Well, it's not like I haven't added the notice "(the companies)" after "we" twice.

By which "companies" (something also clear from the context), I mean Apple, MS, Google etc, the companies working on rendering engines and browser.

I used "we" to adopt the parent comment's use of "we" and his idea of the web as a common project all those companies share.

>so I can take great care to avoid ever working for them.

Well, since you already work for Google, it's understandable you seeing this as silly and thinking they are all for open and the web's progress.

I don't think that's the general perception people have of Google though -- nor that it is correct.

"We're doing our own thing that we totally control and will likely only show up in our products"

is better than

"We're contributing to one of the best/most successful opensource projects around and thereby making the web better for people across devices and platforms".

for anyone other than Google.