Note: Original report by Bloomberg, article by Reuters proxied by Neuters to bypass paywall.

  • @btaf45
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    43 hours ago

    What’s to stop them just making another browser?

    Nothing. Chromium is open source. So they could just fork it and declare a new “official” google browser and it would be a lot like Chrome.

    I’m not sure why the govt thinks forcing google to give up a particular fork/branch of an open source browser is all that meaningful. It might make more sense if Chrome was a closed source one of a kind browser.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 hour ago

      I’ve worked in the aftermath of DoJ agreements like this one. The DoJ is not stupid (or at least didn’t used to be) and will have stipulations about removing Google employees from governance/write permissions to the project, with follow up check-ins every few months to make sure any shenanigans aren’t occurring.

      …none of that matters though now that the DoJ is going to be dissolved.

    • @[email protected]
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      33 hours ago

      That’s exactly what I was thinking. It also makes Chrome essentially worthless to anyone except Google.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 hour ago

        Maybe as a whole package, but node.js servers are ubiquitous and have a ton of stakeholders that have nothing to do with web browsers.

        • @btaf45
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          19 minutes ago

          What does Chrome have to do with a node.js server?