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The Servo project is joining Linux Foundation Europe | Igalia
www.igalia.comIgalia is an open source consultancy specialised in the development of innovative projects and solutions. Our engineers have expertise in a wide range of technological areas, including browsers and client-side web technologies, graphics pipeline, compilers and virtual machines. We have the most WPE, WebKit, Chromium/Blink and Firefox expertise found in the consulting business, including many reviewers and committers. Igalia designs, develops, customises and optimises GNU/Linux-based solutions for companies across the globe. Our work and contributions are present in many projects such as GStreamer, Mesa 3D, WebKit, Chromium, etc.
It is great to see Servo being actively worked on again. Rust is a great fit for a browser. It may even be a blessing that Servo is free of Mozilla’s corporate interests.
It does not seem that Igalia intends to make a browser out of it though. Hopefully somebody else steps up to make that happen.
What indicates that Igalia doesn’t want to make a browser with it? What else is their motivation?
Well, they do not answer the question “what is Servo” by saying it is a web browser. They answer that it is a “rendering engine”.
But ok, you might think the obvious thing to do with a “rendering engine” is to make a browser.
I guess that is why they answer the question “what can Servo do for you?” as follows:
“Servo can be used to build embedded applications with web technologies, such as kiosk interfaces and digital signage. At present, Servo is especially suited to applications that use WebGL or WebGPU, as well as CSS-based applications where the developer has control over how components are implemented. Servo’s layout engine can similarly be used as the basis for Rust-based native UI frameworks.”
Maybe it is just me but “we are making a web browser from Servo” or even “YOU could make a web browser with Servo” seem to be markedly under-represented in those answers.
These are from the pages linked.
I guess my question back would be, “what evidence is there that Igalia plans to make a browser?”.
That description also makes it feel like it could be used like a leaner electron
Writing a browser not based on Blink or Gecko seems to be an insane goal these days. Maybe they don’t want to be insane.
My question was a request for clarification, not a challenge to your assertion. I don’t have any reasons to believe that they are or aren’t going to make a browser with it.
Regarding browsers, the blink engine has one important advantage over its competitors - embeddebility. That’s why so many browsers have blink in its core. Servo had a similar goal with Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) compatibility. They dropped it due to some technical difficulty. It would have made servo a drop-in replacement for blink too. I wonder how the embedding story with Servo is, these days.
Setting manageable expectations for the team, is a good thing. And yes a rendering engine can be the core part of a browser. And that is a massive huge monumental chunk of work. If they have the rendering engine production ready some team may be tor is going to wrap a browser interface around it. Getting the engine working is probably 90% of the work