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I guess SerenityOS is somewhat doomed now? I never saw this kind of move ending well, honestly. Even when not involved, having the original around is always a great boon to the popularity of a project. I for one would love to see the SerenityOS GUI ported to Wayland on Windows. It's precisely what I ask for from an OS honestly.
Ladybird has garnered a level of mainstream attention that SerenityOS never really managed to. The browser has the potential to impact many more people, and the project is well funded by large investors. It makes sense that Andreas would shift his focus to LadyBird at this point. While Safari is busy being Safari and Firefox is busy eating glue in the corner, I'd love to see LadyBird become a real contender in the br…
But it's a bit disappointing to see that it's still pretty much a one-man project. Especially to have a chance to get close to the performance of Chrome and Firefox, it will need a large investment.
The amount of engineering resources poured into just making JavaScript fast is mind-numbing. But even "just" providing a light, mostly standards-compliant browser with a sorta-good-enough performance would be great.
Edit: Just saw a video from a few days ago talking about JS performance. Apparently the target is reaching JavaScriptCore performance, without JIT enabled. Disappointing, but understandable.
I guess SerenityOS is somewhat doomed now? I never saw this kind of move ending well, honestly. Even when not involved, having the original around is always a great boon to the popularity of a project. I for one would love to see the SerenityOS GUI ported to Wayland on Windows. It's precisely what I ask for from an OS honestly.
There's also tons of software projects where this happened, just more quietly. Usually when there is no drama, nobody reports about it. So I'd assume it's usually more a problem, if there is drama, but even here I can think about projects surviving despite it. See OwnCloud/NextCloud.
Honestly, I can't think of projects where this did not end well. Given that SerentyOS is still a thing, despite Kling pulling out a while ago (in the sense of only working on the browser) it really doesn't sound like the project is on its last breath now.
Given the history of getting people into OS development - even more so than Haiku, which also did a pretty good job at that I think Kling leaves with a multitude of people stepping in.
Certainly, the browser has the most potential and even immediate necessity for the sake of the open Web, but I would still like to daily drive SerenityOS some day. Its aesthetics and holistic architecture are a dream realised.
Windows is going down the toilet fast, and Linux lacks the holistic element, so having something that combines the greatest visual design language - mid to late 90s interface guidelines - with the powerful Unix shell would be a huge boon for desktop computing. (Yes OSX has great albeit modern UX with the Unix underpinnings but isn't OSS or affordable to the masses).
BDFALAISM Beneficial Dictator For As Long As It Suits Me :)
Yes, that is always implied. Even Guido, the original BFDL, stepped down. Linus will probably retire at some point (I hope, considering the alternative would be death before retirement at a relatively young age). Etc.
Which is exactly what happened to the first "dictator for life" (without the B) ;-). Even at more or less the exact age where one would expect someone to retire today.
See also: Julius Caesar, Ides of March
Edit: Just to make this clear, I also find the "I'm doing this as long as it works out and makes sense" to be the only useful approach to the "title" of BDFL.
Damn I was worried for a second there, fearing some sort of falling out with the community. But this is awesome news! Ladybird is a far more important project to focus on imho.
Given that it dropped serenity as a target, it does seem there is something more to this story…
This requires that it becomes a Port rather than a core part of Serenity.
It doesn't properly load the given substack (it seems to stop loading it in the middle), but it looks fine. :)
Surprisingly, loading Google Maps even work, but I can't seem to do more than move the map around. Github even works!
So far it seems better than Servo in throwing random sites at it, but I last tried Servo years ago so it's not fair. I guess I will try Servo now for the heck of it
edit: yeah Servo still seems worse, but it loads the whole substack post :)
I fully respect these reasons, they are logical and well said. But hopefully interest in SerenityOS doesn't taper off due to this. Kling was great at garnering interest with his YouTube videos where he'd go deep into bug fixing and feature development. Certainly, the browser has the most potential and even immediate necessity for the sake of the open Web, but I would still like to daily drive SerenityOS some day. Its…
Not the fastest way, but it seems to work. Best wishes to Andreas.