'm going to say the people working on the code that are the source of the count know how many LOC are involved, and that there direct count is more reliable than a third-party estimate based on a different browser's repo.
I think the implication is that most of the code they are removing is not actually code, but boilerplate/machine-generated build scripts/etc. Still, the number of LOC involved has little bearing on whether or not splitting from WebKit is a good idea.
4.5 million lines spread over 7,000 files is only ~642 lines per file, so I doubt there is an extra zero. Perhaps they included whitespace and comments in their count.
Unless you are engaged in the multinational legal goings on concerning smartphone patents you'd have to be delusional to think that this announcement has anything to do with you personally.
If you're a startup, and you're planning to grow bigger in any areas of software/hardware/services that google covers (which, to be fair, these days is a very large range of areas), its definitely something to be thinking about.
Google is becoming an entrenched company, they will eventually (or sooner) go from an innovative market position to a defensive one, and thats when patents start to look really juicy to the bean counters.
Also, if you're a developer working for a large google competitor, you may also have reason to fear at least for your job (which is quite personal).
Agreed, but we're a different audience. As technical people, it is in Google's best interest to look "good" to us so we continue to use and develop things for their platforms. At least that's how I see it.
Well, I go to a lot of the same pages every day, so I very much want to continue whee I left off, but not necessarily to start playing media at once.
you know what I'd love (all you enterprising Chrome plugin developers): let me view and manage my open tabs through the same sort of large icon interface that appears on the New Tab page. I wouldn't mind being able to organize my bookmarks that way either. I can't understand why nobody has attempted to do anything different with the bookmark interface for years now.
It's not the setting. Chrome automatically continues there when it's closed by Windows restarting. The idea is that applications that are open will return to the same state when the computer restarts. This is separate from the user closing the program and launching it again.
It's not about what you can say - you can say whatever you like - but Sweden or whomever can't officially bestow a new meaning on a trademarked name. It's like enshrining in the dictionary that Coca-Cola means "sugary water".
No one has bestowed a new meaning to anything. "Ogoogelbar" means "ungooglable", translating directly (something which cannot be searched using Google). Besides, language is organic. You can't exclude a commonly used word from the dictionary just because it violates someone's opinion on how you're allowed to express yourself in writing.
Regardless, which supernational authority is going to enforce a claim like this? I think it is you who need to cite which part of international law regulates the organic development and official acceptance of new words.
I thought the whole point of RSS is that it's decentralized. Feeds don't have to come from a single source and no one client is needed to view them.
One could argue that the demise of Reader is the best thing to happen to RSS in along time as this supposedly decentralized and decentralizing standard became too reliant on one vendor.
Is it really Google's fault that RSS was overshadowed by the emergence of social networks to the point that it doesn't make economic sense for them to keep maintaining it?! I don't’ think so.
Neither is it a commentary on standards, it’s merely a company that is acting in its own perceived interests, something companies are wont to do.
As for the “Industry” part, last I checked those who are actually building a Reader replacement are delighted with opportunity:
When a writer this associated with Microsoft starts framing this situation as yet another flimsy accusation of anti-competitive behaviour, I tend to be skeptic.
"One could argue that the demise of Reader is the best thing to happen to RSS in along time as this supposedly decentralized and decentralizing standard became too reliant on one vendor"
I'm overjoyed that yet another for-profit corporation is out of this segment of the internet market. If it gets some former Google Reader users move to client-based, open source RSS readers, that makes for less spying on users and more privacy; and the more decentralized the net gets, the better.
Problem I have is even though akregator does the client side job well, I have multiple devices I read feeds on, and want them synced. But I don't want to leave my main desktop on 24/7 as a feed host, and I have abysmal bandwidth anyway (50 KBps up) so accessing it over dyndns from anywhere is unreasonable.
I really do need a service, online, that maintains my feeds updating and viewing, so I can sync them across devices. Problem is everyone I've looked at either doesn't provide a mobile client (and I've become way too used to google reader's flick right to next article for webcomic reading) or has some stupid browser plugin like feedly that breaks webpages for me. They also provide way too much of the social nonsense - I just want a web sync of feeds and views, plus some favorites feature.
Then you want someone else to pull and deliver feeds, which means it costs someone else. Plus hosting, and site development. You can't do that in FOSS for long.
Production is decentralized, but consumption doesn't have to be. You need to store your reading list somewhere, and once you have more than one device, you need some place where this information comes together. That's Reader.
How is that not engineering based?