Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

An Open Letter to Web Developers

posted by martyb on Friday March 20 2020, @08:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the Do-No-Evil-Poof!-Gone. dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Moonchild, the lead developer of the Pale Moon browser writes:

"Dear Web Developer(s),

While, as a software developer ourselves, we understand very well that new features are exciting to use and integrate into your work, we ask that you please consider not adopting Google WebComponents in your designs. This is especially important if you are a web developer creating frameworks for websites to use.
With Google WebComponents here we mean the use of CustomElements and Shadow DOM, especially when used in combination, and in dynamically created document structures (e.g. using module loading/unloading and/or slotted elements).

Why is this important?

For several reasons, but primarily because it completely goes against the traditional structure of the web being an open and accessible place that isn't inherently locked down to opaque structures or a single client. WebComponents used "in full" (i.e. dynamically) inherently creates complex web page structures that cannot be saved, archived or even displayed outside of the designated targeted browsers (primarily Google Chrome).
One could even say that this is setting the web up for becoming fully content-controlled."

https://about.google/: "Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"

Useful to... whom?

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
An Open Letter to Web Developers | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 68 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday March 23 2020, @04:17PM (2 children)

    by Pino P (4721) on Monday March 23 2020, @04:17PM (#974465) Journal

    Support for encryption model not bound to authorities. End to end encryption. Use public certificates only when absolutely necessary.

    DNS is also "bound to authorities." With what would you propose to replace DNS as a means of looking up the IPv6 address of a Gopher site?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday March 23 2020, @11:57PM (1 child)

    by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Monday March 23 2020, @11:57PM (#974681) Journal

    That's a good question. We have a plan to use nodelist mechanics for building up new logical networks upon new protocols.
    And nodelists for gopher enclaves could be served well by a gopher itself.
    Fragmentation of logical namespace to independent enclaves (zones), aggregated by mutual trust is good for users, bad for tracking.
    Nodelist maintenance fits to git well these days.

    --
    Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.

    • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday March 24 2020, @03:27AM

      by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday March 24 2020, @03:27AM (#974772) Journal

      We have a plan to use nodelist mechanics for building up new logical networks upon new protocols.

      I'm interested, but all results from Google Search for nodelist refer to the HTML DOM as exposed to JavaScript, and gopher nodelist produced nothing relevant on the first page. What should I search for to understand your proposal?

      And nodelists for gopher enclaves could be served well by a gopher itself.

      Would this be analogous to the webring model [wikipedia.org] for discovery of personal websites?