Why differentiate plugins? What makes a VM with JIT not a plugin save the browser vendor shipping it with the browser?
Why wouldn't other browsers have Pepper?
Compilers are as good as what they've been tuned for. In my view PNaCl's shortcoming is startup time because it lacks a JIT and LLVM's back end is too slow for now. Speed up the backend or JIT code and you'll get close to GCC performance while being portable and somewhat language agnostic.
Yes I have seen pepper, and most of the interface relates to the GPU. How is sunk cost better, when a big part of the API can be backed by what canvas relies on?
You would consider adopting PNaCl and pepper in FF if there were games that targeted them? If the code were contributed to Mozilla?
What do you mean by "more native code"? Can't view source?
>Why differentiate plugins? What makes a VM with JIT not a plugin save the browser vendor shipping it with the browser?
I think you answered your own question with the "save" part.
The vendor shipping it with the browser means it controls it, it has responsibility for it, it secures it, and it allows it. End of story.
>Why wouldn't other browsers have Pepper?
JS is a necessity for a web browser/vendor, and is already present in it. Pepper is not, and there are NO signs it will be. Do you see any movement towards adoption as of now? I see the opposite, the abandonment of even old style plugins.
I'll rephrase: why is any new VM to be relegated to the OS? The presence of incumbent VMs?
JS is an incumbent. Pepper is similar to nsapi, and has nice features which are compatible with HTML5's implementation (as in canvas). Saying it shouldn't be adopted because Nobody is adopting it is circular.
I said clearly why Pepper is not being adopted: it is a gigantic pile of API and implementation specified only by the C++ in chromium.org svn. Other browsers cannot port all that OS and WebKit glue code except at very high cost, direct and opportunity -- and even then on a bet that Pepper + NaCl wins, and again on a treadmill far behind Chrome.
Do you actually work on a browser codebase? If so, have you worked on competing browsers' codebases at all? Do you begin to see the problem? It's not quite Active X (open source is a small help), but it's on that slope and uphill only a bit.
> Other browsers cannot port all that OS and WebKit glue code except at very high cost
Why would any other browser need that glue code? The Pepper API is large but fairly straightforward and doesn't change dramatically between revisions. In addition, I don't believe Google has ever said that they wouldn't make the development process around those changes more open (at least making them public before pushing the new implementation out to the world).
> Do you actually work on a browser codebase? If so, have you worked on competing browsers' codebases at all? Do you begin to see the problem? It's not quite Active X (open source is a small help), but it's on that slope and uphill only a bit.
I've only worked on Webkit a small amount (mainly doing security analysis) but I worked with Pepper a good deal and I've worked on Gecko for a decent while now. I really don't see the incompatibility; there are plenty of good arguments against NaCl, but I don't think there's a fundamental problem there. I can definitely understand not wanting to allocate resources to the issue, but not being opposed to the issue in general.
> Why would any other browser need that glue code?
Because other browsers do not use WebKit, or at least chromium WebKit. Are you really asserting that no glue code is required on any other browser?
> The Pepper API is large but fairly straightforward
Where is the spec? You are not in the real world here.
There are plenty of differences between Gecko's audio APIs and Pepper's. If you really work on Gecko, mail me about this. I have reason to doubt your claims here.
Why wouldn't other browsers have Pepper?
Compilers are as good as what they've been tuned for. In my view PNaCl's shortcoming is startup time because it lacks a JIT and LLVM's back end is too slow for now. Speed up the backend or JIT code and you'll get close to GCC performance while being portable and somewhat language agnostic.
Yes I have seen pepper, and most of the interface relates to the GPU. How is sunk cost better, when a big part of the API can be backed by what canvas relies on?
You would consider adopting PNaCl and pepper in FF if there were games that targeted them? If the code were contributed to Mozilla?
What do you mean by "more native code"? Can't view source?
I appreciate the answers.