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Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

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Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#171

Post by awesomekling »

fouc wrote: post #151
awesomekling wrote: post #5

Hello friends, Ladybird founder here! Here's a short video from Chris Wanstrath announcing our non-profit yesterday, and kicking things off with a $1M donation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9edTqPMX_k Happy to answer questions :)

I remember watching one of the early videos of you starting working on the browser, and you said something along the lines of wanting a browser that was sort of a dumb renderer - one that didn't attempt to be a whole Operating System. Does Ladybird still follow that ideal?

That was a long time ago indeed! To be honest, I think I was partly saying that because I was scared of the idea of supporting the entire web platform. It seemed so far away at the time. :)

Going forward, we want to support the open web as it exists, so you can actually use Ladybird to interact with all your websites. We may not agree that every web platform API is awesome and perfect, but we will honor the open standards to the best of our ability.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#172

Post by eitland »

jampekka wrote: post #168
eitland wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome in itself is not the problem. Competition is good. Firefox is better now thanks to Chrome. Neither is Safari. Safari is actually part of the solution. Safari has saved Firefox and other browsers by being the only option on iOS for a long time and a better choice for many (because of battery usage) on Mac OS. Without Safari I am afraid we would all be locked into Chrome now. The problem is that Google, like Mic…

> Safari has saved Firefox and other browsers by being the only option on iOS for a long time Amazing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(advertisement)

Hehe.

But more seriously: it is actually the truth.

Kind of in in the same way that people are thankful for Churchill: not because he was a fantastic man in every way (he wasn't) but because he saved us from something even worse.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#173

Post by josephd79 »

eitland wrote: post #149
ecef9-8c0f-4374 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KHTML was the basis for Chrome and Safari. A valid concern

Chrome in itself is not the problem. Competition is good. Firefox is better now thanks to Chrome. Neither is Safari. Safari is actually part of the solution. Safari has saved Firefox and other browsers by being the only option on iOS for a long time and a better choice for many (because of battery usage) on Mac OS. Without Safari I am afraid we would all be locked into Chrome now. The problem is that Google, like Mic…

I thought the other browsers on IOS were just skins of webkit / safari ?

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#174

Post by BirAdam »

Y_Y wrote: post #140
eitland wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality check: 1. All the BSDs have been out there for decades without anyone running with it. 2. Google and Microsoft - while being a shadow of their former selves technically - are probably still very capable of reimplementing whatever they want. 3. If Ladybird gets so wildly popular, lets celebrate wildly!

You wouldn't count OSX as someone running with BSD?

Well, macOS is sort of BSD, but not quite. The kernel isn’t really BSD despite large sections being originally taken from BSD. The XNU kernel isn’t really BSD anymore. Then, the userland (BSD is both kernel and userland developed together) isn’t really BSD anymore, and Apple neglects their UNIX userland anyhow.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#175

Post by bayindirh »

rice7th wrote: post #40
bayindirh wrote: post #16

I wonder what would happen if Ladybird matures well to compete with Firefox and Chrome (hope so), and it's just forked away by some company and completely closed down in a whim, because BSD-2 allows that.

And so? Yes people (and companies) would fork your code, but the most realistic scenario would be that the original ladybird would still be the most relevant browser of it's family, just like firefox, so the problem kinda resolves by itself

Then why KDE's Konqueror is not the most prominent browser of the KHTML family, but Safari is?

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#176

Post by BirAdam »

ecef9-8c0f-4374 wrote: post #129
dataflow wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are currently no plans to switch to a less permissive license. Hey, just a reality check: in the event that you actually do become wildly successful, this means that others (Google, Microsoft, etc.) will be able to fork the browser and then develop it faster than you - thus leaving you behind and taking away your users ! Would highly recommend leaving yourself some mechanism to prevent that, unless you're rea…

KHTML was the basis for Chrome and Safari. A valid concern

WebKit is still an open project as is Blink. Why would this be concerning?

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#177

Post by Avamander »

pjc50 wrote: post #116
Sammi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the web standards themselves are written in an object oriented style. Using a non oo language like rust is therefore an uphill battle where you end up fighing against the language. The web standards just lend themselves naturally to be implemented in an oo language like c++.

?! Rust is roughly equally as OO as C++ is. Which is not surprising given its aim to replace C++. https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch17-00-oop.html

True, but the patterns allowed on the web (or in GUIs for that matter) are incredibly painful in Rust.

There was a nice article about the GUI part: https://www.warp.dev/blog/why-is-building-a-ui-in-rust-so-ha...

These points are even more painful with web standards.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#178

Post by freehorse »

dataflow wrote: post #133
awesomekling wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we are aware of how permissive licenses work. If someone forks our code and does a better job with it than we do, fair game. :)

Note they won't have to do a better job in the long run, just a good enough job in the short run to leave you behind. But yeah, as long as you're keeping this in mind :) best of luck!

Not even that sometimes, browser popularity can just be a matter of advertising (eg how chrome took off in the internet explorer offboarding era even though there were objectively equal or better alternatives at the time by just using google's internet omnipresence at the time for advertising). Sadly, modern internet is governed more by advertising industry rather than any kind of open-internet principles.

But ultimately this is all developers' decisions and I respect that. If anything, if a major company decided to take off and invest, they could do it in any case, publishing their modified source code would not make that much of difference essentially. It is really refreshing to see at last a browser that does not absolutely depend on google's resources in any way.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#179

Post by mysterydip »

awesomekling wrote: post #5

Hello friends, Ladybird founder here! Here's a short video from Chris Wanstrath announcing our non-profit yesterday, and kicking things off with a $1M donation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9edTqPMX_k Happy to answer questions :)

It's been so refreshing watching this project blossom from literally almost nothing. I wish you success :) Hopefully I can contribute at some point because I think this browser has the best chance of shaking up the monopoly, and I want to daily drive it.

Re: Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1M from GitHub Founder

#180

Post by ykonstant »

awesomekling wrote: post #144
wwwwwwwweb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we have almost half a million lines of modern C++ to maintain. ...We are actively evaluating a number of alternatives and will be adding a mature successor language to the project in the near future. This process is already quite far along, and prototypes exist in multiple languages. What languages have prototypes and where can I learn more?

We have not been debating this publicly as it has a 100% chance of devolving into a bikeshed discussion :)

Clearly there is a furious internal war between CLispers and Haskellers!
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