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Microsoft To Open Source Chakra, the JavaScript Engine In Its Edge Browser (windows.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the still-sounds-odd dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft announced today that it will soon open source the "Chakra" JavaScript engine used inside its Edge browser and Internet Explorer. The company plans to publish the code on its GitHub page in January. "Microsoft is calling the version it's open sourcing ChakraCore. This is the complete JavaScript engine—the parser, the interpreter, the just-in-time compiler, and the garbage collector along with the API used to embed the engine into applications (as used in Edge). This will have the same performance and capabilities, including asm.js and SIMD support, as well as cutting-edge support for new ECMAScript 2015 language features like the version found in Microsoft's Windows 10 browser." While it'll be Windows-only code to start, they plan on taking it cross-platform just as they did with .NET. "Microsoft intends to run ChakraCore's development as a proper community project. The company says that Intel and AMD have already expressed interest in contributing, and others are sure to join them."

2 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's another nail in Firefox's coffin, I fear. by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Informative

    But people today don't use Firefox because they like it. In fact, many people are quite vocal about how much they dislike the direction that Firefox has taken.

    I think you have it the other way around. People do use Firefox because they like it, and people are complaining and leaving Firefox because Mozilla keeps changing it away from the browser they like. Nobody has to use Firefox, and pretty much the only people who do use it because it's the browser that's closest to Firefox 3.x in UI and functionality (if you customize it.)

    Edge isn't going to change that. Edge is not Firefox 3.x, it's not meant to be, and it'll probably never look like that. Firefox will probably disappear into irrelevance within the next two years, but that's 100% on Mozilla, and 0% on any open source initiatives Microsoft might have.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Re:I have no idea what you are smoking... by VertigoAce · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is the license to the open source .NET runtime: https://github.com/dotnet/core.... And here is the license to the open source framework library: https://github.com/dotnet/core....

    Both are MIT licenses. The C#/VB compilers are released under an Apache license: https://github.com/dotnet/rosl...