Servo Revival: 2023-2024
A revived push to develop the Servo browser engine in Rust is prompting debate over how much the web needs new, independent rendering engines versus continued investment in existing ones like Firefox’s Gecko and Chromium. Commenters highlight funding challenges—Servo now relies on sponsorships and hopes for institutional backers—and weigh the risks of large-scale rewrites against incremental refactoring for performance, security, and memory safety. Igalia’s role as a major open-source consultancy and contributor to Chromium and WebKit is seen as both a technical asset for Servo and a potential pillar of future browser engine diversity.
Project status & funding
- Some readers read the “revival” framing as implying Servo is effectively “default dead” without substantial funding.
- Others argue “default dead” is a startup concept and less applicable to an OSS engine with no direct customers.
- Multiple comments hope for institutional backing (EU, governments, nonprofits, or many small donors) rather than reliance on a single billionaire donor, to avoid undue influence.
Igalia and the browser ecosystem
- Igalia is described as a major, highly trusted consultancy in browser and OSS work, including large contributions to Chromium and maintaining Linux WebKit ports.
- Several note Igalia’s depth of talent and even speculate it could take technical leadership of Chromium if Chrome is ever divested.
- Companies often fund Igalia to optimize or implement specific browser features they rely on.
Technical direction: rendering and backends
- Questions arise about moving WebRender from OpenGL to Vulkan or wgpu; some doubt WebGPU-based APIs can fully exploit modern GPUs.
- Servo contributors mention exploration of pluggable backends and using the wgpu-based Vello library for Canvas2D.
- Separate Rust DOM/render projects (e.g., Blitz) are noted but aren’t direct Servo/WebRender drop-ins.
Mozilla’s cancellation of Servo
- Many are surprised Mozilla cut the Servo team given its role as a Rust showcase and potential future engine.
- Others defend Mozilla: Gecko already exists, large-scale rewrites are risky (Netscape cited), and resources were better spent incrementally modernizing Gecko.
- Parts of Servo (Stylo, WebRender) successfully shipped in Firefox; remaining components, especially layout, were immature and mid-rewrite when funding ended.
- Debate centers on whether long-term competitiveness needs a new Rust-based engine or continued Gecko refactoring.
Rust, rewrites, and safety
- Long subthread debates full rewrites vs incremental Rust adoption for memory safety.
- One side stresses that only a near-total Rust rewrite meaningfully eliminates C/C++-style memory bugs; the other cites classic “never rewrite from scratch” arguments and Google’s success adding new safe code without full rewrites.
- Rust’s model (ownership, lifetimes, more stack allocation, fewer leaks) is praised, but commenters note Rust can still leak memory (e.g., reference cycles).
Funding and sponsorship options
- Servo now accepts donations via Open Collective and GitHub Sponsors.
- Discussion compares fees and centralization risks: GitHub yields slightly higher net funds, but some prefer Open Collective’s independence and transparency despite higher fees, especially outside the US.
Other Rust and “rewrite in Rust” projects
- Several Rust projects (OSes, desktops, tools, data libraries, browser-like engines) are cited as promising.
- Commenters differentiate between productive rewrites and unconstructive calls for “someone else” to rewrite mature C projects in Rust.
User access / testing
- A commenter asks if there is a browser build where Servo can be tested; no clear answer is provided in the thread.