Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, has been a controversial project since its debut. The need for the framework has been clear: mobile page loads can be crazy, with layers and layers of images, JavaScript, ad networks and more page rendering time and costs for the bandwidth of users in the plans measured. [19659002] However, Google has dynamically incorporated the framework, that has supported the project not only with technical talent but also by making algorithmic changes in its search results that essentially have ordered that the pages comply with the terms of the AMP project – or lose their classification in mobile searches.
Even more controversial, as part of making pages faster, the AMP project uses page caches in CDNs, which are hosted by Google (and also Cloudflare). now). That meant that Google's search results would direct a user to an AMP page hosted by Google, effectively cutting the owner of the content in the process.
The project was directed by Malte Ubl, a senior engineer working on Google's Javascript. infrastructure projects, which until now has had an effective unilateral control over the project.
As a result of all these criticisms, the AMP project announced today that it would reform its government, replacing Ubl as the exclusive technological leader with a technical steering committee made up of companies invested in the success of the project. In particular, the intention of the project has a "… final goal of not having any company in more than a third of the positions". In addition, the project will create an advisory council and working groups to guide the work of the project.
project is also expected to move to a foundation in the future. These days, there are a number of places where such a project could potentially reside, including the Apache Software Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation.
Although the project has clearly had its detractors, the performance improvements for which AMP has been fighting are certainly worthwhile. With this more open government model, the project can gain deeper support from other browser vendors such as Apple, Mozilla and Microsoft, as well as the broader open source community.
And although Google has certainly been the main force behind the project, it has also been popular with open source software developers. Since the launch of the project, there have been 710 contributors to the project according to their statistics, and the project (which tries to empathize with its monopoly outside Google) notes that more than three-quarters of those taxpayers do not work in Google. [19659002] However, greater transparency and community participation should help accelerate accelerated mobile pages. The project will host its taxpayer summit next week at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, where these governance changes, as well as technical and design work plans for the project, will be most important to attendees.