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I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

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Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#101

Post by bruce511 »

Tade0 wrote: post #40
bruce511 wrote: post #6

For more context see [1]. At first glance I felt that 100k wasn't really going to move the needle in creating a new browser engine but in fact (after reading the link below) it's not insignificant. There are a lot of contributers to this project, and funding the project lead is a big step in the right direction. Realistically another browser engine really isn't needed. 2 is enough. Given the scale of the work involve…

Two competitors in anything is too few. Look at the mess any two-party system is comparing to where there are at least three, each keeping the others in check.

Tell that to MS Phone. Tell that to Desktop Linux. Or OS/2. Or BeOS. Etc.

A browser is a consumer product. As such the public will gravitate between two choices. 3rd place is no-where land.

Sure 3rd place can exist, but its always a distant 3rd. Trident got canned for a reason. MS phone was a good OS, but sales offered iOS and Android.

We need a stronger second option, not another option. Mozilla at least starts at parity. A new engine now is do far behind, that without Google scales of cash (which is what it took for Chrome to even join the fray) this project cannot go anywhere material.

I'm not a fan of monopolies, but all markets have a leader a follower, and a bunch of minor placings.

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#102

Post by marginalia_nu »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #90
LeFantome wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a multi-decade long Firefox user, I am going to say no. Firefox is produced by a single company and its users are completely beholden to the choices that the company makes. In some ways, Chromium is closer to being the Linux of browsers. There are multiple “distributions” or instances of the technology ( Chrome, Edge, Brave, and others ). There is at least some collaboration on the core. Chromium is not developed…

Nobody cares there's only one implementation that's really used widely for Java. I don't see why I should care what VM is used for the web. Chromium can be that and you can build whatever tooling on top to interact with that VM

I think this argument would have credibility if it wasn't for the fact that Google is ostensibly waging a war against the ability to extend the browser in any way that harms their ads business (with Manifest v3).

Google has a massive conflict of interest with the free and independent web in a way that Oracle does not have with the ability to build and run arbitrary Java applications.

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#103

Post by andybak »

skinnymuch wrote: post #99
andybak wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more concerned about the people that need help with something, but don't ask on Discord for any number of reasons. I suspect 1000 people use Google to solve a problem for every 1 that joins a Discord and asks.

Discord servers aren’t fully private. Messages can be extracted. Neither Google nor Discord need to officially do anything. The people of Discord servers can decide how info can be publicly shared. There are nuances to care about like people’s privacy and comfort.

It's worth repeating the maxim "Defaults Matter". It's a fair bit of effort to mirror Discord to the web, and it's unclear whether it's officially frowned upon. Add to that the nuances you refer to and the end result is lots of valuable knowledge that will never be preserved, will rarely be found and will one day disappear.

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#104

Post by avian »

marcinzm wrote: post #75
andybak wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you feel about the fact that all your institutional knowledge is now not visible outside of Discord, not indexed and barely searchable? How do you feel about the fact that the long-term survival of this knowledge is at the whim of a company that is mostly focused on the gaming community and has no vested interest in preservation over longer time periods? When was the last time you found an answer to a question…

My experience with semi-private chats in modern times is that it encourages more conversation that are visible to more people since everything people say is not going to be trivially searchable for all time by anyone. In the age where the media and those with an axe to grind (and frankly the person interviewing you for a job in 10 years) have figured out how to dig up anything you ever said in under 10 minutes the we…

> it encourages more conversation that are visible to more people since everything people say is not going to be trivially searchable for all time by anyone.

It also encourages more people to be assholes in my experience. I'm sure there are well moderated chats out there associated with open source projects, but I had several such abysmal experiences with Discord in the past that I'm completely done with it.

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#105

Post by samwillis »

awesomekling wrote: post #5

Hello friends! I am very excited about this indeed :) If you’d like to know more about Ladybird, I did a presentation about it at the Web Engines Hackfest in Spain just two weeks ago: https://youtu.be/De8N1zrQwRs

Andreas has just had a second one!

> In a surprising twist, I have just received a second $100,000 sponsorship for Ladybird development!

> This one came in the form of an anonymous cryptocurrency donation, so now I need to talk to my tax accountant ASAP and figure out what to do..

https://twitter.com/awesomekling/status/1670440822129532928

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#106

Post by marginalia_nu »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #93
marginalia_nu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech used Linux to wage a proxy war against Microsoft from a safe distance without needing to actually commit to anything. Linus Torvalds had nothing to his name when he started working on Linux. He was just some kid from Finland, but the audacity the project gave it attention and visibility, and visibility came with funding. I think in general a hint of audacity along with being able to demonstrate capabilities…

> A lot of people have a vested interest in shaking up the tech world. I'd imagine you're one of us, considering you went full-time on your search engine :) We had Andreas demo his OS / browser [0] at Handmade Cities [1]. These conferences are what I run full-time independently. I'm excited to see a flourishing of audacity, so to speak! [0] https://vimeo.com/641406697 [1] https://handmadecities.com

Yeah. Andreas is an inspiration and a trailblazer, and although we're on slightly different journeys, we have similar ambitions I think :D

It's weird, it's become this truth in software development that one should lower their ambitions, try to do something small and not overextend. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, stay in your lane.

Which I guess is sage advice for a beginner, but I think it sort of stuck with the developer hive mind and as a result, what you get is these small low-impact projects instead of this kind of a moonshot.

While I don't think just anyone could make a browser or a search engine, I also don't think most who could would ever think to try because of these self-imposed limitations.

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#107

Post by MatthiasPortzel »

intelVISA wrote: post #94
samwillis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Servo was moved to the Linux Foundation in 2019, and earlier this year Igalia (an open source consulting company) contributed funds and developer time to advance the project. I believe they have a small team full time on it. You can read more here: https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34400214 So, your "wish som…

> an open source consulting company Not sure how to feel about this combination, are they any good?

Igalia is responsible for a lot of open source contributions to web browsers. Here’s an article about them.

=> https://thenewstack.io/igalia-the-open-source-powerhouse-you...

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#108

Post by stjohnswarts »

silisili wrote: post #11
ducktective wrote: post #2

The more browser engines, the better. It doesn't use neither Chromium nor Gecko.

Small nit: this reads in English as a double negative. It's easier to picture if you think of neither as 'not either.' Perhaps 'it uses neither' or 'doesn't use either.'

You don't need either or neither to get the same point across. "It doesn't use Chrome or Gecko" works just fine :)

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#109

Post by tharne »

SecretDreams wrote: post #98
andybak wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord is a replacement for IRC, forums and mailing lists - not for hanging out in meat-space.

The Internet is moving towards a meat place replacement.

Pretty sure that COVID showed the exact opposite. Our brains evolved in the meatspace and won't be happy anywhere else.

Even the success of remote work shows this. People want to avoid the office (and the commute) to get more time with friends, family, and their hobbies. The internet is most successful when it helps people live the life they want in the meatspace, not when it tries to replace it.

Re: I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

#110

Post by toastal »

dougall wrote: post #70
jraph wrote: post #20

Ladybird looks amazing. Just as I was losing faith that building a browser from scratch today was an almost impossible task that only a big company could pull off, they proved otherwise. I compiled it and added packages to install on openSUSE for this in the readme... which was easy because you don't need much to build this browser! And it builds in a few minutes. I wish Discord was not mandatory to interact with the…

Is there a reason you call out Discord and not GitHub?

Absolutely fair to call out both on similar grounds on openness and privacy being proprietary (publicly-traded megacorp vs. VC funded). One difference would be at least GitHub results can be found with a search engine and without authentication (though you cannot use the search for “Code” without an account).
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