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ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

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Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#31

Post by ptrott2017 »

dmitriid wrote: post #26
gitgud wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the Kickstarter information: > "...Some of these directions better suit Open Source development model for many reasons." So they want $100,000 to give people the source code. Then they're saying it will suit Open Source Development (also requesting free labour from the community).... this is a red flag

They want $100,000 to fund work on open sourcing code that people will then use for free. As far as red flags go, educate yourself: open source work is unsustainable without external sources of income: https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html

Sciter has been around a while and has a good reputation amongst those who have used the SDK. The OP also has a good reputation amongst devs and hackers who are familiar with his work. Its just not well known outside those circles. Rather than a red flag I don't see this as any different to when Blender needed to raise 100K Euro to originally go open source.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#32

Post by artiscode »

ksec wrote: post #23
ptrott2017 wrote: post #14

Sciter is a very nice engine with a solid API/SDK and rock solid engineering behind it. For developers building efficient UI apps it can be a real alternative method to things like electron or as a lighter alternative to QT with QML script. However until now it was only available under commercial licence. Andrew Fedoniouk ( a.k.a. c-smile Sciter's original developer) has a kickstarter to fund open sourcing and suppor…

For $100K in total, a tiny marketing budget those companies could have shown some good will towards Open Source. I wonder if the author actually contacted those companies. That is less than $3K from each of those customers listed.

Given the author wants to release Sciter under GPL, unless twice as many funds are raised, I fail to see the incentive for any company to fund this. GPL + commercial licensing model changes nothing for commercial product developers.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#33

Post by cosmotic »

edem wrote: post #24

What prevents me from even looking at this link is the 4.5MB executable. Come on. Have you tried to download that amount of data using a spotty mobile connection?

4.5MB would be on the smaller side of windows or mac software downloads.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#34

Post by benatkin »

barumi wrote: post #21
benatkin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you're looking for. It's similar to other third-party component libraries out there. There are open source and closed source ones. With the closed source ones you can take a leap of faith and trust the developer of the project, how it's documented, what it does, and decide whether or not to use it. If you submit to an app store, they can decide whether to approve it. There are closed-source third-p…

> It depends on what you're looking for. Security, for starters. There is no way around this. > It's similar to other third-party component libraries out there. There are open source and closed source ones. You're trying to side-step the fact that a random user uploaded binaries that were crafted to do god knows what to the host's computer in a way that circumvents basic auditing and security checks, and did so while…

It isn't a random user. The author of the repo has quite an online presence and track record.

My top choice, all other things equal, is open source code but I know I don't read all the code and rely on a trust network.

A lot of open source code is distributed as binaries these days, in go, rust, docker, and others. Developers have an option to download the source and compile it ourselves but they don't always do it. It's convenient to be able to download a self-contained binary.

I'm not trying to spin it, just to point out that I'd have an easier time trusting this than I'd have trusting many open source projects.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#35

Post by nine_k »

Basically we have 2 days to make Sciter open-source (GPL or MIT, depending on the amount collected).

I think landing a mature cross-platform desktop app framework which is not beholden to any browser vendors is a huge goal. It will have significant consequences for the desktop app ecosystems on all major platforms.

Please take part.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#36

Post by gkoberger »

ksec wrote: post #23
ptrott2017 wrote: post #14

Sciter is a very nice engine with a solid API/SDK and rock solid engineering behind it. For developers building efficient UI apps it can be a real alternative method to things like electron or as a lighter alternative to QT with QML script. However until now it was only available under commercial licence. Andrew Fedoniouk ( a.k.a. c-smile Sciter's original developer) has a kickstarter to fund open sourcing and suppor…

For $100K in total, a tiny marketing budget those companies could have shown some good will towards Open Source. I wonder if the author actually contacted those companies. That is less than $3K from each of those customers listed.

I agree, but companies don't work that way unfortunately. It's really hard to go ask your boss for budget to... just donate.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#39

Post by inque3d »

nly wrote: post #30
jblazevic wrote: post #8

What I find very interesting here is the QuickJS engine used in this. Developed by none other than Fabrice Bellard!

Very much in the same vein as Duktape[0]. It looks like Duktape is smaller and has a more useful standard library, but is slower and doesn't support ES2020 features. https://duktape.org/index.html https://bellard.org/quickjs/bench.html

Not just es2020, Duktape doesn't even support arrow functions and classes.

QuickJS seems interesting, but I couldn't manage to compile it on Windows (without MSYS2).

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#40

Post by imtringued »

gitgud wrote: post #20
gigel82 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like the author was trying to crowd-fund open-sourcing this project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c-smile/open-source-sci... I think we'd be better off trying to slim down Chromium or reviving the idea of using the built-in OS WebView control (which is mostly Chromium nowadays anyway), at least that would be a standard web environment.

Under the Kickstarter information: > "...Some of these directions better suit Open Source development model for many reasons." So they want $100,000 to give people the source code. Then they're saying it will suit Open Source Development (also requesting free labour from the community).... this is a red flag

A bigger red flag would be an open source project with no maintainer.
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