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There's a difference between open-source software and an open-source project. For example, compare the PostgreSQL and MySQL databases. Both are released under an open licence, but PostgreSQL is developed openly on a mailing-list and anyone can step up and contribute, while MySQL is developed privately by an organisation, with occasional source releases. No single entity has a majority control of PostgreSQL, but Oracle has a pretty firm grasp of MySQL.

Likewise, even though Dart is supplied under an open licence, it remains to be seen whether it's operated more like PostgreSQL or more like MySQL. As I understand it, the V8 project is somewhere between the two, and Android is way up the MySQL end of the spectrum. Based on what Brendan has said, I doubt Mozilla would want such a large part of their platform based on a black box they can't control, and I can't really imagine Microsoft doing it.

I don't think your Unix example is quite fair; the number of Unix systems on the planet is orders of magnitude smaller than the number of web-connected system. Even so, there's still a lot of people working with Darwin in the guise of iOS and OS X, and there's a decent number of computers running non-Unix-based operating systems too.

I'll confess I'm not too familiar with the exact changes planned for ES.next, I just recall Brendan saying that improving JS as a primary language and as a compilation target were major goals in the ECMAScript committee. Maybe it's not there yet, but it can get there faster than it will take to add performant Dart VMs to every browser.

Brendan talks about the specific issue of a standardised bytecode here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1905291 (as part of an entire thread on the topic)




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