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Comment by MatthewPhillips | Hacker News Reader

But Linux isn't even close to being the only kernel being worked on. Neither absolutely nor from a marketshare perspective.

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But WebKit isn't even close to being the only engine being worked on. Neither absolutely nor from a marketshare perspective.

Hence, the comparison. Firefox and IE both comprise a major chunk of the market.

What's your point? There's also Trident (IE) and Gecko (FF), just like there's NT and BSD.

There are dozens if not hundreds of kernels in development today. Some developed as small niche side projects. Some in proprietary embedded products. Some purely as research experiments. I do not see that type of diversity in browser engines and I think it is absolutely as important.

Diversity for the sake of diversity isn't going to get anywhere. That is basically gambling that something good will fall out of a different implementation just because it is different.

Instead, focus on solving problems. If the best way to solve a problem is to use webkit, then why do otherwise? If the best way is to go back and fork webkit from 2 years ago, and start your project from there, do that instead.

But don't be different just because you want to be different. Target your ambition toward something more meaningful.

difference ensure competition and variety of point of views. The problem with monoculture is that it _enforces_ the lack of difference. So if the guys in control of the monoculture stop progressing, or progress in a direction that you do not agree with, you're basically fucked and it takes enormous effort and time to change it.

It happens so many times and with so many things (not even software related) that I'm amazed it's not the first thing that comes to mind.

So Firefox would be Mach, Trident Windows and the assorted other smaller browser engines other 'kernels'?

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