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Microsoft Open Sources Edge JavaScript Code, Plans Linux Port (windows.com)
colinneagle writes: One month after promising to release the JavaScript engine of its Edge browser, Microsoft has proven good for its word and then some. Not only is it releasing the code, it's planning a Linux port. The company uploaded the code to GitHub and announced its plans via a blog post by Gaurav Seth, principal PM manager for Chakra, which is what they're calling the JavaScript engine. "Today, we are excited to share with you that we've just made the sources for ChakraCore available under the MIT License at the ChakraCore GitHub repository," he wrote. "Going forward, we'll be developing the key components of Chakra in the open." With the release, you can build ChakraCore on Windows 7 SP1 or above with Visual Studio 2013 or 2015 with C++ support installed, Seth said. Of course, Edge is more than just the Chakra engine, but this could result in a back port to Windows 7. He also said Microsoft is committed to bringing it to other platforms, starting with Linux, and invited developers to "help us in the pursuit either by letting us know which other platforms they'd like to see ChakraCore supported on, or even by helping port it to the platform of their choice."
I've been using, supporting, and contributing to many open source software for decades. As much as I hate to say it, it's getting to the point where I trust Microsoft more than I trust many open source projects, especially the bigger ones.
Linux has become unusable for me now that all of the major distros include systemd by default. I had a lot of problems with it when it was first included in Debian. I know many others have had severe problems with it, too, given the number of complaints I see here and at so many other discussion venues. The Linux distro mailing lists and bug trackers that I follow are full of awful problems involving systemd.
You talk of "malware". Well given all of the trouble it has caused me, I consider systemd to be a form of malware. Yet every major Linux distro wants to force this malware on me! So I can no longer use Linux. I've never had systems running Windows 8 or Windows 10 fail to boot, while it has become a routine problem when using recent versions of the major Linux distros.
It's not much different for Firefox. What was once my favorite browser has become unrecognizable. The UI has been ruined, the browser itself has built-in ads, there are unwanted things like Pocket and Hello forced on me and so many other unwilling victims. Worst of all, Firefox's performance is still quite bad, and there are many bugs that haven't been fixed, even after years.
Then there's GNOME 3. I used GNOME 2 for many years and was very pleased with it. But GNOME 3 was unbelievably awful. It's worse than the UIs of Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, and I don't particularly like their UIs either.
I'll probably be accused of being a "shill", yet nobody is paying me to express these unfortunate truths. I don't want to use Microsoft's software, but these days it's way better than the open source alternatives. Windows is more reliable for me than Linux has been. Windows provides me a better desktop environment than GNOME 3 does. Edge has been a better browser for me than Firefox has been.
Open source software used to be consistently better than the proprietary or commercial alternatives, but those days appear to be long gone. Now it's like the developers of open source software go out of their way to make it worse, and I don't know why!