From the ‘Rust is Good’ files”
Mozilla is partnering with mobile phone giant on an effort that i consider to be the most important in the entire history of Mozilla. For the first time (so far as I know) Mozilla could be leaving Gecko behind and moving to a new engine
“Servo is an attempt to rebuild the Web browser from the ground up on modern hardware, rethinking old assumptions along the way,” Mozilla CTO, Brendan Eich wrote in a blog post. “This means addressing the causes of security vulnerabilities while designing a platform that can fully utilize the performance of tomorrow’s massively parallel hardware to enable new and richer experiences on the Web.”
Servo is based on the Mozilla led Rust language– which itself is an attempt to replace ‘c’.
Normally I’d just think that this is an interesting experiment, but wouldn’t expect much to come of it. After all, Gecko is at the core of everything that Mozilla does (including Firefox OS right?).
Then again, Servo isn’t necessarily competitive – it’s an evolution of sorts. The fact that Mozilla is working Samsung is a clear indication to me that this is serious. Mozilla has experimented with non-Gecko browsers before – in 2012 there was a new WebKit based development called Junior– that seems to have gone nowhere.
Being bound to a c/gecko legacy isn’t the way to build innovation so I salute Mozilla and its partner Samsung in breaking outside of 15 year plus thinking to try something new.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
