this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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I'm just learning there's another web engine? I heard about Ladybird but not this. Now I need to try it.
Servo was an experimental ground for Mozilla in some ways (like testing out a new CSS engine and porting it back to Gecko if it works). So it's quite normal for people to be unaware of it, it was not meant for the public.
But later on it was abandoned by Mozilla and stuck in a limbo, until it got picked up by the Linux Foundation. Now it's a standalone project and I wish them well. We really need a new FOSS web engine.
Gecko isnt?
One of the differences is that Gecko written in C++ while Servo is written in Rust
It's also more optimized and modern
That may explain the language it was written in (if that even matters? Not a developer) but why is Gecko supposdely not open source?
The language doesn't really matter, the important thing is that it's a new codebase with a focus on memory safety and performance, and Rust helps servo achieve that goal. Gecko is an older codebase, so its focus would be more on compatibility.
Both are open source, servo is mostly exciting because it's a ground-up reimplementation, so it's not shackled by older decisions.
I don’t think he’s suggesting it isn’t open source, just we need more open source engines.
Gecko is open source. They were saying it would be good to have a new FOSS browser engine that isn't Chromium or Gecko to add some competition to the mix
Ah you got my comment wrong! I didn't mean to suggest Gecko is closed source. I just wanted another web engine that is also open source.
Happens. Sorry :D
Gecko is of course Open Source. It is also pretty much the oldest browser engine code base and written in C++. Servo is modern and Rust. Gecko started at Netscape.
The other problem is that Gecko is hard to embed.
I hate having to rely on Gecko alone to keep Google from having complete control of the web. Very happy to hear about Servo.
Servo was codeveloped with rust by Mozilla, to get a faster and safer engine. Servo basically showed where improvements needed to be done and then rustc was modified to fit the need.