Servo (software)
 | |
 Servo shell rendering this page | |
| Original author(s) | Mozilla Corporation |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Linux Foundationand volunteers[1][2] |
| Repository | |
| Written in | Rust |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Browser engine |
| License | MPL 2.0[3] |
| Website | servo |
Servois an experimentalbrowser enginedesigned to take advantage of thememory safetyproperties andconcurrencyfeatures of theRustprogramming language. It seeks to create a highlyparallelenvironment, in which rendering, layout,HTMLparsing, image decoding, and other engine components are handled by fine-grained, isolatedtasks.[4][5]It also makes use ofGPUacceleration to renderweb pagesquickly and smoothly.[6][7]
Servo has always been a research project. It began at theMozilla Corporationin 2012, and its employees did the bulk of the work until 2020.[8]This included theQuantum project,when portions of Servo were incorporated into theGeckoengine ofFirefox.[9][10]
After Mozilla laid off all Servo developers in 2020,[8]governance of the project was transferred to theLinux Foundation.[1]Development work officially continues at the sameGitHubrepository with the project itself entirely volunteer driven.[2]
History
[edit]Development of Servo began at theMozilla Corporationin 2012.[11][12]The project was named afterTom Servo,a robot from the television showMystery Science Theater 3000.[13]
In 2013, Mozilla announced thatSamsungwas collaborating on the project.[14]Samsung's main contribution wasportingServo toAndroidandARM processors.[15]A Samsung developer also attempted to re-implement theChromium Embedded FrameworkAPI in Servo,[16]but it never reached fruition and the code was eventually removed.[17]
TheAcid2test was passed in 2014,[4]and Servo could render some websites faster than theGeckoengine ofFirefox.[18]By 2016, the engine had been further optimized.[19]The same year, Mozilla began theQuantum project,which incorporated stable portions of Servo into Gecko.[9][10]
Servo was the engine of twoaugmented realitybrowsers. The first was for aMagic Leapheadset in 2018.[20]Then the Firefox Reality browser was released in 2020.[21]
In August 2020, Mozillalaid offmany employees, including the Servo team, to "adapt its finances to a post-COVID-19world and re-focus the organization on new commercial services ".[8]Governance of the Servo project was thus transferred to theLinux Foundation.[1]
In October 2021,Eclipse Foundationlaunched Oniro OS vendor neutral open-sourcedistributed operating systemin Europe forInternet of thingsandEmbedded deviceswith various partners such asHuaweiandLinaroamong others, based onOpenAtom FoundationOpenHarmonyfor software development with Servo web engine as part of the open source project built onRust language.[22]
In January 2023, the Servo project announced that new external funding had enabled a team of developers to reactivate the project.[23]The initial roadmap focused on selecting one of the two existing layout engines for further development, followed by working towards basic CSS2 conformance.[24]In February 2024, atFOSDEM2024, the Servo Project team outlined their plans for a 'reboot' of Servo.[25]
References
[edit]- ^abc"Servo's new home".servo.org.Retrieved17 November2020.
- ^ab"Servo code commit log".GitHub.Retrieved30 April2021.
- ^"servo/LICENSE".GitHub.Retrieved5 December2018.
- ^abMoffitt, Jack (17 April 2014)."Another Big Milestone for Servo—Acid2".Retrieved26 November2015.
- ^"Servo Continues Pushing Forward".servo.org.1 May 2015.Retrieved26 November2015.
- ^Bergstrom, Lars."Mozilla's Project Quantum and Servo".mozilla.dev.servo - Google Groups.Retrieved9 November2016.
- ^Clark, Lin (10 October 2017)."The whole web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank".Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog.Retrieved22 October2017.
- ^abc"Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products".ZDNet.11 August 2020.Retrieved17 August2020.
- ^ab"Quantum".Mozilla Wiki.Retrieved20 April2017.
- ^ab"Servo engines written in Rust deliver memory safety and multithreading".Mozilla Research.Retrieved5 July2020.
- ^"initial add · servo/servo@ce30d45".GitHub.
- ^"Add some stubs and a makefile · servo/servo@783455f".GitHub.
- ^Eich, Brendan (13 October 2012)."Add a new UI crate".GitHub.Retrieved2 April2014.
- ^"Mozilla and Samsung Collaborate on Next Generation Web Browser Engine".
- ^"Samsung teams up with Mozilla to build browser engine for multicore machines".Ars Technica.3 April 2013.Retrieved24 October2014.
- ^Blumenkrantz, Mike; Bergstrom, Lars (13 May 2015)."Servo: The Embeddable Browser Engine - Samsung Open Source Group Blog".Samsung Open Source Group Blog.Archived fromthe originalon 13 May 2015.Retrieved28 October2016.
- ^Dropping CEF support?,retrieved7 November2018
- ^Larabel, Michael (9 November 2014)."Mozilla's Servo Engine Is Crazy Fast Compared To Gecko".Phoronix.Retrieved21 April2021.
- ^Larabel, Michael (8 March 2016)."Mozilla's Servo Is Whooping The Other Browsers In Performance".Phoronix.Retrieved21 April2021.
- ^"A new browser for Magic Leap".blog.mozvr.3 December 2018.Retrieved20 May2019.
- ^"Firefox Reality for HoloLens 2".21 May 2020.Retrieved17 July2020.
- ^Sarkar, Amy."OpenAtom and Eclipse Foundation signs cooperation for Oniro software".HC Newsroom.HC Newsroom.Retrieved11 February2024.
- ^"Servo to Advance in 2023".servo.org.16 January 2023.Retrieved13 February2023.
- ^"Servo 2023 Roadmap".servo.org.3 February 2023.Retrieved13 February2023.
- ^Rudra, Sourav (5 February 2024)."Mozilla's Abandoned Web Engine 'Servo' Project is Getting a Well-Deserved Reboot in 2024".It's FOSS News.Retrieved8 February2024.
External links
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