We've created a US non-profit to develop Ladybird into a truly independent web browser...
  • Logh@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Love the idea! Shopify as the highest tier sponsor? Not so much.

    • antler@feddit.rocksEnglish
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      3 months ago

      I mean if they’re gonna give money without demanding anything I’m sure no complaints from the devs.

      Shopify or an exec there might find some value in avoiding Google owning the web, could maybe bring goodwill for the company, or they could just be looking for a write off.

  • unlawfulbooger@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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    3 months ago

    They’re making a new browser engine from scratch in an open way, absolutely amazing!

    I do have several questions:

    Why would they use BSD instead of GPL? If you care about open-source so much, why would you make it possible for a company to run away with your fancy new engine?

    Why are they creating a new browser, when even firefox has to struggle to keep some semblance of market share? I get that not every project needs to aim to be “the biggest”, and that even a smaller project (in terms of users), can be fun. It’s just that writing a browser engine that can handle the modern web seems like an almost Sisyphean task; which makes me wonder what their motivation(?) is.

    Why the FLOSS are they using closed-source proprietary discord as their main communication channel?

    • ggppjj@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      3 months ago

      As someone who uses BSD licensed modified code at work and relies on it quite a lot, it’s crucial to me choosing which projects I’m able to use in the first place.

      Personally, I prefer a license that allows for commercial use in the way that companies need them to, and if my own work ever can provide a patch back upstream I’d be happy to do so, but most of what I do is just tweaking things that exist to suit my purposes which doesn’t really help anyone but my business rivals which I personally am not interested in doing if I don’t have to.

      I prefer to have the freedom to do as I wish with the code, as compared to being bound to do as the author wishes and essentially just not using that code in the first place because I can’t. I’m not in a position to change what I can and can’t do because of the requirements of the business I work for, and I’m grateful to those that choose licenses that allow me to use their work.

      They’re creating a new browser because they want to. It started as an OS building project that the lead dev did to help stay sober.

      They use discord because it’s popular. Insert Ouroborus argument here, and at the end of the day it’s still the most popular app.

      • tron@midwest.socialEnglish
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        3 months ago

        They use discord because it’s popular. Insert Ouroborus argument here, and at the end of the day it’s still the most popular app.

        Using this logic why shouldn’t I just download chrome and forget this project exists?

        • ggppjj@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          3 months ago

          Depending on your use case, maybe you should. If your use case is “using the internet today securely”, then you definitely should.

          I’m not trying to create a logical puzzle that teasing the right details out of will solve, I’m not even advocating for or against their decision, discord fuckin sucks shit and I can’t wait for element to continue to mature towards enough feature parity that a switch is seamless so that I can actually convince my friends to switch too, I’m reporting a reality of life on the internet today.

    • Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
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      3 months ago
      1. (BSD vs GPL) Andreas stated on twitter that he wanted to give devs total freedom to use his work because when he worked at Apple he felt frustrated he couldn’t incorporate some code/software into his work because of GPL.
      2. (Why?) The aim is not to create a chrome competitor, but to make a good enough, truly free browser that isn’t either chrome or funded by chrome. A browser made for and by its user’s.
      3. (Discord) Because of gen-z.
  • MuchPineapples@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    3 months ago

    Funny how in the video the guy say that all other browsers are based on Google’s code. But Firefox is also independent right?

    • viking@infosec.pubEnglish
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      3 months ago

      Google is Mozilla’s biggest source of income, and google developers have actively contributed code to the Firefox engine.

      So you decide for yourself what level of independence you assign to it.

    • shortwavesurfer@monero.townEnglish
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      3 months ago

      Firefox gets tons of funding from Google, and their code is quite frankly humongous. From what I understand, it’s extremely hard to get the gecko web view engine to work. In another browser, unless it’s a fork of Firefox, unlike Chromium where you can just redesign an entire browser around it.

    • infeeeee@lemm.eeEnglish
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      3 months ago

      He says “powered by or funded by Google”. Firefox depends on Google financially, most of the income of Mozilla comes from Google paying for being the default search engine.

      They try to diversify their income (Firefox VPN, email alias service, etc.), but anything they try gets a huge backlash from the community, and still small compared to the the money from google.

        • Bali@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          3 months ago

          I think google need firefox exist to avoid anti trust, and Mozilla need google to keep the the six figures payroll for the CEO. So yes.

  • Toes♀@ani.socialEnglish
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    3 months ago

    Kudos to them. Opera gave up on this dream being unable to accommodate all the nuances of web standards and accounting for out of conformance behaviours that many websites rely on the daily.

    I reckon this browser will need to be at least on par with reasonably recent version of Firefox to see significant adoption.

      • kamen@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        3 months ago

        I do too. What a joke the browser became after moving to Chromium… I remember it didn’t even have bookmarks in the first version.

        On the flip side I kind of understand the decision to pull the plug - if you’ve looked at Browser.js and think that potentially any site might need a fix to work properly…

  • vsis@feddit.clEnglish
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    3 months ago

    The project management may have some obvious problems (jOin dIsc0Rd sErVEr; w0rD “thEy” t0o p0liTicAl). But we really need an alternative to browsers funded by Google (Chrome and Firefox).

    So I’ll do my best to actually build from sources and see what can I help with. Attacking the author is helping nobody.

    And for the folks who are saying “wHy n0t rUst”, you can always show me the (rust) code.

  • CALIGVLA@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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    3 months ago

    I hope this pans out, because I’ve long ago lost hope on Firefox being a worthy alternative to Chromium.

    • subversive_dev@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      3 months ago

      Have you used Firefox recently? There are a few chrome only sites but I’ve been daily driving it for a few months and it’s mostly upside

    • Noxy@yiffit.netEnglish
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      3 months ago

      Firefox has been perfectly capable for the entire time it has existed. What are you talking about?

  • asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    C++

    If they’re starting a browser from scratch, why would they not have chosen Rust? Seems very short sighted to not have learned from Firefox.

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netEnglish
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      3 months ago

      They used c++ initially since it was spawned from SerenityOS, which was designed to be a mashup of win2000 and unix.

      now that Ladybird is its own project, it’s not constrained to that goal, and they have said they will incorporate modern languages.

  • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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    3 months ago

    “Ladybird uses a brand new engine based on web standards, without borrowing any code from other browsers.” has the same energy as

    • blind3rdeye@lemm.eeEnglish
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      3 months ago

      Not really. They aren’t inventing new standards. They are implementing an engine that confirms to existing standards.

    • decivex@yiffit.netEnglish
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      3 months ago

      In this case having more browser engines not under Google’s control is probably a good thing. Although this effort might’ve been better spent working on Servo.

    • blind3rdeye@lemm.eeEnglish
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      3 months ago

      Hmm. I just read the github thread that this is about. The devs made a mistake on this; but it seems to me that there is a bit of an over-reaction here. The people in the thread seem to be discussing it calmly and politely; and the issue (i.e. use of pronouns in the build instructions) ends up being resolved. By contrast, the reaction outside of the actual thread… is extreme.

      Like I said, this seems like an overreaction to someone making a mistake of ignorance & indifference. It wasn’t an act of malice.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      3 months ago

      Why don’t ya’ll contribute some meaningful code instead of finding ways to deny those who do

      • wholookshere@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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        3 months ago

        Please describe to me how someone who offered up changes to change “he” to “they” for them, and then the contributor getting pissy about “politics” is denying work.

    • quissberry@lemmy.cafeEnglish
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      3 months ago

      Yeah, I saw this, and all my excitement for the project died. If it becomes successful, I might use it anyway though.

    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      3 months ago

      All this because they won’t change a “he” into “they” ? Who gives a fuck about such rampant whiteknightism ? Why does a browser even need to know your gender ? In what context even is there a pronoun in the user interface ?

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.netEnglish
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        3 months ago

        You could find out the context by reading the title of the thread, but then you’d have less to bitch about, so I can understand why you chose ignorance.