> This is exactly where it becomes an issue. You get to a situation where apps running on Chrome are faster, and the other browsers are slower.

So? JavaScript apps already run faster with in Browsers with faster JS VMs or for different users on faster hardware and different devices e.g. Smart Phones vs iPads vs TVs vs Desktops. Safari in iOS had a much faster JS implementation than Android or even the WebView in iOS apps, this doesn't make slower devices useless or stop users from viewing websites in different apps than Safari or even stop other browser vendors from developing alternative browsers for iOS.

Having a faster implementation doesn't make every other device or browser useless.

> Why would anyone run a slower JS implementation of an app, when Chrome gives them wings?

Why should the web be shackled to the limitations of JavaScript? This same reasoning could apply when V8 was first released which was 100x faster than other JS engines at the time. This just made every browser vendor care deeply and invest more in JavaScript performance. This is the same as impl-driven defacto standards like Canvas and WebGL, new experiences open up more categories and encourage other vendors to follow suit - A rising tide lifts all boats.

The core Dart Team is driven by trying to improve the web as best they can, just as they've done with V8 they want all their work to be freely used and used to encourage new innovations on the web.

> A large body of source code isn't as adoptable as you imagine. You need the people who are embedded in the evolution of the platform, or you are always going to lag.

Not true. A valid implementation of a language spec precisely means that source code in that language can be run on any implementation, just like existing Java code could run on Android's Dalvik and ART VMs. When a language has a specification it makes it easier to create different implementations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines). It's also possible when a language doesn't have a specification as seen with Ruby VMs (https://github.com/cogitator/ruby-implementations/wiki/List-...) but it's much easier to implement when there's an unambiguous spec to follow.

Also because Dart (like V8_ is both open source and embeddable, no-one needs to reimplement it, they can embed it as-is or port it.

> You need the people who are embedded in the evolution of the platform, or you are always going to lag.

The developers of Node, didn't have to work on V8 team to embed V8, neither does anything else that embeds, compiles or ports V8.

> Not true. As an example, for a long time Mono's GC was much slower than .Net's.

You're contradicting yourself and disproving your own point. A GC is not in the language specification, it's an implementation detail which the Mono team had to re-implement themselves precisely because it wasn't Open Source.

None of this applies with the Dart platform or team whom are developing a truly open platform and embeddable VM who are actively encouraging other users and vendors to adopt.

> The lessons from the 90s and early 2000's were very clear. We need to learn from them.

It seems at least they're not as clear to you - none of your comparisons are valid, nor have you cited the ones that were.