The problem is Apple and Google have financial incentives to drag their feet on things like WebRTC to prevent the web from eating into app sales in their walled gardens.
VR will be a fascinating glimpse at where we stand in this power struggle. Do I have the right to distribute software to my iPhone owning friend? No. Only Apple has that right.
A web OS would bring us back to the age of decentralized distribution we once had with PCs and boxed software sales. It would offer a check to Google and Apple's attempt to own centralized centralized control of software distribution. An escape valve for the users who Apple and Google are currently preventing from writing the software they'd like to write (like web VR).
Without an open source web OS such apps are gated by what perhaps a few hundred engineers at these two companies can imagine, implement, and push through internal politics.
But regardless, I didn't say "Google dragged their feet" I said "Google has an incentive to drag their feet". It's the incentive that scares me. I still trust Google to some degree, but not unconditionally.
VR will be a fascinating glimpse at where we stand in this power struggle. Do I have the right to distribute software to my iPhone owning friend? No. Only Apple has that right.
A web OS would bring us back to the age of decentralized distribution we once had with PCs and boxed software sales. It would offer a check to Google and Apple's attempt to own centralized centralized control of software distribution. An escape valve for the users who Apple and Google are currently preventing from writing the software they'd like to write (like web VR).
Without an open source web OS such apps are gated by what perhaps a few hundred engineers at these two companies can imagine, implement, and push through internal politics.
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Sent from my iPhone.