Exactly, in that model the only way to build a browser is to depend on someone else to implement the specs. It's not feasible to build a new browser, at best you can start with what Google implemented, including proprietary features, and go from there. At that point you likely don't understand the codebase fully and are going to be dependant on staying in sync with chromium to get new features.
This model of starting with chromium really has nothing to do with building a web browser, it is just building a UI around Google's browser. There isn't much daylight between that and the often complained about limitation of Apple only allowing the use of WebKit on iOS.
I think we're just thinking about very stiffener goals for the web. I'm not interested in a version of the web that is driven by one browser or company, even if it can technically be modified or tweaked as long as you don't diverge see enough to break upstream compatibility.
Your original comment was about competition between browsers. For browsers to compete they don't all need to have their own browser engine written from scratch.
Web standards are not driven by one browser or one company. That would still be true if everyone based their browsers off of Blink.
There isn't any real browser competition when the only difference is in what the UI around the actual web browser is. The browser experience is what actually renders the web page, not the menu system around it.
We wouldn't need standards at all if everyone used the same browser engine. Whoever owns the engine, likely Google, would make the engine however they choose and could change core fundamentals of how the web itself works.
Many devs were up in arms when a GitHub issue raised the idea of effectively DRMing the internet. Google can bake that right into chromium if they want to, and if they were the only browser engine they could easily get away with closed sourcing chromium and only shipping binaries so the feature can't be disabled or removed.
Web standards in that world would be an internal discussion at Google, likely driven entirely by their business needs. There's no browser competition there, the open web would be completely dead.
>There isn't any real browser competition when the only difference is in what the UI around the actual web browser is.
I am not suggesting that people only make UI changes. I am suggesting that there is value in reusing work that already exists.
>The browser experience is what actually renders the web page, not the menu system around it.
Chromiums renderer is going to be fine for most people looking to build a browser. People building a browser should focus onan building what makes their browser unique. Not every browser is setting off to create a new rendel engine.
>We wouldn't need standards at all if everyone used the same browser engine.
There still would be a need for cross industry collaboration on how to move the web forward. If Clang was the only C++ compiler there still is a benefit on having the standards process and working groups figuring out how to evolve the language.
>Whoever owns the engine, likely Google, would make the engine however they choose and could change core fundamentals of how the web itself works.
This is a problem with browser marketshare and not browser engine marketshare.
>and if they were the only browser engine they could easily get away with closed sourcing chromium and only shipping binaries so the feature can't be disabled or removed.
Other browsers can work together on developing on top of the last public release of chromium. This is still less work than all of these browser developers independently creating their own browser engines.
This model of starting with chromium really has nothing to do with building a web browser, it is just building a UI around Google's browser. There isn't much daylight between that and the often complained about limitation of Apple only allowing the use of WebKit on iOS.