Open source isn't meant to give everyone control over a specific project. It's meant to make it so, if you don't like the project, you can fork it and chart your own direction for it.
exactly. open source doesn't mean you can tell other people what to do with their time and/or money. it does mean that you can use your own time and/or money to make it what you want it to be. The fact that there are active forks of Chromium is a pretty good indicator that it is working
It's meant to make it so, if you don't like the project, you can fork it and chart your own direction for it.
...accompanied by the wrath of countless others discouraging you from trying to fork if you even so much as give slight indications of wanting to do so, and then when you do, they continue to spread FUD about how your fork is inferior.
I've seen plenty of discussions here and elsewhere where the one who suggests forking got a virtual beating for it.
A browser is an extreme case, one of the most difficult types of software and full of stupid minutia and legacy crap. Nobody want to volunteer for that.
Machine learning is fun and ultimately it doesn't require a lot of code. If people have the compute, open source maintainers will have the interest to exploit it due to the high coolness-to-work-required ratio.
The graph seems to be that browsers are able to focus more resources towards improving the browser than improving the browser engine to meet their needs. If the browser engine already has what they need there is less of need for companies to dig deep into the internals. It's a sign of maturity and also a sign that open source work is properly being funded.
One needs to follow the money to find the true direction. I think the ideal setup is that such a product is owned by a public figure/org who has no vested interest in making money or using it in a way.
