How is that possible? Would Chrome Chromium maintainer make a different implementation decision from the original Chrome, and then support and develop a real branch in the code? To have Google less influence? I highly doubt it. It is all chromewashing, to make it sound as if Chrome Chromium is an independent browser.

The origin(al) is developed within the chromium project, Chrome is already a Google styled chromium fork.

That's how it is advertised. But in reality all decisions are made by Google for Chrome and other Chrome forks just implement all of them without questions. Google wants to add a new protocol - all forks add it. Google wants to cripple adblock support - all forks do it. Etc.

Since the development is done in chromium, adding owners to the project, maybe changing governance similar to Kubernetes and the CNCF, could help steering the anti-trust away and benefit the industry as a side effect.

And yet Google is a member of the initiative. Maybe, possibly, this initiative coupled with detaching Chromium from Alphabet might lead to an opening of the Chromium engine, but more likely Alphabet joined so that if it _does_ get split off from the mother-ship due to anti-trust they'll still have sway over Chromium's direction. And that will be an advertiser-centric direction.

I'll add that whatever the purpose of this project, it isn't going to help the overall openness of the web and will only continue to boost the adoption of an engine that already has an outsized influence over web standards.

I don't believe splitting Chromium governance model across Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Opera will help Firefox in any way.

I wish this was the case, I doubt it'll be the case. Suppose for example that the foundation agrees that Manifest V3 is a bad idea (and, objectively, it is an awful idea). I can't imagine a world where the contributors from Google (which currently still make up the vast majority of the commits to the Chromium codebase) go back on their steps and re-implement support for V2, which would basically go against the profitability strategy of their own employer.

Same for intentionally crippling Google websites on non-Chromium browsers: given how deliberate such acts of crippling are, I have reasons to believe that it's part of Google's "works with Chrome" strategy, and I'd doubt that Google employees can do much against it.

The only way to fix the governance of Chromium is to effectively chop all the threads that connect it to Google. As long as Chromium developers who are employed at Google won't do anything that goes against the strategy of their employer, you can't have fair governance.