Linux Foundation Announces the Launch of Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers

[Nomad76]

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the launch of Supporters of Chromium-Based Bowsers. This initiative aims to fund open development and enhance projects within the Chromium ecosystem, ensuring broad support and sustainability for open source contributions that will drive technological advancement.

"With the launch of the Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers, we are taking another step forward in empowering the open source community," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "This project will provide much-needed funding and development support for open development of projects within the Chromium ecosystem."



The Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers will provide a neutral space where industry leaders, academia, developers, and the broader open source community can work together to support projects within the Chromium ecosystem. By fostering collaboration, the initiative aims to remove barriers to innovation, expand adoption, and ensure that projects within the Chromium ecosystem receive the resources they need to thrive. The Chromium projects themselves will remain under current, existing governance structures while just the new Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers will be housed under the Linux Foundation.

Several leading organizations have already pledged their support for the initiative, including Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Opera. These organizations are committed to driving innovation in the Chromium ecosystem through their involvement in this initiative.

• "With the incredible support of the Linux Foundation, we believe the Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers is an important opportunity to create a sustainable platform to support industry leaders, academia, developers, and the broader open source community in the continued development and innovation of the Chromium ecosystem," said Parisa Tabriz, VP, Chrome.
• "Microsoft is pleased to join this initiative which will help drive collaboration within the Chromium ecosystem. This initiative aligns with our commitment to the web platform through meaningful and positive contributions, engagement in collaborative engineering, and partnerships with the community to achieve the best outcome for everyone using the web," said Meghan Perez, VP, Microsoft Edge.
• "As one of the major browsers contributing to the Chromium project, Opera is pleased to join the Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers and to lend our efforts towards the development of the open-source ecosystem. We look forward to collaborating with members of the project to foster this growth and to keep building innovative and compelling products for all users," said Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers, Opera.

The Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers follow an open governance model, drawing from best practices established by other successful Linux Foundation initiatives. It prioritizes transparency, inclusivity, and community-driven development. A technical advisory committee (TAC) will be formed to guide the initiative's development, ensuring that it meets the needs of the wider Chromium community.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Great, because what the world needs is more weight and momentum behind Chromium...

 

[qlum]

Great, because what the world needs is more weight and momentum behind Chromium...

Maybe, but if chromium is less governed by Google and more a open model, it is still an improvement.
Maybe this move is ahead of Google being forced to distance themselves from chrome / chromium or as a counter to potential legislation.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

I love Firefox, using it since it was called Phoenix but it looks like they either adopt Chromium or die.

I hope thats not the case, but not holding my breath.

 

[_roman_]

Can someone please elaborate where the targets were met in the past?

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, ...

There are much more important tasks open.

Those browsers ignore RFC standards and pull in sites which should not have been resolveable by DNS

DNS over HTTPS - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And the feature is not called DNS, or DOH, or DNS over HTTPS, it is some gibberish about cloudflare and google, hidden in the 5th submenu of e.g. vivaldi

 

[The Terrible Puddle]

Tech enthusiasts will leave Chromium when Google makes Manifest V3 mandatory though, because adblockers will no longer work in any Chromium browser.
So whatever this is it's little too late.

 

[trsttte]

Tech enthusiasts will leave Chromium when Google makes Manifest V3 mandatory though, because adblockers will no longer work in any Chromium browser.
So whatever this is it's little too late.

Tech enthusiasts are the minority though, it will take time for them to advise everyone else to also switch over.

 

[R-T-B]

Those browsers ignore RFC standards and pull in sites which should not have been resolveable by DNS

Am I misunderstanding you or are you trying to make encrypted dns standards out to be a bad thing somehow?

Don't like cloudflare or google? Choose another server. It's literally exactly the same as standard dns in that regard, only encrypted, which is way better for user privacy.

Anyways this is not only incredibly misinformed, but very offtopic.

 

[chrcoluk]

Great, because what the world needs is more weight and momentum behind Chromium...

Exactly, why on earth is this not on Firefox itself or a Firefox fork?

 

[Tomorrow]

Tech enthusiasts will leave Chromium when Google makes Manifest V3 mandatory though, because adblockers will no longer work in any Chromium browser.
So whatever this is it's little too late.

Adblockers will still work but with restrictions imposed by Manifest V3. This will make them less functional.

 

[_roman_]

Am I misunderstanding you or are you trying to make encrypted dns standards out to be a bad thing somehow?

Note: This is my opinion as a long time user. Everyone has the right and choice to configure his box to his needs and his ideas. ... Gentoo is about choice.

I just found recently that option. Why vivaldi and some ohter browsers ignore my /etc/hosts from 2006.
For windows users, just a coincidence, why is it in ... c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Why does it have the same config file syntax?

I have no issue with that Dns over https, but it pulls from the web bad bits which should be not possible in the first place.
Vivaldi is broken because the config file /etc/hosts is ignored - with default settings.

The option is not named properly and in the 5th submenu from vivaldi.

Google, cloudflare, vivaldi, google-chrome ... those guys do not know better as myself. I do not want to download a single bit from that. That junk option DNS over HTTPS ignores my config file.
Browser plugins are just a nasty hack for the general purpose /etc/hosts.

--

I'm really curious on the fabulous achievements and fabulous things done by the linux foundation. I barely notice them since 1996 as gnu userspace user with a linux kernel. It's all a mess. FHS is not respected which was the case several years ago.

 

[NoneRain]

Why vivaldi and some ohter browsers ignore my /etc/hosts from 2006.

----------------------------------------------------------

I still don't get why The Linux Foundation is going for Chromium.... I guess that's it, the nail in the coffin of other browsers.

 

[R-T-B]

I'm really curious on the fabulous achievements and fabulous things done by the linux foundation. I barely notice them since 1996 as gnu userspace user with a linux kernel. It's all a mess. FHS is not respected which was the case several years ago.

They literally do the linux kernel, no?

Note: This is my opinion as a long time user. Everyone has the right and choice to configure his box to his needs and his ideas. ... Gentoo is about choice.

I just found recently that option. Why vivaldi and some ohter browsers ignore my /etc/hosts from 2006.
For windows users, just a coincidence, why is it in ... c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Why does it have the same config file syntax?

I have no issue with that Dns over https, but it pulls from the web bad bits which should be not possible in the first place.
Vivaldi is broken because the config file /etc/hosts is ignored - with default settings.

The option is not named properly and in the 5th submenu from vivaldi.

Google, cloudflare, vivaldi, google-chrome ... those guys do not know better as myself. I do not want to download a single bit from that. That junk option DNS over HTTPS ignores my config file.
Browser plugins are just a nasty hack for the general purpose /etc/hosts.

--

I'm really curious on the fabulous achievements and fabulous things done by the linux foundation. I barely notice them since 1996 as gnu userspace user with a linux kernel. It's all a mess. FHS is not respected which was the case several years ago.

That's a fair complaint but note encrypted dns is not supported by the same standard as /etc/resolv.conf so can't use that part (the syntax isn't even the same). As for /etc/hosts the standard indeed doesn't support that and honestly, probably should. My organization gets around this with a standard dns -> encrypted dns bridge but it certainly could be easier.

Also, greetings fellow Gentoo user! Rare these days to find two of us in the wild.

 

[remixedcat]

Linux foundation also focuses more on AI than actual Linux stuff

 

[R-T-B]

Linux foundation also focuses more on AI than actual Linux stuff

They literally get hosting for the kernel.org site and hire the devs, don't they? That's like... the majority of what makes linux linux. What AI stuff are they involved in? I'm aware of pytorch after googling but that is one out of a lot of other projects, and it makes sense because it depends a lot on well... linux.

 

[remixedcat]

They literally get hosting for the kernel.org site and hire the devs, don't they? That's like... the majority of what makes linux linux. What AI stuff are they involved in? I'm aware of pytorch after googling but that is one out of a lot of other projects, and it makes sense because it depends a lot on well... linux.

They used to do more with Linux but they've branched out into AI and crypto.... there was a good rundown video but I'd have to find it.. it's late and I gotta get some shut eye had a tough work day

 

[R-T-B]

They used to do more with Linux but they've branched out into AI and crypto.... there was a good rundown video but I'd have to find it.. it's late and I gotta get some shut eye had a tough work day

Not sure how much I'm going to trust "I watched a video" as I know all too well the level of investigative journalism youtube provides. No offense meant or intended of course. Get good rest.

All I know is linux as we know it would no longer exist as an updated, centralized kernel were the Linux Foundations work to stop.

 

[ZeDestructor]

Exactly, why on earth is this not on Firefox itself or a Firefox fork?

Because of this:

(The top two tiers of LiFo sponsors, in case that wasn't obvious)

Not sure how much I'm going to trust "I watched a video" as I know all too well the level of investigative journalism youtube provides. No offense meant or intended of course. Get good rest.

All I know is linux as we know it would no longer exist as an updated, centralized kernel were the Linux Foundations work to stop.

How about their own annual report?

Fucking blockchain has more funding (4%) than the kernel (2%), meanwhile Linux desktop received literally zero fucking dollars. Put that 4% into desktop Linux - KDE, GNOME and other related and competing projects, and Firefox and the world would be far, far better place. Let alone the 11% spent wasted utterly squandered on AI, ML and Data Analytics.

(in case it wasn't obvious that chart makes me quite angry)

 

[R-T-B]

Fucking blockchain has more funding (4%) than the kernel (2%), meanwhile Linux desktop received literally zero fucking dollars. Put that 4% into desktop Linux - KDE, GNOME and other related and competing projects, and Firefox and the world would be far, far better place. Let alone the 11% spent wasted utterly squandered on AI, ML and Data Analytics.

(in case it wasn't obvious that chart makes me quite angry)

It makes me a little angry too, not going to lie.

Those numbers are not what I expected given their (now distant probably) past history. Thanks for them, anyways.

 

[trsttte]

Fucking blockchain has more funding (4%) than the kernel (2%), meanwhile Linux desktop received literally zero fucking dollars. Put that 4% into desktop Linux - KDE, GNOME and other related and competing projects, and Firefox and the world would be far, far better place. Let alone the 11% spent wasted utterly squandered on AI, ML and Data Analytics.

Sure it doesn't look great, but blockchain is not just bitcoin or crypto currency, AI is not just LLMs, etc. It's weird to see those percentages but without further context it doesn't say much. Looking at the top sponsors it's feasable that some of those percentages were set in accordance to where the money is coming from - sponsor companies want Linux to work and be compatible with certain things so the Foundation has to invest in them.

 

[ZeDestructor]

Sure it doesn't look great, but blockchain is not just bitcoin or crypto currency, AI is not just LLMs, etc. It's weird to see those percentages but without further context it doesn't say much. Looking at the top sponsors it's feasable that some of those percentages were set in accordance to where the money is coming from - sponsor companies want Linux to work and be compatible with certain things so the Foundation has to invest in them.

I get that, but this is the "Linux Foundation", not the "General Tech Foundation". I wouldn't even mind that money is going into blockchains or AI, if there was at least some effort put into desktop Linux, but no, this is just a facade for the sponsors to funnel money into other various pet projects without making it very obvious to their shareholders or the general public.

 

[trsttte]

I get that, but this is the "Linux Foundation", not the "General Tech Foundation". I wouldn't even mind that money is going into blockchains or AI, if there was at least some effort put into desktop Linux, but no, this is just a facade for the sponsors to funnel money into other various pet projects without making it very obvious to their shareholders or the general public.

I think that's a very limited and limiting view on the purpose of the Linux foundation. It was created to support the linux kernel - which technically speaking would exclude any desktop efforts from the get go - but it evolved, namely through the merger with the Free Standards Group but also just natural evolution, to support a myriad of open source projects.

Being a non profit they are dependent on sponsors and need to continue to cater to their needs to stay relevant, but I would not call that a front to funnel money, until proven different I'd consider them very independent not least because all the linux sponsors very much depend on the kernel and many other linux foundation projects to continue working. This image comes to mind:

source: https://xkcd.com/2347/

 

[ZeDestructor]

I think that's a very limited and limiting view on the purpose of the Linux foundation. It was created to support the linux kernel - which technically speaking would exclude any desktop efforts from the get go - but it evolved, namely through the merger with the Free Standards Group but also just natural evolution, to support a myriad of open source projects.

Being a non profit they are dependent on sponsors and need to continue to cater to their needs to stay relevant, but I would not call that a front to funnel money, until proven different I'd consider them very independent not least because all the linux sponsors very much depend on the kernel and many other linux foundation projects to continue working. This image comes to mind:

source: https://xkcd.com/2347/

The same sponsors that repeatedly let their "random person in nebraska" go hungry.

Look, I don't mind that money is squandered in shit I don't care about, but you can't call it anything else but a front for some money funelling when on one side you are funding shit that nobody will interact with in any meaningful degree, while on the other side you have maintainers of crucial stuff like OpenSSL and xz being so overworked and underpaid that major vulnerabilities are getting through due to lack of energy and time to do serious code review.

Get the critical shit in a good, sustainable state, *then* I start calling your pet projects pet projects instead of a front for money funelling.

And just rename the Linux Foundation while we're at it, cause it's no longer focused on Linux specifically, it's focused on all sorts of things that are very tangentially related to Linux.