IBM casts doubt on Google's claims of quantum supremacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-supremacy/ <comment><USER3> Following the quantum supremacy controversy is very frustrating. It gets constantly framed as a decisive step that changes everything, which is wrong. But then there's also an opposite and _equally_ wrong reaction that any challenges to the claim prove that quantum computing doesn't work at all.

The reality is that quantum computing technology has been improving at the same steady pace for decades, and quantum supremacy was recently invented as a concrete but not very useful goal that people could realistically aim for in the near term. That is a totally standard and legitimate way of guiding technological progress.

The problem is that quantum supremacy is vaguely defined (what does "infeasible on any classical computer" mean? what computers can you use, and for how long?) but it is presented to the public as a sharp boundary -- which means that every company in the field has a huge incentive to claim they are the first. This IBM claim is not a fundamental objection. Given that everything they say is correct, Google could _still_ achieve quantum supremacy by their standards just by incremental improvement, slapping a few more qubits on. So why even bother disputing Google's claim? Because it will set them back a few years, and that's enough time for IBM to make a claim of its own. That's why academics, who have no stake in what company gets the hype, will just consider this whole episode rather distasteful.

<comment><USER4> Quantum supremacy is a big deal. It is a goddamn experimental evidence against Extended Church-Turing Thesis. If you never believed ECT (for example, all physicists seem to think ECT is obviously false) it may not matter to you, but it still is a serious claim.

Yes, Google probably can achieve quantum supremacy by slapping a few more qubits. But a few more qubits were, in fact, not slapped yet. So quantum supremacy is very much not achieved, and Google should not claim so.

<comment><USER5> How does quantum computation conflict with the ECT? I think Aaronson had talked about this but I don't remember his position on this.

<comment><USER6> The original Church Turing thesis concerns itself with computability and quantum computers do not violate it.

The Extended version goes on to say a probabilistic TM can efficiently simulate all realistic models of computation. Quantum computers very likely violate the efficiency claim and this supremacy result is strong evidence in support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The main takeaway here is figure 1 in this article: they show that for an increasing circuit depth, computation time (on a classical computer) scales linearly. Google claims, on the other hand, that a classical calculation would scale exponentially. This is the basis for the graph in the Google blog [1], which seems to suggest that the Quantum computer can easily reach points (such as qbits=50, cycles=25) which the classical computer would never be able to reach. This is not true, if IBM is right. Their linearly scaling graph proves that they are not nitpicking their input, I would say.

[1]: [https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/10/quantum-supremacy-using- pr...](https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/10/quantum-supremacy-using- programmable.html)

<comment><USER8> There are many problems where the best known quantum algorithm is asymptotically better than the best known classical algorithm but, as far as I've heard, nobody has ever found a case where the best quantum algorithm can be proved to be better than the best classical algorithm. So there's always going to be a danger of this happening no matter what problem you attack.

<comment><USER9> Isn't quantum factoring proven to be exponentially faster than the best known classical one?

The only question is we don't know if there is a better classical factoring algorithm.

Wikipedia:

> _On a quantum computer, to factor an integer N, Shor 's algorithm runs in > polynomial time. This is almost exponentially faster than the most efficient > known classical factoring algorithm, the general number field sieve, which > works in sub-exponential time_

<comment><USER10> Yes, for factoring integers the best known quantum algorithm is better than the best _known_ classical algorithm. The catch is that we don't know if a better classical algorithm exists but just wasn't discovered yet.

Compare this for example to sorting. We have proven that any sorting algorithm working with comparisons can at best be O(n*log(n)) fast, it's impossible for a faster classical algorithm to exist.

<comment><USER11> >We have proven that any sorting algorithm working with comparisons can at best be O(n*log(n)) fast, it's impossible for a faster classical algorithm to exist.

You can have a faster classical algorithm if it's distributed across n threads for a size n array. For each index i in an array arr, spawn a thread that counts the number of values in arr that are less than arr[i] (an O(n) linear scan), call this x, then do outputArray[x] = (arr[i], 1), where outputArray is initialised to all zeros. If outputArray[x] already exists, instead increment the second term (count) in the tuple. Once all threads are finished, then outputArray will contain the sorted values and the count of duplicate values (so this only works if !(x < y) && !(y < x) implies y == x). Each thread does O(n) work, so total work is O(n^2), but because the threads all run in parallel, the runtime is only O(n).

<comment><USER12> For the most part, classical algorithms assume a fixed-amount of compute power.

"Total Work" is the important part to minimize in practice. If "total work" scales at O(n^2), then in practice, the job scales at O(n^2). Its infeasible to build O(n^2) CPUs running O(n^2) threads as n-grows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Repeating my question from the other thread:

If IBM can cast doubt by describing a 2.5 day classical run, why not just do that instead, and blow the claim out of the water?

There were a couple of responses (thanks) but I still don't understand - <USER2> looks like it's not as easy as they imply.

<comment><USER9> They didn't say 2.5 days on a laptop. They probably mean on a bunch of datacenters together. That is expensive.

Google implied their supremacy over all of the world computers combined together.

<comment><USER14> These calculations of 2.5 day and 1000 years, they're calculations based on specific parameters, right? Could they just prove it on a smaller version of the problem instead? Can they do a version of the problem which takes maybe 1m on with IBMs algorithm and 1 year with Google's?

<comment><USER15> Aaronson's blog goes into this. The problem is exponentially difficult to simulate in the number of qibits. Each quibdit doubles the storage required. 25 quibits can be done on a laptop. 50 requires a supercomputer. 53 is just small enough to fit on the biggest supercomputer. 55 doesn't fit.

There's also an alternative algorithm that requires less space, but it takes longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ajay-d IBM's head of research had a pretty confident statement the other day: "I'm convinced there are more quantum computers working here than the rest of the world combined, in this building," Dr. Gil said.

[1][https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/science/quantum- computer-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/science/quantum-computer- physics-qubits.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> This had been a consistent problem with quantum computers - - they come up with a quantum computer that can basically do one thing and compare it against a general piece of software not tuned for that problem. Once the software is tuned for the exact problem it is much closer in performance to the quantum computer. The same thing arises with dwave.

<comment><USER17> Yes « Tuned » with 250 Petabytes of storage

<comment><USER16> To be fair, that exact computer is, I believe, what Google originally composted against.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Also of note is Gil Kalai's updated take on the experiment [1]. The heart of the complaint is that the quantum computer's solution to this problem relies on a calibration process, which is done on a classical computer and requires resources orders of magnitudes higher than the quantum portion of the computation:

> The Google experiment actually showed that a quantum computer running for > 100 seconds PLUS a classic computer that runs 1000 hours can compute > something that requires a classic computer 10 hours.

EDIT: Just as a note, lest you dismiss Kalai as an outsider/crackpot, you can look at the researchers who show up in the comments on the blog post.

[1] [https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2019/10/13/the-story-of- poinc...](https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2019/10/13/the-story-of-poincare-and- his-friend-the-baker/)

<comment><USER19> Crucial question - is the calibration a one time effort where the same calibration can be used to calculate any number of results within the calibrated space? In other words, can you amortize the calibration cost across 1,000 runs and come out an order of magnitude ahead?

<comment><USER20> "John Martinis explicitly confirmed for me that once the qubits are calibrated, you can run any circuit on them that you want."

[https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4372](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4372)

<comment><USER18> Just saw this! As Aaronson mentions, coupled with the IBM work, if it does work out, it should be possible to verify that the 53-bit samples are actually valid through the cross entropy test, which would be very exciting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The linked paper shows the "classical system" is the Summit supercomputer[1], using 128 petabytes of disk. Still, its remarkable that the choice of a different simulation algorithm by IBM that trades memory for CPU usage cuts the time from 10,000 years to only 2.5 days.

[1] [https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/olcf-resources/compute- systems/sum...](https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/olcf-resources/compute- systems/summit/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Summary: \- Google overhyped their results against a weak baseline.

This seems to be commonplace in academic publishing, especially new-ish fields where benchmarks aren't well-established. There was a similar backlash against OpenAI's robot hand, where they used simulation for the physical robotic movements and used a well-known algorithm for the actual Rubik's Cube solving. I still think it's an impressive step forward for the field.

<comment><USER23> Also AlphaZero vs Stockfish, the setup has/had a big question mark over it as well.

</comment></comment><comment> nevi-me I'm a layman on this, but reading IBM's rebuttal, it seems that they're saying "you can't say that a conventional supercomputer would take 10'000 years because you haven't accounted for spilling to disk and other optimisations".

I understand that some of these optimisations might be on the processing logic, but doesn't this end up being like comparing apples to oranges?

I understand that there's also what seems to be technicalities around what is "quantum supremacy", but I assume that on a 'processor against processor' basis, this is still significant. Am I oversimplifying things?

<comment><USER4> No, the point is that spilling to disk allows you to run classical algorithm linearly, so there is no exponential speedup. I elaborated this in detail here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21334025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21334025)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Scott Aaronson now has a detailed analysis and covers the IBM claims as well: [https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4372](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4372)

The high order bit is that the IBM claims do not cast much of a shadow over the claims of quantum supremacy and still show the same exponential difference.

<comment><USER24> There's a thread discussing Scott Aaronson's post here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21335907](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21335907)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are three threads. The others are:

Google's post [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21332768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21332768)

Scott Aaronson's post [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21335907](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21335907)

</comment><comment><USER25> If a worst case to simulate on a classical computer is 2.5 days (per IBM's blog) then they should either:

1\. Actually preform the experiment per their approach, compare the results, and provide tangible proof in the coming days.

or

2\. Retract their claims.

In either case, exciting times ahead.

[Edit: Yes, I read their published paper[1] which only claims it is possible to achieve and does not perform the same experiment.

1\. [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.09534.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.09534.pdf)]

<comment><USER26> They need the world's most powerful supercomputer to do that, and it may not be available for them to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Seeing this be published on Science Magazine is interesting by itself.

Its like IBM and Google at a high level work on different problems. IBM is focused on research and public discussion of the problem space. Google on the other hand is focusing on marketing using fancy terms like "supremecy" that can easily be misunderstood by the public.

</comment><comment> nappy-doo Isn't Google's result published in Nature -- a peer reviewed journal? Shouldn't IBM just do the same with their refutation?

<comment><USER4> I am sure this exact rebuttal is already sent to Nature and under review and will be published in the next issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Quote 1: "The Google group reiterates its claim that, in 200 seconds...."

Quote 2: " ...by tweaking the way Summit approaches the task, it can do it far faster: in 2.5 days."

Well, it's still 200 seconds vs 2.5 days, so I'd say the claim kinda stands. I know I would definitely buy the computer with 200 seconds vs the one with 2.5 days.

<comment><USER29> Not sure it's that clear cut, as per the blog post[0] linked elsewhere in this thread[1]:

> Recall that a quantum supremacy demonstration would be an experiment where a > quantum computer can compute in 100 seconds something that requires a > classical computer 10 hours. (Say.)

>The Google experiment actually showed that a quantum computer running for 100 seconds PLUS a classic computer that runs 1000 hours can compute something that requires a classic computer 10 hours.

0: [https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2019/10/13/the-story-of- poinc...](https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2019/10/13/the-story-of-poincare-and- his-friend-the-baker/) 1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21334403](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21334403)

<comment><USER30> According to Scott Aaronson this claim is incorrect.

> Next he said that the experiment is invalid because the qubits have to be > calibrated in a way that depends on the specific circuit to be applied. > Except, this too turns out to be false: John Martinis explicitly confirmed > for me that once the qubits are calibrated, you can run any circuit on them > that you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Part of this controversy is reminiscent of the Higgs Boson "God particle" nonsense, where an unscientific catchphrase created by scientists got picked put by the media and a misinterpretation overshadowed the real scientific issue.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm with them. My two problems when reading the original argument:

        They rigged the benchmark to be something quantum-specific before saying classical computers couldn't do it. I get why. I'd just rather it be something they both could do, classical having great algorithms, and quantum one outperforms it many-fold. An old example was factoring. I'm sure there's other examples out there. Maybe try to simplify them for low-qubit circuits.

        The biggest gripe: basing the argument on what classical computers can't do. Can't is an assumption that's been dis-proven about so many things so many times. Who knows what new algorithms people will come up with down the line doing what we previously couldn't do. I want an argument that's instead based on what can and has been done vs the new thing being done. I similarly preferred constructivist logic to classical since the latter was assuming things didn't exist. Universe surprises me too often for that stance.

Another thing about these is the comparison to supercomputers. Me personally, I don't care if the quantum computer outperforms supercomputers. I'm looking at practical QC like anything else: does it do the job more cost-effectively than alternative solutions? That cost includes hardware, any leasing/licensing, maintenance, specialists, etc. If it does, then they've achieved something for me. If it doesn't, then QC was an implementation detail for a system that didn't make the cut.

FPGA's are already an example of how this might play out. They're friggin amazing with all kinds of potential. I'd love to have a desktop loaded with them with libraries using them to accelerate my apps. Them being invented and improved wasn't enough for that, though. The duopoly, esp supported by patents, has kept prices of high-performance FPGA's way too high.

It would be better if they were priced more like flash memory with the synthesis software being more like mass-market A/V software. We'd see an explosion of use. Instead, the legal system allowed the inventors to keep competition and innovation at low levels to maximize profit. I expect the same with practical QC for at least 20 years. I'll still be using a mix of NUMA, GPU's and FPGA's while early adopters mess around with quantum computers.

<comment><USER4> Your biggest gripe can't be solved. P vs PSPACE is a great unsolved problem in computer science (almost as big as P vs NP), and since PSPACE can simulate quantum computer, any solution to your gripe immediately leads to resolution of P vs PSPACE.

<comment><USER32> That's disproven or just side-stepped given there's already a solution addressing my biggest gripe: factoring. It's been researched and optimized to death on classical computers. Quantum should get a massive speedup. Such a demo of quantum supremacy would be quite convincing even if not 100% proven.

The QC's aren't big enough for that yet. Surely there are other problems ultra-optimized for classical computers, lots of effort at improving them, and might still have a QC algorithm that beats it by QS-supporting speed-up. Something that fits in these smaller machines. Again, the claim that QC did what CC "likely couldn't" would be validated by the effort CC researchers put into doing it without same results.

I doubt their setup had nearly as many person years of R&D thrown at solving it as factoring, sorting, strings, BLAS, certain assembly routines, optimization techniques, etc. There's probably something in those with an effective alternative that's QC-able.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is 200 seconds not faster than 2.5 days??

I don't see the argument here

<comment><USER34> Supremacy does not mean simply faster. That is already proven. It means impossible to do on a classical computer.

<comment><USER35> I'm sure you mean infeasible. "Impossible" goes back to a problem's decidability. If a problem is undecidable, there's no way you're going to find its solution by switching computational models; classical computers can do anything a quantum computer can do, just "slower".

<comment><USER36> Not if they use up all the energy in the visible universe or they need so much power they collapse and form a black hole.

Real quantum computers should be able to do calculations that are that powerful, assuming we can prove the best classical algorithms are really exponential.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I believe this is a healthy exchange.

Boom & bust cycle appears wasting more resources and progressing slower overall than a steady refinement.

</comment><comment><USER38> Embarrassing for IBM (the snarky quote of Dario Gil) and for Science (the snarky headline).

</comment><comment><USER39> There seems to be a lot of confusion here about the complexity, for example calling the simulation here "in the linear regime" due to IBMs result. This is inaccurate.

A source of this confusion is that we need to discuss space and time complexity simultaneously. In the algorithms for quantum simulation (and many other algorithms), there is a trade off between space complexity and time complexity. ELI5: You don't have to store intermediate results if you can recompute them when you need them, but you may end up recomputing them a huge number of times.

For the quantum circuit, the standard method of computation gives exponential memory complexity in number of qubits (store 2^N amplitudes for a N qubit wavefunction) and time complexity D2^N, i.e. linear in circuit depth and exponential in number of qubits. For example, under the IBM calculation, 53 qubits at depth 30 use 64 PB of storage and a few days of calculation time, while 54 qubits use 128 PB and a week in calculation time. Adding a qubit doubles the storage requirements AND the time requirements.

Under google's estimation of the run time, they were using a space time memory tradeoff. There is a continuous range of space-time memory tradeoffs - USE MAX MEMORY as IBM does, MAX RECOMPUTATION (store almost no intermediate results, just add each contribution to the final answer and recompute everything) and a range of in-between strategies. While I don't know the precise complexities, the time-heavy strategies will have time complexity exponential in both N and D ( 2^(ND) ) and space complexity constant.That's why googles estimate for time complexity is so drastically different than IBMs.

Side note: IBM also uses a non-standard evaluation order for the quantum circulation, which utilizes a trade-off between depth and number of qubits. In the regime of a large number of qubits, but a relatively small depth, you can again classically simulate using an algorithm that scales N*2^D rather than D2^N, using a method that turns the quantum circuit on its side and contracts the tensors that way. In the regime of N comparable to D, the optimal tensor contraction corresponds to neither running the circuit the usual way or sideways but something in between. None of these tricks fundamentally change the ultimate exponential scaling, however.

As an extra step, you could also run compression techniques on the tensors (i.e. SVD, throwing away small singular values), to make the space-time complexity tradeoff into a three-way space-time-accuracy tradeoff. You wouldn't expect too much gain by compression, and your accuracy would quickly go to zero if you tried to do more and more qubits or longer depth circuits with constant space and time requirements. However, the _real_ quantum computer (as Google has it now, with no error correction) also has accuracy that goes to zero with larger depth and number of qubits. Thus, one can imagine that the next steps in this battle are as following: If we say that Google's computer has not at this moment beaten classical computers with 128PB of memory to work with, then google will respond with a bigger and more accurate machine that will again claim to beat all classical computers. Then IBM will add in compression for the accuracy tradeoff and perhaps again will still beat the quantum machine.

So this back and forth can continue for a while - but the classical computers are ultimately fighting a losing battle, and the quantum machine will triumph in the end, as exponentials are a bitch.

</comment><comment><USER40> I wish IBM chose their words carefully here.

</comment><comment><USER18> We should probably amend the link to point to IBM's actual blog post, [https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum- suprem...](https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-supremacy/)

<comment><USER24> Ok, changed from [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/ibm-casts-doubt- goog...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/ibm-casts-doubt-googles- claims-quantum-supremacy?rss=1). Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't trust anything IBM says. They have a long history of lying and misleading that continues to this day. It's about as trustworthy as Facebook saying you shouldn't be concerned about privacy on Facebook.

<comment><USER42> Do you have any sources that elaborate on your claims of IBM being misleading?

<comment><USER43> [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9725/c12506f1d77a3e3b1587cd...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9725/c12506f1d77a3e3b1587cd25a06dfc9e3dd7.pdf)

Quotes: "Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) is a tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations,[1][2] politics and propaganda." and "FUD was first defined (circa 1975) by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp.:"FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products.""

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Is IBM still relevant?

<comment><USER45> They are doing a whole bunch of research, including in quantum computing. It's hard to tell what's really "relevant" in research; if you knew, it wouldn't be research. IBM stands as good a chance as anybody to produce a real-live quantum computer, and they've hired the people who are in a position to judge what Google really has and hasn't achieved thus far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Not really though - they just said it wasn't quite as supreme as Google said.

<comment><USER47> IBM's response to Google called "On 'Quantum Supremacy'" has this to say:

"Because the original meaning of the term "quantum supremacy," as proposed by John Preskill in 2012, was to describe the point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers can't, this threshold has not been met."

In other words, "quantum supremacy" is not being used as just a buzzword.

So yeah, IBM is casting doubt on Google's claims of "quantum supremacy" because "supremacy" doesn't just mean "better than everything else."

<comment><USER48> But it's still pretty fuzzy. If we agree that 10,000 years on a classical system is supremacy but 2.5 years isn't, where's the cutoff? 25 years? 250? An average human lifespan?

Edit: Thanks guys for pointing out where I misread the article, leaving mistake intact so the replies make sense.

<comment><USER49> 2.5 _days_, not years.

A still fuzzy and arbitrary but imo somewhat elegant cutoff would let feasibility be set by the market and technological development, in the sense of something not being worth throwing compute at _now_ because the timescale of work is slow enough that future classical efficiencies will progress (much) quicker.

<comment><USER50> For market forces to be meaningful, the calculation would need to provide value to someone. At the moment the desired output is simply "a distribution which is hard to simulate classically," so assessment in terms of market value would be very premature.

<comment><USER49> But that goes for any raw benchmarking, it's busywork by design.

<comment><USER50> I'm pretty cynical about this specific experiment, but that's taking it to another level.

The ROI was terrible, but it wasn't mere busywork when Galileo was mucking around with balls and ramps.

<comment><USER49> Haha sorry should've been much clearer, I meant specifically computer power benchmarking.

You perform busywork, if for marketing purposes usually of the kind or at least set up in a way favorable to your product, and on the presumption that it will in some manner transfer to real work.

The more synthetic the less likely that is, but it's still indicative of something and I don't see what you mean is so different here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Judging entirely by my experience with IBM- put up or shut up. Every interaction I've had with IBM the last few years has been shit. It's to the point that all of my confidence in the entire organization is gone, regain my confidence. Put up or shut up IBM.

</comment><comment><USER52> Pretty rich by IBM to voice any criticism after its "Watson" disaster.

</comment><comment><USER53> Saying that it evokes "white supremecy" is kind of a pathetic move.

<comment><USER54> Well the word creeps me out and I wish they would choose another.

It isn't even the right word to use since the intended meaning is a quantum computer that can do something that a classic computer can't do at all, not just better at it.

Quantum Possible sounds better to me.

<comment><USER55> "It isn't even the right word to use since the intended meaning is a quantum computer that can do something that a classic computer can't do at all, not just better at it."

No, that's exactly what it means in Googles research. It means it can do it faster than a classical computer, not that it's impossible for a classical computer to do.

<comment><USER54> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_supremacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_supremacy)

First line- "Quantum supremacy is the potential ability of quantum computing devices to solve problems that classical computers practically cannot."

We can argue about what practically means but I read that as a very very long time. No one worries about someone breaking RSA-2048 with a classical computer because it is "practically" impossible.

>In putting together our video, we estimated the age of the Universe to be 13,751,783,021 years or a little over 13.75 billion years*, therefore if you tried to break a DigiCert 2048-bit SSL certificate using a standard modern desktop computer, and you started at the beginning of time, you would have expended 13 billion years of processing by the time you got back to today, and you would still have to repeat that entire process 468,481 times one after the other into our far far distant future before there was a good probability of breaking the certificate. In fact the Universe itself would grow dark before you even got close.

[https://www.digicert.com/TimeTravel/math.htm](https://www.digicert.com/TimeTravel/math.htm)

This may not be the case with Quantum Possible computation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I know they don't understand λ_spm, I know their quantum orbit is totally fucked up. I know that they don't understand short magnetic field condition. I know their particle sizes are all off. (Reason you can' unify QM and GR btw). They are lacking the relativistic micro-curviture sourrounding the nucleus. I know they don't understand superconductor correctly, thats why the fractional quantum hall effect is a mystery. Superposition does not mean what they think (over interpretation).

Most of the ideas about Quantum-Computers can never be done. You can run certain optimizations when you can model some applications as energy states, but very limited spectrum of applications.</comment>


By the book: reflections on an Indian childhood reading Soviet hardbacks - <AUTHOR> https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/4172/reflections-on-an-indian-childhood-reading-soviet-books <comment><USER2> No mention of the most famous Russian book among Indian high Schoolers: [Problems in General Physics by I E Irodov]([https://www.amazon.com/Problems- General-Physics-I-Irodov/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Problems-General- Physics-I-Irodov/dp/8183552153))?

<comment><USER3> I have spent so much time with this book growing up. It was THE Book to solve to get the bragging rights that you know your physics.

<comment><USER4> For REAL bragging rights, you had to solve Krotov :)

<comment><USER5> Bukhantsov was the real deal. Higher than Krotov

<comment><USER4> Never heard of it. Will check it out. Thank you!

PS: One of the highest points during my college prep days was when I managed to solve this kinematics problem from Krotov where the condition for a ball bouncing in a well to get out depends on the ratio of some parameters to be co prime. Good times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm taking a Russian lit class right now and it's astonishing how much my Indian mother can follow along with my recounting of various plot points from Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. Russian literature is beloved in India

<comment><USER7> While I think Russian lit is indeed beloved in India, Nabokov is perhaps yet to get his due appreciation, perhaps Solzhenitsyn also.

<comment><USER8> Nabokov, to be fair, left Russia before the age of 18 and I don't believe he ever returned [1]. Lolita, his magnum opus (at least by public opinion), was first written in English. Despite his upbringing, I'm not sure he would be best classified as Russian Lit.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov)

<comment><USER9> Nabokov wrote many novels in Russian before he reluctantly switched to English. I prefer them to his later work, which is a bit too gimmicky for me. The earlier novels have that quality too, but it's more in balance with his other gifts. They're absolutely wonderful (edit: and not too long!), and there are good translations.

<comment><USER8> Nine, apparently!

Any particular recommendations out of those? And does an English version carry the same weight, or does one have to read in Russian to appreciate most of it?

<comment><USER9> I read them in English. The translations are great and I'm pretty sure he vetted them carefully. IIRC, his son did some of them, in between being an opera singer.

My favorite was Luzhin's Defense, about a chess master who goes mad. But I liked all of them, including Despair, Glory, and Invitation to a Beheading. Invitation to a Beheading is unusual, sort of phantasmagoric—a bit like Kafka at his most dreamlike. If you like movies that play games with "what is real", it's in that spirit.

The first two English novels Sebastian Knight and Bend Sinister are very much in the style of his Russian novels. But the language of the Russian novels is lush rather than brittle, and this comes out even in the translations.

My impression of Nabokov is that he was inwardly a romantic and even a sentimentalist, but was conflicted about that and so wrapped it in many layers of cleverness. For me, the cleverness and self-reference get to be too much in the later work. He's at his best when the cleverness and the romanticism are equally matched and the tension between them has the most energy. People say the sentimental side comes through more strongly in his memoir (Speak, Memory) but I haven't read that one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I absolutely love MIR publishers. My interest in science still exists because of the books they published.

here Someone Has uploaded many of the MIR's titles.

[https://mirtitles.org/category/mir- publishers/](https://mirtitles.org/category/mir-publishers/)

<comment><USER10> MIR, Raduga (mostly children's fiction), Progress (popular science, if I remember correctly) - these publishers were really cheap in 80s and 90s India, compared to similar books in terms of content, printing and binding. Perhaps that's why they were such a favourite. I used to frequent a bookstore solely devoted to these called Vostok. That bookstore is long gone.

I still have many of these, some gifted by relatives, in my shelves today.

These days, at book fairs and on sites like OLX, certain unscrupulous sellers have taken to selling whatever such Soviet hardbacks they can find at astronomical prices. To be fair to them, it's a supply and demand problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Comments in this thread are kind of trippy but also so heartwarming to read. I was born in independent Ukraine but, unsurprisingly, I studied math and physics with the help of all of those Soviet handbooks: Perelman, Irodov etc, basically all of them are household names.

It's amazing to realize that somebody from a totally different culture, continent, language, was slouching over the same problems as I was, maybe even at the same time.

<comment><USER12> Good points. I am in India. When in college, used to buy and read those books, for math., physics, etc. Good content. I remember Ya. Perelman's [1] books in particular, for popularizing physics to the layman. Stuff about perpetual motion machines (explaining why they cannot work), physical phenomena related to refraction, reflection, etc., and much else besides.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Perelman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Perelman)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What many people don't realise is that the Soviets also made significant investments in "high" culture in western Europe. I distinctly remember a very important independent film distributor in Belgium got at least partly financed initially by the USSR. They did modestly well and were able to survive the collapse of the USSR until well past the year 2000.

Edit: The distributor was called Progrès films, founded in 1950 by the communist party of Belgium. It worked until 2002, after which other independent cinema projects like cinéart and cinélibre took over.

<comment><USER14> Well, the belief was that the capitalist regimes were keeping down and exploiting the proletariat by keeping them uneducated. Once given an opportunity for education and exposed to science and culture they will raise up against their masters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had a hardback of a soviet childrens book, which had a long story by Sergei Mikhalkhov called "Disobedience Holiday". Now thinking about it, it was as an allegory about the west in the same vein as "Animal Farm" was an allegory about the Soviets.

I think this is one of the things many in the third world started to be deprived off, following the Fall, inexpensive but very well made hardbacks printed in the USSR. The very smell of the ink and paper was something special, compared with locally made books.

The Chinese also had started printing cheap books for other countries in the third world, but they never could match the scope and scale of what USSR was doing.

And there seems to be an even older tradition of tiny pocket hardbacks mostly printed from England, small enough to fit almost in the palm of the hand, of classic novels majorly. I have managed to pick up a few at second hand sellers. I thought I'll write a blog post about them sometime, but I never came around to it.

<comment><USER15> As for the latter, that would possibly be The Collector's Library?

Large selection of classics, printed on thin 'Bible paper', hardback, diminutive size, ribbon marker.

I tend to always keep one or two in my cabin luggage for the occasions when I feel like giving the Kindle a rest.

<comment><USER7> I do find them from different publishers, Oxford World Classics dated from 1940's and other's like Blackie and Son's from the 50's. They are so conveniently sized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is really fascinating. Because even though I am an Indian I didn't know the Soviet Union and India were that close. I wonder if any Indian school books mention this.

<comment><USER17> It's good to know the history here. For most of 50s and 60s we were roughly equidistant between US and USSR. It was the crass support for Pakistan's Ayub Khan by Nixon and Kissinger before the Bangladesh war in 1971, which forced India to shift a little closer to the Soviet Union. Both Nixon and Kissinger had a visceral hatred of India and Indira Gandhi - see [1].

The USSR did help us with arms and with votes in the United Nations. While this was generally helpful, it led to a shameful episode when India chose to tacitly support the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan. It may surprise many Indians to know that more recently, inspite of our tilt to the West, we have supported Russia's annexation of Crimea, and we were one of the first major countries to recognize the annexation.

[1] [https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/indira-gandhi- is-...](https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/indira-gandhi-is-a-bitch- the-indians-are-bastards/227789)

<comment><USER18> I do not think that India has recognized that annexation. And there are no major countries that have recognized it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember too. Wonderful books at throwaway prices. I remember Ya Perelman's books on physics. Also a wonderful book just on limits which helped me understand the concept in a way which no other maths book could. And we also used to have beautifully illustrated magazines. I still have many of these books. I think Ya Perelman really made me fall in love with Physics.

<comment><USER4> Yakov Perelman forever! Are you referring to the limits book in dialogue format ? I came across one few years back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Soviet books and influence were especially common in the state of Kerala, where we had the first democratically elected communist government. I remember this book called Misha (for kids) and Soviet Woman for well, women. They were very high quality prints, and was a joy to read.

Till the 80s Kerala had strong Soviet influence in politics, lifestyle and even in the architecture of buildings. I remember when I visited Vietnam, I was surprised by how similar their cities looked.

<comment><USER20> We got Misha in Hyderabad too in the 80s. My mother used to buy them for me regularly when I was a kid.

<comment><USER21> Yup. I got Misha even in a small town in Karnataka. I remember writing to Russian pen pals via Misha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Space Adventures in your Home" by F. Rabiza is perhaps this - [https://itexts.net/avtor-florentiy-vladimirovich- rabiza/2638...](https://itexts.net/avtor-florentiy-vladimirovich- rabiza/263812-kosmos-u-tebya-doma-florentiy-rabiza.html) \- another translation "Space at your house" by Florentii Rabiza.

<comment><USER20> Wow.. wow.. there are others who have read the same things. :)

The hydro pneumatic rocket!

I tried to find Mir publishers books about 10 years ago. Apparently Mir got bought out and publishing ceased.

Another gem is "Fun with maths and physics" by Ya Perelman. It's available in a cheap reprint now, nothing that matches the original Mir publishers book.

<comment><USER23> I read the Kannada translation of the book "Fun with Physics" back when I was in primary school. Didn't understand large parts of it but that didn't stop me from repeatedly reading the books. As high quality as the content was I absolutely loved the high quality print, glossy and gorgeous paper, and really beautiful and durable hard cover. The illustrations were also of high quality. They also had a very distinct smell.

Another Kannada translated book I read (countless times) is stories from Russian history.

Needless to say Russian books are a part of my childhood :)

<comment><USER4> Is this the book you are referring to ? - [https://sovietbookbugs.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/rassian-c...](https://sovietbookbugs.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/rassian- charithra-katalu-gadhalu.jpg)

<comment><USER23> Holy mother!!! Never in my dreams could I imagine I'd be seeing it again. You've made my day :-). And, as you'd know surely, how similar/close Kannada and Telugu scripts are I could effortlessly read it!

It does bring back a flood of memories. Thanks again :-)

<comment><USER4> You're welcome :) Memorable tales and gorgeous illustrations. This is one of the few books I managed to keep in absolute mint condition :) I have a scanned version lying around in my collection. Will upload sometime soon on my blog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Venkatesh Rao (of Gervais Principle fame) wrote nicely on the same topic [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/30/morning-is-wiser- than-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/30/morning-is-wiser-than- evening/)

</comment><comment><USER24> _> I wonder who Rabiza was; none of the many fan sites for Soviet books say that._

I've found a short postmortem from 2002 in a magazine "Science and Life"[1]. Seems he was engineer, painter and popular science writer/journalist.

[1] [https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/4982/](https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/4982/)

</comment><comment><USER25> I remember reading translated versions of Yakov Perelman's "Physics for Entertainment" as a kid. There were also translations of more "propaganda-ish" works like "Three Fat Men".

</comment><comment><USER26> Ya Perelman - Fun with maths and Fun with Physics brings back so many memories (Irodov had too much at stake so there no unbounded joy of learning for learning's sake)

<comment><USER27> I started loving Physics with Marathi translation of this book: [https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Entertainment-Yakov- Perelman/...](https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Entertainment-Yakov- Perelman/dp/2917260068)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't emphasize enough how important these books were in shaping my childhood in a rural town in India. I still vividly remember making a fuss when Misha and Sputnik stopped after the fall of Soviet. A part of me is forever indebted to Russia for this.

Given the strong Communist presence in Andhra Pradesh, the state I am from, we were lucky to have a great number of these books translated to Telugu, by no less than legends like Sri Sri.

I have some of the children's books uploaded on my blog at [http://linkdot.link/sooviytt-prcurnnlu-childrens- books.html](http://linkdot.link/sooviytt-prcurnnlu-childrens-books.html)

PS: I named my daughter Aelita after the science fiction classic.

<comment><USER28> Funny thing about the Sputnik magazine. In a lot of the West it was seen as Communist propaganda (which to be fair a lot of it was), but in the late 1980s it was actually banned in East Germany because it wasn't Communist _enough_ as it wrote favorably about Perestroika and Glasnost, which the leaders of the GDR weren't happy about.

<comment><USER15> According to an ossi friend of mine, the moment he could no longer buy Sputnik, that torch of progressive socialism at his local Leipzig newsstand was the moment he realised that the GDRs days were numbered...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Ants among Elephants" by Sujatha Gidla is the true story of a communist revolutionary in (what is now) Andhra Pradesh in the mid 20th century, I'd recommend it: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450688-ants-among- elep...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450688-ants-among-elephants)</comment>


Cursewords, a crossword puzzle-solving interface for the terminal - <AUTHOR> https://parkerhiggins.net/2019/03/cursewords-crossword-puzzle-solving-interface-terminal/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome! I had no idea .puz files were a thing.

I wrote a "replica" of the NYTimes Crosswords while I was learning React [1].

[https://github.com/gzzo/crosswords](https://github.com/gzzo/crosswords)

Demo:

[https://shopkeeper- capacity-56747.netlify.com/puzzle/oscar](https://shopkeeper- capacity-56747.netlify.com/puzzle/oscar)

</comment><comment><USER3> very neat indeed.

relatedly, if anyone is interested in creating puz files from the command line, i have a tool to do it: [https://github.com/martindemello/pangrid](https://github.com/martindemello/pangrid). it can read the acrosslite text format [[https://www.litsoft.com/across/docs/AcrossTextFormat.pdf](https://www.litsoft.com/across/docs/AcrossTextFormat.pdf)] and generate a .puz file from it.

<comment><USER4> This is very cool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a great web-based tool for making your own puzzles available here: [http://www.keiranking.com/phil/](http://www.keiranking.com/phil/) (with export to the .puz format).

Really useful for both creating an initial grid and for suggesting possible fill based on existing crossing words.

<comment><USER4> Huge fan of Phil! Keiran and I are both alumni of the Recurse Center ([https://www.recurse.com/](https://www.recurse.com/)) from around the same time. It's become a real crossword programmer powerhouse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think you've done a great job with the terminal interface/rendering.

Here's my own pet unfinished terminal .puz player: [https://github.com/rparrett/puzterm](https://github.com/rparrett/puzterm)

Next to Cursewords, mine looks super clunky.

<comment><USER4> Oh man! I didn't know there was prior art. I think yours looks _great_ , Rob, and I'm very eager to get it installed and compare notes. I'm impressed that you got all the clues displayed at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where do I file bug reports? Any attempt to save results in: AttributeError: 'bytes' object has no attribute 'encode' on line 273.

Still, this is really, really good.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is great! Looks much sleeker than Across Lite.

Is there any way to change the keyboard shortcuts? Or even list what the current shortcuts are? Both `space` and `return` toggle between across and down. It would be nice if I could make `return` advanced to the next clue instead, which is the default behavior in the NYT app.

<comment><USER4> There isn't such a way yet, but I want to do that in the future. (This 1.0 version doesn't have any kind of persistent settings, so there's not yet a place to store custom key-mappings.)

In case you want to try out my defaults: `tab` and `shift+tab` advance/retreat words to the next blank, and `page up` and `page down` (on a Mac, `fn` + `up` or `down`) do blank-agnostic word advance/retreat.

(I also haven't documented this yet, but `[`/`]` and `{`/`}` do cursor- perpendicular box-wise movement in blank-agnostic and blank-aware steps, respectively. One of the hardest parts of this is just _describing_ these kinds of movement.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very cool. Are there any public repositories of puz files, or at least some sample puz file to test this out?

<comment><USER4> I wanted to ship it with an original demo puzzle but construction is really hard! That's on the roadmap for the future.

<comment><USER10> Feel free to include [http://levien.com/Social%20rule.puz](http://levien.com/Social%20rule.puz) , which has a Recurse theme. It's not top quality but I've had a number of people tell me they enjoy it.

<comment><USER4> Raph! I loved that puzzle (and I've solved it in cursewords)! I may try to get together a collection of freely licensed demo puzzles, and I'd be honored to include this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Now we just need to hook this to the cloud so I can save the state of any puzzle, and add new puzzles to my personal puzzle repo easier.

<comment><USER12> A locally mounted cloud storage directory may be all you need since the state seems to be kept inside the .puz file itself.

<comment><USER4> This is correct. Also, since it's a terminal app, you can probably just ssh into your puzzle box from wherever :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> putting the clue numbers in the middle of the grid lines is a brilliant touch</comment>


Running Large Graph Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://www.drewconway.com/zia/?p=2042&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ZeroIntelligenceAgents+%28Zero+Intelligence+Agents%29 <comment><USER2> Anyone want to post a summary or timeline of highlights?

<comment><USER3> High Scalability, where I actually found the video, provides a great review.

[http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/3/30/running-large- grap...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/3/30/running-large-graph- algorithms-evaluation-of-current-state-o.html)

<comment><USER2> Oh good, thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter is sweeping out fake accounts like never before, risking user growth - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/06/twitter-is-sweeping-out-fake-accounts-like-never-before-putting-user-growth-risk/ <comment><USER2> Meanwhile every time Elon Musk posts on Twitter there are a half dozen new fake accounts trying to "give away Ethereum and Bitcoin!"

I guess I'll believe this when I actually see the volume of fake accounts decrease.

<comment><USER3> Not just Musk, either. Any major account associated with cryptocurrency, or even with technology in general, is a target.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Risk use growth"? Like user growth isn't threatened by the sheer number of abusive spammy asshole eggbots?

</comment><comment><USER5> I would say that it's a good thing for Twitter's monetary growth. This would hopefully let advertisers know that they're ads are being seen by real users. I would just hope they getting around to culling hate speech and all of that jazz. Maybe even broader user powers to filter it out at the least.

<comment><USER6> Who gets to decide what is considered hate speech?

<comment><USER5> I get the slippery slope we're going down here, I don't have any actual solution. A possible suggestion would be something like a crowdsourced based on how many times an account gets reported in a non brigading way.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Please review my startup - make beautiful ebooks in minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.chaptermill.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

I've just released ChapterMill and I'd love to know what you think.

I've noticed that a lot of authors struggle when it comes to formatting their ebooks - embedding fonts, setting font sizes, margins, floating images, etc. Makes sense: they're writers, not coders. So ChapterMill is my attempt to create a tool that allows them to build their book and style it using a simple UI for great-looking books.

This is a MVP - there are lots of features I plan to add (image replacement so that embedded fonts display on Kindle e-ink devices, public author pages, many more styling options, etc etc). It also needs help pages, instructions and FAQs, but hopefully the site is quite self-explanatory for now.

I haven't put a payment system in yet (coming later today) but the idea is to charge a fee when the author is happy with his book and wants to download the EPUB or MOBI file to distribute elsewhere.

Please let me know what you think!

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting product. I'm working on an ebook and would certainly find it useful at the end of the writing process.

I had a look and I wanted to see some further screenshots, showing off the type of headlines, fonts etc that it's capable of

Currently you're selling it with mostly words (3 columns at the bottom) for something visual, you need to sell it visually.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Helen,

Thanks for your feedback. Yes, it's in need of a lot more in terms of both words and pictures - I released it as it is just to get it out of the gate, and get some early feedback.

I hope to add screenshots and more text in the coming days.</comment></comment></comment>


Cancel Netflix if you value freedom - <AUTHOR> https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/cancel-netflix-if-you-value-freedom <comment><USER2> I've been a Netflix customer for 8 years. I haven't paid for cable or satellite for most of those 8 years, and I've always tried my hardest to understand the driving forces behind Netflix's decisions, such as raising prices to manage skyrocketing license costs, and segregating streaming and DVD services so that the DVD customers don't artificially inflate streaming numbers to negatively affect licensing contracts. I was even prepared to accept their dreadful choice to completely separate the streaming service into a wholly different company, though I was glad that they ultimately decided against it.

It was easy to see the economic reasoning behind many of those decisions, even though on the surface they seemed not to benefit the consumer.

Clearly, DRM is required in order for them to license the shows we want to watch. It's unfortunate, but it is something I am prepared to accept. What upsets me about this particular instance is that they are moving to make DRM a part of what are supposed to be the open standards of the web. It flies in the face of the principles upon which the internet was designed and built, and regardless of what technical hurdles it would help the company to overcome it is also very clearly an anti-consumer move, the scope of which reaches far beyond Netflix itself.

Maybe it's time I dusted off some of the books I've been meaning to read.

<comment><USER3> > Clearly, DRM is required in order for them to license the shows we want to > watch.

This couldn't be further from the truth now more than ever. DRM is required in the sense that their contractual obligations require it, but the technological and social requirement is just not there.

Why should the HTML standard be encumbered by something wholly unrelated? The copyright maximalists (including Netflix) need the web more than the web needs them.

<comment><USER4> Um, I think you repeated the statement while trying to refute it. DRM is required for them to license the shows by their contractual obligations.

The social requirement is there in that the market wants the product that has contractual obligations. To meet that demand requires a change in technology.

I need the web to work the same way that Netflix needs it to work so that we may both benefit from it.

<comment><USER3> That's specious reasoning. They can distribute as many browsers and apps as they want, but they shouldn't be able to influence the entirety of the HTML standard to fit their narrow business requirements.

<comment><USER4> Entirety of the HTML standard? Who says they are? We're talking about one little part of the standard that has little to do with day-to-day HTML. Are you suggesting that Netflix is attempting to influence the future of the span element?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the suggestion is a unified approach to deal with plugins or extensions, not putting DRM inside HTML itself. If you oppose the idea of a plugin or extension then don't install it and don't use the service that they provide. A service that everyone who uses it voluntarily and willingly agreed to use it under the provider's terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another missive by the FSF that's mostly meaningless to people who aren't willing to make huge sacrifices in their lives to avoid the (cue ominous music and thunder) 'non-free' bogeyman of the week.

Seriously. My sincerest apologies if this sounds bitter, but this is a completely non-constructive rant. Again.

The FSF's stances are completely untenable to most people.

Aside: Why would someone who makes a principled stand on free software ever have signed up with Netflix in the first place?!

<comment><USER6> > Aside: Why would someone who makes a principled stand on free software ever > have signed up with Netflix in the first place?!

Maybe some people who didn't take a principled stand on software freedom, and therefore signed up for Netflix, can be convinced to take a stand and cancel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I said it in a similar thread a few weeks back, and I'll say it here: Netflix isn't the problem. They're stuck with DRM if they want to exist because the people they get their content from won't license without it.

Stop consuming all media produced by the studios who have been driving DRM forward if you value freedom. That means stop going to the movies, stop watching TV, cancel Netflix, don't patronize Redbox, don't even torrent the stuff you want to see. Just completely reject it. Go read a nice paperback book instead. Yes, that means you don't get your entertainment, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Kvetching that Netflix is the Big Bad Bogeyman here is like blaming your grocery store for the nutritional content of the food you buy from them.

<comment><USER3> > but you can't have your cake and eat it

This line of reasoning is short-sighted and narrow-minded. Netflix and the iTunes Store flourished just fine with the amount of DRM we have now, why do we need more?

<comment><USER7> Because Silverlight is EOL and Netflix wants to continue to have a functioning business after Microsoft kills it?

<comment><USER3> They can continue functioning on their own, without polluting the HTML standard. There's nothing stopping them from that.

<comment><USER7> It's a fantasy to think that premium video providers are going away. It's also a fantasy to think that they're going to be able to provide content sans DRM anytime in the next decade.

You can either have a standardized way of delivering this content that there is obviously a massive demand for, or you can have everyone that wants to deliver video implement their own shitty browser plugin that will undoubtedly be full of security holes and performance issues and require regular patching. Trading Flash/Silverlight for a proprietary binary plugin per platform sounds genuinely awful to me. It's been a massive uphill battle with Flash/Silverlight - expanding that to a plugin per platform would be a nightmare.

The demand for the product is there. Maybe I'm just more pragmatic than idealistic, but as someone who enjoys these services, I'd really rather than they not suck. My primary complaint with DRM in general is the sucky customer experience, not the DRM itself. For streaming services, the classic issue with DRM ("you don't really own it") doesn't apply, because you _already_ explicitly don't own what you're streaming. As long as it doesn't get in my way, I have no issue with it. Proprietary binaries are a lot more likely to get in my way than a standardized set of HTML5 extensions are.

<comment><USER3> I never said that I thought they should 'go away' but what I'm saying is that they should mind their own business rather than trying to control everybody else's.

<comment><USER7> Whose business besides their own do you exactly think they're trying to control?

<comment><USER8> DRM systems have a habit of trying to push onerous requirements onto OSes and hardware.

<comment><USER7> I must have missed Netflix's HTML5 Palladium draft spec.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. If netflix wants a way to add DRM so people can watch DRMed videos on the Internet let them.

There is no negative. What is negative is the fact that people seem to think that netflix should just continue using a closed system made by Microsoft which doesn't work on Linux natively.

<comment><USER10> Remember, though: this is the FSF talking. There's no such thing as a shade of gray to them; you're either Free, as _they_ define Free, or you're not.

That's not to say they're always wrong, but you have to remember to evaluate everything they say through that lens...

<comment><USER9> You're right, but people don't even read the spec. No where in that spec does it say DRM...

This specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system. Rather, it defines a common API that may be used to discover, select and interact with such systems as well as with simpler content encryption systems. Implementation of Digital Rights Management is not required for compliance with this specification: only the simple clear key system is required to be implemented as a common baseline.

[https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- med...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted- media/encrypted-media.html)

<comment><USER11> I'd like to read that. Do you have a link to the spec in question?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The footnote sums up everything that is eyeroll-inducing for me in this post:

        We encourage users to do their microblogging
        with Web sites that do not include nonfree
        JavaScript, like identi.ca and other
        instances of pump.io. If you prefer Twitter,
        you can use the mobile version of the Twitter
        site which works with JavaScript turned off,
        even on a desktop computer.

<comment><USER13> Use V8? It's open source, and written in C++, which there are open source compilers for.

What on earth is their gripe with Javascript?

<comment><USER14> This is not about the implementation but about Javascript code that is compiled into what is effectively "binary" form from the perspective of free software[1].

[1]: [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript- trap.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Basically what Netflix wants to do is standardize the use of DRM technology in HTML and web applications. Currently, most "premium" content from Netflix, etc. is delivered via proprietary plugins such as Flash or Silverlight. What the new "DRM" extensions to HTML5 do is standardize the interface between your web browser/video player and DRM modules.

The DRM module itself would probably still be a closed-source, black-box piece of software, but the playing of the video would be handled by the browser natively w/o the need for plugins like Flash or Silverlight (since after decryption you end up with a standard H264/WebM stream in a <video> tag.) Now, sure, you can argue until you're blue in the face that DRM is bad, but the good thing is that you're separating the DRM from the presentation/rendering layer. This is, without a doubt, a step forward.

In theory this would make things even easier for pirates wanting to capture content since now there's a standardized way for the browser to interface with the DRM layer, decrypt the content, and play it.

The FSF's argument here is null and void because Netflix never was a free service to begin with. They never claimed to offer Linux/free software compatibility, and as a private company they have no obligation to.

<comment><USER6> The idea of separation between DRM and the rendering layer is illogical. The dream of all DRM proponents is a leak-proof pipe between the encumbered media and your senses, lest you be able to rip a perfect copy.

For a concrete example, look at how deep the content protection system introduced in Windows Vista goes.

[http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html](http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html)

The proposed Encrypted Media Extensions standard is merely an interface between browsers and systems such as this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> After you cancel netflix you might spend some of your newly free time reading the public domain versions of chicken little and the boy who cried wolf and pondering what their relevance might be to modern audiences.

</comment><comment><USER17> Freedom for me means a happy wife and an extra $110 in my bank account every month from not having a cable bill.

I do think that fighting the inclusion of DRM in future HTML standards is worthwhile, but this isn't going to get me to pick up a sword.

<comment><USER18> I could have written this word-for-word.

I am curious if asm.js is quick enough to produce code that could decode encrypted full-screen HD video on browsers whose vendors won't support the media extensions.

Pardon me for ignorance on this subject, but is there something about DRM that requires a plugin or component built into the browser itself? Could our answer to Netflix be, "Write the codec yourself using asm.js"?

<comment><USER18> @taopao, And for a component to be "trusted" it has to be code that was loaded with the operating system, or in this case, the operating environment (the browser)?

It seems to me that quashing tampering or observing of the trusted component is the lynchpin. In JavaScript, there is no way to access unexposed internals of an IIFE, that seems to me to get us half way there.

I wonder if there could be some way to add a "use trusted" pragma to an IIFE such that the browser would not allow debugging or watching the network traffic of that code? There'd have to be some new way to compare a checksum of the trusted code as well. I suppose that that could suffice in a video watermarking scenario, but Netflix could never watermark each and every video transmitted. I think they partner with some ISP's to cache content near to the users as well, so they're not even responsible for broadcasting the last mile of the video.

<comment><USER15> But it's only a matter of time before someone hacks their browser to ignore those directives.

<comment><USER18> This is true, but for the vast majority of consumers would supporting a trusted block of javascript be good enough? All the movie industry wants is to make sure that Joe Sixpack cant get a digital copy of the data stream.

I know I am sortof commandeering the word "trusted" for something much weaker than what I think industry wants it to be here, I realize that. Maybe using such a term in a weak solution would satisfy the pointy haired bosses of the world. >:)

Seems to me if some rogue binary goes in and tampers with my Firefox or Chrome binary in order to circumvent browser security, then the browsers would know it and fail with an error. Obviously, any browser that builds from source can be directly modified by a developer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Done.

[http://i.imgur.com/TEmlmpw.png](http://i.imgur.com/TEmlmpw.png)

<comment><USER20> Good call, they will probably now offer you a free month to entice you back!

<comment><USER21> Yep, with multiple emails when you don't take them up on it. There will be about one a week for a month, then they drop down to about one a month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am not sure I understand their argument. With netflix you are a renter. It is their property why shouldn't they protect it. If they were selling you something then sure it should be freely yours with no DRM. As far as these internet ideals that are violated, well I know copyright infringement drove internet growth for quite a while but I am not sure I would call that an ideal. How about we let consenting adults (legally) exchange information how they like and call that an ideal.

<comment><USER3> Nobody is arguing they shouldn't be able to protect their business, but the proposed changes to the HTML standard would affect _every other business_. Their authority to demand technological requirements of other's ends at their own property, and Netflix should have absolutely no ability to impose their business requirements on everybody else.

<comment><USER20> How would this impose their business requirements on anybody else? If you don't use netflix you don't have to install their EME module.

<comment><USER3> With this line of reasoning, why have standards at all? Why not jam every possible idea into HTML because "you don't have to use it"?

My point is that the standards shouldn't be co-opted to fit every want and need that a transient entity has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Cancel Netflix if you'd rather use Silverlight than HTML5 video.

<comment><USER24> This.

Netflix would like to add DRM to HTML 5 so they can migrate away from Silverlight. Right now there is no way (without Wine) to use Netflix under Linux. So in practice the FSF is campaigning against a more open web in which the #1 FOSS OS can run Netflix out of ideological reasons.

<comment><USER25> There are no plans for implementing on linux if DRM is added to HTML5 either (and it likely won't). As a linux user for 8 years I would love Netflix on linux but I don't believe it's going to happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This could also be worded, "Cancel Netflix if you value free software." By definition, Netflix users are paying for software (ok, a service) so it seems hard to get them rallied up for this cause. (This isn't a comment either way on the cause)

<comment><USER27> There is a difference between gratis and libre software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Going after Netflix is like going after a drug addict hooked on cocaine. Never mind that the addict is buying from someone far more evil on society. The addict is simply an easy target.

Likewise, Netflix doesn't really care about DRM, and as long as you are paying them monthly, they really don't care what format the content is in. It's the movie and television studios that don't want their content online without DRM.

Netflix is only able to do that deals with these studios if Netflix promises their content will be covered in DRM. No DRM, not content says the big bad studio. So now that Microsoft is sunsetting Silverlight, what are they to do?

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't get why Netflix can't just build a native app for each platform. For instance, they do have one for the iOS, shouldn't be too hard to port the core to OS X.

<comment><USER30> They certainly could. Hell, they could write their very own NPAPI/PPAPI plugins. They don't want to do either because both of those options require more legwork than just using something that somebody else is responsible for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have commented on these issues before and I feel like this one is being blown way out of proportion. We all understand why DRM is there. It is there so you can't rip the stream and save it and redistribute it.

But here is the thing that irks me about this. On the server end of things Netflix has been a rather amazing contributor to open source softwares. This boycott seems rather like shooting your self your own foot to stop an intruder.

<comment><USER32> I don't get the extra emphasis on Netflix here either.

Netflix are part of the content industry, it's not that they're the best of a bad bunch, they're actively more open than some artists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If DRM wasn't implemented in the form of an opaque binary blob, would the FSF still object to it? There is no freedom-destroying threat from media itself, only in how it's packaged and distributed. The problem is fundamentally one of license enforcement, although TBH I'm unsure how it can be done a way that renders everything moot and/or objectionable.

<comment><USER30> If DRM wasn't implemented in the form of an opaque binary blob but was instead implemented by the browser itself (which is _not_ what EME would have happen), then I would build a copy of Firefox that would pretend to the server that it does DRM but would instead dump netflix streams to the disk.

Well, I wouldn't, but somebody would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Quora has a good writeup on a few reasons why Netflix has been using Silverlight:

1\. Cheap licensing terms for DRM: [http://www.quora.com/When-does-Netflix- use-WideVine-DRM-inst...](http://www.quora.com/When-does-Netflix-use-WideVine- DRM-instead-of-Microsoft-PlayReady-DRM)

2\. Strong support for CDNs, enabling lower-cost streaming: [http://www.quora.com/Why-does-Netflix-use- Silverlight](http://www.quora.com/Why-does-Netflix-use-Silverlight)

</comment><comment><USER35> As a personal matter, I've always found Netflix's use of DRM to be superfluous. Half of the reason I use Netflix is so I don't have to manage my own video collection. I don't even want to manage a collection of .avi's and wmv's. (What file format are people actually using for stored video these days?) Trying to save my own copies of their content would be self-defeating (except maybe to view something once on an airplane?)

<comment><USER36> All DRM is superfluous. If I wanted to pirate The Avengers, Netflix's DRM would not be a major stumbling block because I could just go to The Pirate Bay and get a copy there. The DRM is to satisfy the content providers. I don't think Netflix really cares, except in that satisfying the content providers is crucial to their business model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> How are the encryption proposals "closing" the standards?

Also, I'm seeing a clash of connotation between encryption for DRM and encryption for PRIVACY. Is encryption only good when it is protecting the freedom of the user, not the producer?

<comment><USER6> > Is encryption only good when it is protecting the freedom of the user, not > the producer?

Actually, yes. Your computer should only do what _you_ want it to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Pardon me for being so naive, but why does Netflix have no competition in their market? There's no alternative to switch to, and once I've taken a step back and thought about it, this surprises me.

<comment><USER39> > Pardon me for being so naive, but why does Netflix have no competition in > their market?

Are you talking about the mail-DVD-rentals-to-your-house market or the stream- video-over-the-internet market. Because they've got plenty of fairly direct competition in the latter and currently more significant market (Amazon, Hulu, and Redbox streaming services, among others) as well as plenty of close substitutes (e.g., cable/satellite TV services which include "On Demand" series and movies) , and, if not a lot of direct competiton in the former market, at a minimum a close substitutes in the form of pervasive rental outlets (particularly Redbox).

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Of course the FSF is taking this position, and I'm glad that they are.

Is it an impractical position? Totally, of course. DRM is not optional to video content suppliers, so no matter what replaces Silverlight, it will come with DRM.

Without a W3C standard we might get several totally different, incompatible DRM implementations instead of one standard one. To folks who like standards, that will feel like a missed opportunity; but it doesn't seem any worse than what we have now.

<comment><USER41> > Without a W3C standard we might get several totally different, incompatible > DRM implementations instead of one standard one.

The EME spec does _NOT_ define a single standard DRM implementation.

The point of EME is to provide a single interface to a DRM module. The DRM modules will be entirely nonstandard, closed-source, and there will be many of them.

Google has its own DRM module, Microsoft has its own. So there are already two, entirely incompatible DRM implementations. And none of them work on other browsers. Even if other browsers implemented EME, the actual DRM implementations would not work on them.

So this is a step backwards, not forwards. It increases fragmentation.

<comment><USER20> Isn't DRM highly fragmented as it is?

<comment><USER8> Yes, but many people are pitching EME as a solution to that fragmentation. It isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> No thanks, I'll just exercise my freedom to keep using their service.

FSF's cries are nothing more than a demand to reduce the freedom of others for their own personal gain. That's not freedom.

</comment><comment><USER43> "... if you value freedom?" An over-the-top threat like that makes me want to keep Netflix for spite. Terrible headline.

</comment><comment><USER44> I would prefer a DRM-enabled HTML than a proprietary embedded video player.

<comment><USER3> Your preference is your own, but should you be able to impose it on _everybody_? Personally I respect your preferences but I cannot in good conscience support the unilateral imposition of your preferences on everybody else.

<comment><USER36> Can you in good conscience support the unilateral imposition of _your_ preferences on everybody else?

<comment><USER3> Of course not, that is why we need to work together on this issue. High- powered lobbyists have always been at the reins of the W3C but it wasn't until now that the DRM maximalists started paying their salaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you value freedom , why did you sign up for netflix in the first place?

<comment><USER45> Only game in town, in Canada.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Not as much as I value convenient streaming movies.

<comment><USER6> Do you seriously value convenient on-demand entertainment more than the abuse of technology by the powerful to hold onto their power?

<comment><USER4> As long as the abuse of technology you speak of is them holding onto their power of making money off the convenient on-demand entertainment that they produce and provide, no I don't have a problem with that. Especially when that power does not include the ability to force the consumer to pay for said product whether they want it or not.

Wait, what exactly is the abuse of technology we're talking about here?

<comment><USER6> A serious attempt to implement strong DRM will inevitably go way too deep into the hardware and software stacks.

[http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html](http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html)

Sony once tried to implement DRM using a rootkit, remember?

Also, the movie industry pushed SOPA and PIPA.

<comment><USER4> The link you provide is not evidence of abuse, but of incompetency.

Sony's rootkit shenanigans were already illegal under numerous laws in numerous jurisdictions, also an example of incompetency.

SOPA and PIPA are examples of abuse on a political level and has little to do with what I'm asking.

What abuse of technology provides what power and control over us when we are discussing DRM in the HTML stack? Even if they did get some type of DRM into the HTML stack (which isn't even happening, we're talking extensions here), you as a consumer still have more power and control by refusing to play their game in the first place.

Again, what abuse of technology are we talking about here?

<comment><USER6> OK, I didn't explain in that comment why DRM inevitably goes so deep into the technology stack. See my explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6035701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6035701)

Also, DRM gives companies like Netflix, and the developers of the proprietary platforms that Netflix builds on, the power to be gatekeepers.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it allows them to be gatekeepers. So what? What exactly is forcing you to pay money to go through that gate?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is a great example of the FSF trying to blur together various notions of "free" while pretending that software and the web are in their own gleaming tower embodying those principles.

Netflix and other similar services stream DRMed video to the browser, and they will continue doing so. Right now they use Silverlight, a proprietary Microsoft plugin whose future is unclear. Traditionally, sites have used Flash for any sort of video playing. Netflix would prefer to stream, play, and control the video using web standards, but as a distributor for Big Media, they need a DRM story. They'd like the story to be that the browser provides a facility for them to decrypt the content on the client.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of DRM, and the whole situation doesn't make sense so I don't believe it will last. Since all DRMed media comes with the decryption key, it's really only laws that make the encryption relevant, coupled with enough technical difficulty that a layperson would have to acquire some (illegal) software to perform the decryption. It sucks that ubiquitous hardware and software media formats come encumbered with restrictions (like "you can only play this DVD in the US" or "you can't skip this trailer") and are subject to patents; that you can't play a movie you bought on a physical disk for $12.99 on whatever computer or device you want in your own house.

However, given the fact that legally, certain types of software are restricted in how they can be used, why not put that software in as small a box as possible? Just because Stallman doesn't want proprietary software on his computer doesn't mean you should have to run a separate runtime from your browser to use it. Let's make DRM a box with a key and a decryption algorithm and a sign that says, "Do not run!" Let's have royalty-free, open-source, standardized DRM, peer-reviewed by the hacker community to ensure that it's unbreakable without the key that you also have, and that there's no button visible to casual users that circumvents the restrictions. Treating DRM the way we treat other software actually weakens the concept by exposing the absurdity.

Let's make it so easy to stream protected content that there's nothing to pay Netflix for, except maybe original content, instead of ending up in a world where we pay $60 a month to Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and a dozen other services.

 _The HTML standard is set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which this block of corporations has been heavily lobbying as of late. The proposed adoption of EME is disturbing for what it says about the way decisions are made relative to the Web, but what does it mean for you as a free software user?_

Surprise, corporations are involved in web standards. Engineers at Google, Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla, and other companies wrote or reviewed many (most?) of the web standards in place today.

 _DRM and free software don 't mix... We'll see an explosion of DRM on the Web -- a growing dark zone inaccessible to free software users._

I don't know if we'll see an "explosion of DRM on the Web" (it seems doubtful, unless it is because putting video on the Web is now more attractive to content-owners), but the decision to define "free software" as not doing any sort of DRM (the whole "doesn't mix" thing) is actually a very controversial part of the GPLv3 license. If a "free software user" is someone whose insistence on "the freedom to study how a program works and change it" threatens to cut them off from parts of the Internet, I wonder how many of these people there really are.

 _Microsoft has already modified Internet Explorer to start supporting EME for media streaming. Simultaneously, Netflix has begun publicly promoting Internet Explorer, revealing a two-pronged strategy of pushing proprietary browsers while attacking Web standards in the W3C._

Netflix doesn't have a "strategy" for attacking free software. It's not a "two-pronged" assault just because you feel affronted on two counts. Netflix presumably has their own motives, like simplifying their software, improving the experience for users, and supporting more devices. They want to work on Linux. They want to pay lip service to the idea of DRM while minimizing the impact on their service.

Boycotting Netflix and impeding a web standard don't seem like great tactics for fighting DRM to me.

</comment><comment><USER48> I keep seeing in the comments the assertion that Netflix "cannot" offer DRM- free video, because something-something.

This is exactly what people said about music, until Apple decided to do it, and did.

<comment><USER36> This is not actually what happened. What happened was, some music publishers decided they were willing to try offering non-DRM'd music for a higher price, and _then_ Apple did it. Apple did not force a change here. (And even if they had, Netflix is not in Apple's privileged position. The movie studios care a lot less about Netflix than the music guys do about iTunes.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Hey can't I do both?

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm surprised that on HN people cannot distinguish between Netflix business need to use DRM in their content delivery system (which is undesirable but defensible), and Netflix nefarious scheming to break the open web in order to make that an easier delivery system for DRM-ed content.

It's like defending a company that wants to dump toxic waste into our drinking water with the argument "well, they have to leave it somewhere".

Screw that. They want to use DRM, fine. But not at the expense of a free and open web.

This isn't about DRM. This isn't about copyright. This isn't even about greed. This is about power and control.

<comment><USER36> > _I 'm surprised that on HN people cannot distinguish between Netflix > business need to use DRM in their content delivery system (which is > undesirable but defensible), and Netflix nefarious scheming to break the > open web in order to make that an easier delivery system for DRM-ed > content._

I'm not aware of any portion of Netflix's proposals that would "break the open web." If the open web isn't broken by what Netflix and thousands of other companies are doing right now, how will "Netflix nefarious scheming" break it?</comment></comment>


Building a hackable editor in the browser - <AUTHOR> http://bjenik.com/hackableeditor/ <comment><USER2> So AFAIK Electron is built on V8 JS engine. Last I looked that has a JIT compiler, then I'd expect performance to increase as that 'warms up'

<comment><USER3> It does, but you've still got to keep around the optimizing JIT compiler, its JavaScript metadata, and a hundred other things around even after the JavaScript has been partially compiled to native code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you like this check out [https://github.com/Webstrates/Codestrates](https://github.com/Webstrates/Codestrates)

</comment><comment><USER5> Could someone upgrade/update the link to include [https://](https://) please?

</comment><comment><USER6>
        script, style { display: block; }

I have no words.

<comment><USER7> This is a discussion forum. Putting things into words is the purpose of commenting. If you can't, then maybe you shouldn't.

<comment><USER6> I did put something into words, didn't I? ;)

Joking aside, I would have thought this was possible.

<comment><USER6> *never thought

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> nice, I did something similar to myConsole, except I did override some functions and added some buttons to make it look like and app

[https://github.com/victorqribeiro/myConsole](https://github.com/victorqribeiro/myConsole)

</comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, so it's basically emacs in the browser!

Changing editor capabilities on-the-fly!

</comment><comment><USER10> ...how about moving things out of the browser? It's cramped as it is. And then people wonder why their browser is so slow... "it's just displaying documents!"

<comment><USER11> For that we'll need an adequate cross-platform (-ish) way of doing UI. I'm not a fan of React Native, but it seems to be the technology we're looking for, though it doesn't seem to be as ready for the desktop yet.

An all-native solution on top of a powerful modern language (rust?) would be ideal, but that doesn't seem to be the direction things are moving. We'll probably end up with Flutter/Native.

<comment><USER12> I've been thinking a lot about this lately and I'm trying to compile some information on how others think it should work.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by an all-native solution on top of a powerful modern language?

The way I see it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in the target language.

<comment><USER13> > The way I see it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in the > target language.

The way i See it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in C so that it can interface with any language as to avoid unnecessary duplication between languages (it is much easier to convince people switch toolkit than switch programming languages), ensure no language-specific indirect dependencies (especially if it is to included in OSes like OpenBSD that are traditionally C oriented) and with a stable backwards compatible ABI to avoid wasting the time and effort of whoever maintains the bindings (no need to rewrite them every few years), whoever decides to learn the new API (no need to learn something new for doing the exact same thing as before, only now in a slightly different yet incompatible way) and perhaps hopefully become a "standard" API people can target on Linux without having to carry 29892482923TB of libraries for a trivial app since you cannot rely on anything outside of X11 being there (and if GNOME people have their way, you wont be able to rely on even that). And of course all that in a permissive license that leaves everyone happy.

Now guess how likely all of this is going to happen.

<comment><USER14> > and perhaps hopefully become a "standard" API people can target on Linux > without having to carry 29892482923TB of libraries for a trivial app since > you cannot rely on anything outside of X11 being there

so, uh, what would you depend on ? at the bare minimum you would need, for a gui toolkit :

\- dependencies to X11 (xcb) and wayland (and cocoa and win32)

\- dependencies to xkb, etc.. for keyboard handling

\- dependencies on ICU for unicode text handling

\- dependencies on freetype, fontconfig, harfbuzz, pango, etc... for font rendering

\- dependencies on GL to allow your users to have a GL viewport, and potentiall on a software implementation of GL on windows because yes, even in 2019 this is still a problem on some user's computers

\- dependencies on cairo, skia, QPainter, or something like that to provide a canvas-like API

\- dependencies on libinput because that's the modern way to get mouse input on linux

\- you are going to want a library of useful datastructures that aren't provided in C -> dependency to GLib or something else

\- dependencies on libpng,jpeg, etc.... because you want your users to be able to have images in their app

\- dependencies on dbus to be able to provide desktop notifications, etc

and you aren't even starting to match all the useful functionalities of GTK & Qt

<comment><USER13> Of everything that list all you _really_ need is the X libraries and you do not need to carry (meaning distribute) those since they are part of the every single desktop environment and have a stable ABI. The rest aren't strictly necessary, but i think Cairo has a stable ABI. I'm not sure if it is available everywhere though. OpenGL (and Vulkan) can be provided via dynamic linking, though only via an API that doesn't guarantee its existence (it doesn't exist in all X11 desktops - AFAIK Raspberry Pi doesn't support them).

In any case, the dependencies i mean here are dependencies for the applications that target your API, not the dependencies your API has. You can make your API use whatever library you want to -e.g.- load PNG, JPG or whatever, but that can be hidden from the user of the API (ie. their binary will link against libyourapi.so.1 for yapi_load_image and what that specific version of libyourapi.so.1 uses to load the requested image is an implementation detail).

Note that this is in the context of making that API a standard people can target, not a reusable library (and its own dependencies) people carry with their binaries. Basically the equivalent of how you do not need to give USER32.DLL on Windows to your users because you can pretty much expect that it will be there.

Nowadays the only equivalent on Linux is the X libraries, anything else is either not guaranteed to be there now, or not guaranteed to be there in ~5 years because thanks to CADT people cannot stick with an API and feel the need to break everyone's programs to feel useful.

<comment><USER14> > Of everything that list all you really need is the X libraries and you do > not need to carry (meaning distribute) those since they are part of the > every single desktop environment and have a stable ABI.

both Debian and Fedora use wayland by default now. And wayland alone only gives you the ability to open a viewport, so you are going to need a _lot_ of stuff if you want your UI library to do something as simple as :

        #include <linux_ui.h>
        int main() {
            linux_window* window = linux_ui_create_window();
            linux_widget* label = linux_ui_create_label(u8"お早う御座います");
            linux_ui_widget_set_parent(label, window);
            linux_ui_widget_set_pos(label, 50, 50);

            return linux_ui_process_events();
        }

> Note that this is in the context of making that API a standard people can > target, not a reusable library (and its own dependencies) people carry with > their binaries. Basically the equivalent of how you do not need to give > USER32.DLL on Windows to your users because you can pretty much expect that > it will be there.

But almost no one makes Win32 apps with the Win32 API anymore anyways. The majority of desktop windows apps created today are using WPF or UWP which does not use any "native" stuff (that is, the win32 UI API), Qt or Electron. If this model does not even work on windows, why would you want to port it on linux instead of letting people ship their app as they wish ?

> Nowadays the only equivalent on Linux is the X libraries, anything else is > either not guaranteed to be there now, or not guaranteed to be there in ~5 > years because thanks to CADT people cannot stick with an API and feel the > need to break everyone's programs to feel useful.

Even if someone made this magical new library today, I would still have to package it along with all its dependencies in an AppImage because I have users still on ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, and 16.04 as well as debian stretch and jessie.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>