INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mozilla, Intel, Red Hat and Fastly today announced the launch of the Bytecode Alliance, a new open-source group that focuses on &creating
new software foundations, building on standards such as WebAssembly and WebAssembly System Interface (WASI).&
Mozilla has long championed
WebAssembly, the open standard that allows browsers to execute compiled programs in the browser
This allows developers to write their applications in languages like C, C++ and Rust and have those programs execute at native speed, all
without having to rely on JavaScript, which would take much longer to parse and execute, especially on mobile devices.
Today, support for
WebAssembly is part of all the major browser engines
Companies like Figma and Autodesk have experimented with it or are using it in production
I do not get the sense that mass adoption of the technology is near, though, and the barrier to entry is high for most developers
Indeed, today announcement probably marks the first time I&ve heard about WebAssemly this year.
The mission of this new group goes beyond
It wants to establish &a capable, secure platform that allows application developers and service providers to confidently run untrusted
code, on any infrastructure, for any operating system or device, leveraging decades of experience doing so inside web browsers.& The
argument here is that there is plenty of potential for WebAssembly outside of the browser because it allows untrusted code components to
interact with trusted code inside of a sandboxed environment
Indeed, a Mozilla spokesperson noted that WebAssembly has generated more interest from businesses that are interested in this use case than
from the traditional application developers and web technologists
Hence this new alliance.
When Mozilla and others launched the WebAssembly format, Microsoft and Google were also part of that group
They are not members of the new Bytecode Alliance, though.
Some of the code the various members are contributing to the Alliance include
Wasmtime, a runtime for WebAssemble and WASI, as well as Fastly Lucet, Intel WebAssembly Micro Runtime and code generator
Cranelift.
&WebAssembly is changing the web, but we believe WebAssembly can play an even bigger role in the software ecosystem as it
continues to expand beyond browsers,& explained Luke Wagner, Distinguished Engineer at Mozilla and co-creator of WebAssembly
&This is a unique moment in time at the dawn of a new technology, where we have the opportunity to fix what broken and build new,
secure-by-default foundations for native development that are portable and scalable
But we need to take deliberate, cross-industry action to ensure this happens in the right way.&
Google, Microsoft, Mozilla And Others Team
Up To Launch WebAssembly, A New Binary Format For The Web
