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I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

awesomekling.substack.com

191–200 of 280 posts

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#191

> Ladybird now targets Linux and macOS. The SerenityOS target is dropped. Why dropping the SerenityOS target?? Does this mean that SerenityOS's Ladybird will need to continually pull patches from the new Ladybird project in order to keep development? Also: is it really a fork if the new project gets to keep the name "Ladybird"? Will SerenityOS's browser need to be renamed, or there will be two diverging Ladybird proj…

Yeah that's a little bit concerning, honestly. It really sounds more like an abandonment of SerenityOS, rather than a shift in emphasis

the writing has been on the wall for a long time (as the post mentions too). I'm cynical so I think to some extent it's related to the fact that writing a browser from scratch has been able to attract significant funding, whereas the operating system has earned a lot of nerd goodwill and small donations but would have a really hard time commercially justifying itself. I think it's a shame because it's a far cooler project, but of course it's not up to me to dictate how others spend their time.

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#192

Can we interpret this as good news of Ladybird but bad news for Serenity? If Ladybird drops support for SerenityOS, what would be its built-in browser?

Serenity still has Ladybird as it is right now. So I assume that will become the baseline for "Browser" in SerenityOS going forward, and be developed independently. Whatever the browser in SerenityOS will end up looking like though, I doubt it will see much development. The kinds of people interested in working on browsers will just work on Ladybird.

Someone will probably once again port Ladybird to SerenityOS in the future. It won't be part of the main system, but users would be free to install it.

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#193
Ladybird had a unique position of having been developed from scratch. That had brought a fresh set of eyes to an ancient tech called Web. Leveraging OSS would diminish that aspect, IMHO. What’s your vision Andreas? What are you trying to do with Ladybird as it’s no longer a hobby but a more serious project now?

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#194
Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

Tao Te Ching

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#195

I really hope Ladybird will become the browser that will put HaikuOS on the map of desktops!

What does Ladybird have to do with Haiku? The Haiku port of Ladybird is pretty out of date, although there is talk on the Haiku forums of reviving it.

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#196
Andreas is probably the most positive person I can think of. I'm happy to read such an article where for once "forking" isn't associated with a negative event.

Best of luck on the new Ladybird adventure, and thanks for all your positivity and contributions!

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's very little NT 3.1 code left in Windows, but it's still clear how old that project is.

All unixes are descendants of original Unix from PDP-7 days. Why does it matter? ...ok the /bin /usr/bin nonsense still stays after decades, maybe you have a point

Windows, macOS and Linux all have legacies of the late 80s and early 90s.

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#198
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like you is why people burn out from open source. Can't create anything without random nobodies who spend zero effort on anything shouting at you and hurling insults at you. You're being a completely toxic asshole.

No, it's not me at all. People like you are the reason why I suffer from burn out. The burn out is because your working on an single platform and refusing to even attempt for another project, or OS for this matter. That's how I find it. Lets reinvent the wheel for the same OS where the wheel has already been reinvented. Yet lets not reinvent the wheel for another OS.

You are being extremely rude and entitled throughout this entire thread. No one is under any obligation to bring their software to any given platform.

I don't think anyone disagrees that the world would be better if software were freely available on everyone's platform of choice. But you're coming up against fundamental resource limits -- there are only so many people working on a given project and there is only so much time in a day. Resource constraints are why you yourself are not doing the work and resource constraints are why other people are not doing the work.

You answered earlier that it'd be less work for everyone involved if the original authors simply ported the software, and perhaps so, but I'm not convinced of this. I would have a difficult time porting my software to MacOS for example because I've never used the platform. And even if so, I have a limited amount of time on earth. In terms of maximizing utility of my time, I think there is a strong argument that spending my time improving the software quality instead of improving its reach will result more happiness overall. Partly because you cover more than 99% of people by targeting mainstream platforms. FreeBSD for example cannot account for anywhere near 1% marketshare.

In the case of Serenity, it's not yet even in a usable state as a replacement browser. Let them focus on getting it usable. It's the type of thing that will eventually appear on BSD when it gets good enough to be used.

None of this is going to change by you leaving rude comments to the people doing open source work. I think the net result of it, if anything, is reduced interest in porting.

You have to understand and accept that you have made an ideological choice on what platform you use. You have to understand that your platform has an absolutely minimal number of users. The inevitable consequence of this is less software available for your platform. It isn't a grand conspiracy, it isn't spite, it isn't me acting like the BSD's do not deserve ports -- it's just the fundamental nature of reality and resource constraints.

Even folks on Linux are sacrificing on software and convenience and Linux has a market share which is likely multiple orders of magnitude larger than FreeBSD.

I'm sorry you're feeling burned out, but posting mean and entitled comments online is not going to help. It's only going to spread the burnout like a mind virus, causing others to feel burned out themselves.

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#199

I never got to try SerenityOS due to the developer's bizarre insistence that users compile the OS instead of just providing a precompiled ISO or IMG file. Shame because I appreciated the workhorse 9x aesthetics it had.

Why is it bizarre? It encouraged people to contribute to the project. It clearly worked out well for them. SerenityOS isn't for regular users, it's for developers.

Re: I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

#200

Andreas is probably the most positive person I can think of. I'm happy to read such an article where for once "forking" isn't associated with a negative event. Best of luck on the new Ladybird adventure, and thanks for all your positivity and contributions!

It's not a negative that SerenityOS no longer has a web browser?
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