Is Google Really Letting Go of Chromium?

This week, it seemed that Google started handing over the reigns of Chromium to The Linux Foundation and the future of the web seems a little brighter today. Or does it?

While I often talk about Linux gaming on this channel, another of my biggest passions is the web. I am a web developer by trade writing backend and frontend code in equal measure. And as much as I geek out over operating systems, I am just as much of a nerd about browsers. Firefox, Brave… I love ‘em.

Like I said, Chromium is what Google Chrome is based on. And Chrome accounts for some 70% of all browser market share in the world.

But Chromium isn’t just the upstream project of Google Chrome. It’s the basis for Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera and pretty much every other browser you’ve ever heard of besides Firefox.

What’s even more crazy, though? Chromium is the basis of Discord, Slack, Spotify, VS Code, and other Electron-based applications. And even more relevant to this channel: Valve ships a version of Chromium to power many aspects of the Steam UI including the built-in browser, friends and chats, the desktop library, and even Big Picture Mode itself.

Suffice it to say that Chromium dominates not just the browser market, but much of the desktop and moible app market, too.

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-- Chapters --
00:00 Introduction
00:29 The Scope of the Issue
02:56 The Linux Foundation
04:35 What is Chromium
04:59 Who's involved
05:37 What will Supporters of Chromium-based Browsers actually do
06:14 My skepticism
08:52 Conclusion

About Gardiner Bryant: A native Maine resident, Gardiner (yes, that's his first name) is an enthusiastic Linux evangelist, a believer in the efficacy and superiority of the Free and Open Source way, and President of Heavy Element. Heavy Element offers web design, media production, and YouTube consulting services to individuals and companies in Maine and beyond.

[gardiner_bryant]

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[talideon]

This is a bait-and-switch attempt by Google to avoid Chrome having to be spun off. Quite transparently so.

[majorgnu]

I'm more worried about the direction of Android than Chrome.
Smartphones and smartphone apps are becoming increasingly critical to people's lives and the Android ecosystem becoming increasingly reliant on proprietary Google components is very worrying, given that Android the closest thing to a FOSS platform in the horrid smartphone platform duopoly.

[SamHart]

So, I'm a former Linux Foundation employee. I was there when the organization first started, having come over from the FSG (the LF was the result of merging the FSG with the OSDL). I was there for the first few years of the organization. This move doesn't remotely surprise me.

Early LF had an internal power struggle with the two different management teams from the two different orgs that they merged from. JimZ's group won out. His group effectively turned the LF into an industry lobbying group into open source projects. Big companies would see LF as a way to get pet projects into Open Source projects without having to do the traditional due diligence of having their tech vetted. It was slimy and icky and the big reason I'm no longer there. Sure, you have your Linus's who are insulated from this sliminess, but if you're not as big of a deal as someone like him, you were pretty much expected to prioritize code from companies over code from individuals.

My point is this move really doesn't surprise me. The LF is more than willing to provide cover for companies like Google to act like they have divested Chromium to fend off antitrust lawsuits, while really just letting Google continue to control it entirely.

[thingsiplay]

If only the Linux Foundation took over Chromium entirely. This would have been the optimal outcome. As this is not the case, at least some support for Mozilla Firefox would have been nice, so that they are no longer dependent on the Google money. We need Firefox as an alternative.

[logicalfundy]

Will they release some of the limitations of manifest v3? To me, that's a pretty good indicator of whether or not Google is really giving up their control over the project, or if it's merely a smokescreen to try to ward off regulators.

[domcyr]

Trusting Google is akin to putting a fresh piece of meat in front of a starving lion expecting it not to eat it.

[christopherhorn]

I used to use Chrome for Netflix, Prime, etc. because I didn't wanna enable DRM in my Firefox. But then I realized it doesn't matter, I'd really rather just use Firefox for everything....

[Valyrie]

google wouldnt do it unless it was useful. divesting for chromium might help them in litigation, which is nice, but more so than that? they can make more of their code proprietary down the road and leave competition in the dust. imagine the board room meeting "so we're paying developers to make software anyone can use? that ridiculous! we need to be the ones in control of our own technology, so we can soar ahead of the competition!"

[kurtslagle]

Suspicions of Google are almost never misplaced

[ChloeCake]

Oh so *that's* why Big Picture and Steam in general are so slow, they're Chromium in disguise!

[boh]

You hit the nail on the head. The fact that "browsers" is in the name showcases that it is just an empty gesture.

[acegear]

im more interested if google still have controll like the manifest v3 forcing other browser to implement or thus the linux foundation will remove that feature making chrome more open, worst case google just pay LF money to piggy bank its name open source etc etc but still do what it wants with chromemium update to manifest v4 etc etc

[CrypticConsole]

Curious choice to use Linux Foundation, they are generally more GPL/copyleft where as apache is more MIT/BSD

[liquidsnake]

Nah i'm not buying it, Ladybird or nothing

[tranthien]

Reject everything, return to NetScape

[QHawk]

*Free & Opensource = Free employers for big tech corporations*

[JeremyLeePotocki]

It's all to look good to a judge for mercy sake. The whole Alphabet company needs the Ma Bell treatment if they don't they will become just like Microsoft when they failed to get said treatment. However unlike Microsoft the reach Alphabet has is far more damming than Microsoft so they will have more control over people & most countries even.

[docopoper]

I suspect The Linux Foundation is trying to look receptive and helpful for if Google wants to actually divest any ownership to them during the lawsuit. But yeah, this certainly looks like they're being taken advantage of and they shouldn't have accepted that name.

[MrMysterious]

I feel like any anti-trust lawsuits towards Google may disappear very soon, Lina you will be missed