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I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

adayinthelifeof.nl

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Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#231

Post by rakoo »

ynniv wrote: post #172
phkahler wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As you do, I find the discourse around tech to be a pit of dismissiveness, avoidance, denial, resignation, and learned-helplessness. Do you think this is why people are abandoning the GPL license in favor of MIT/BSD? Something about the fight the GPL aims to win being a hopeless fantasy? In the face of the sentiment you and OP express, I'd think GPL usage would be widespread.

As a developer my problem with the GPL is that it's less free than other licenses. It's an interesting legal hack, but it can only succeed in its goals by boiling the ocean. I just want to write things, and sometimes making money involves not publishing all of your source code. Having to choose between options and idealism limits the popularity of GPL projects.

But you allowing yourself to not provide me with the code makes me less free, so you are the problematic one in this situation.

GPL's freedom is not about you as a dev, it's about me as a user.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#233

Post by lijok »

Ensorceled wrote: post #224
lijok wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you concede all the other points? No, I simply did not consider points made from a US-centric worldview to be valid in this discussion. > World Bank is claiming there are 11 million more people living in extreme poverty in 2023[1]. Compared to when?

Read. The. Article.

I did. The question is meant to get you to engage and discover the rebuttal to what you posted yourself

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#234

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #72
jaytaph wrote: post #59

OP here. Thanks for the pos/neg/neutral comments everybody. Some remarks: Yes, there are a lot of browsers out there where I can contribute to which would be more efficient. But that would result in just a few browsers instead of a lot of browsers. I'm all for the last one, as this would give people options. This IS a pet project. I never told anyone otherwise. I would start writing it even when I wasn't fed up with…

> I get angry about not being able to do anything about anything. And this is my way of trying to do something about it. It's the best I can do. This attitude is gold, and it's what changes the whole world. What you said about the misery of "news" resonates with me. In psyops we call it "sapping". Propaganda designed to demoralise, dispirit and corrode resistance used to come from our enemies . The classic example wa…

For me it's a bit like the whole "woke-ism" thing.

The vast majority of people enjoy each other and don't subscribe to the vitriol that comes from both sides. In that manner, the internet is a bit of an echo chamber where if you get all of your impressions of the world from it, you'd think people were constantly at each others throats.

The news is the same way, they report negativity, so it has a real tendency to make you start thinking of the world in such a negative way.

That's not to say there aren't real threats out there, but the vast majority of people are just trying to get through their day.

This happens to police officers too, most of their interactions with people are negative due to the nature of their work, over time that starts being their default position towards people. I'll never forget the time I walked into a bakery and decided to get a cupcake for the police officer sitting in his car outside the shop (he was blocking the alley, unsure why). The change in his face from defensiveness to pure joy when I walked up to this vehicle was easily worth the money spent.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#235

Post by soyasis »

globular-toast wrote: post #92
soyasis wrote: post #53

On the political note of the article: yes, the world is fucked up and it is exhausting to only read fucked up news. I personally believe that disconnecting from reality and becoming 'apolitical' implies giving up on humanity; that is giving up on your kids, nephews and the children of your best friends. No need to change the world, a small change in your community is more than enough. Specially as coders, what we bui…

I agree, mostly. I decided years ago to stop listening to the news, but that was only after I decided to not have children. It seems wrong for breeders to stick their fingers in their ears. I have given up on the world, as you put it. But other people's children is not my fault. I do as much as everyone else does to "do the right thing", but no more than that. I used to think about all these things, try to minimise m…

Fair enough, as someone sometime somewhere said "you only have control over your actions and your thoughts".

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#236

Post by rileymat2 »

ynniv wrote: post #172
phkahler wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As you do, I find the discourse around tech to be a pit of dismissiveness, avoidance, denial, resignation, and learned-helplessness. Do you think this is why people are abandoning the GPL license in favor of MIT/BSD? Something about the fight the GPL aims to win being a hopeless fantasy? In the face of the sentiment you and OP express, I'd think GPL usage would be widespread.

As a developer my problem with the GPL is that it's less free than other licenses. It's an interesting legal hack, but it can only succeed in its goals by boiling the ocean. I just want to write things, and sometimes making money involves not publishing all of your source code. Having to choose between options and idealism limits the popularity of GPL projects.

> As a developer my problem with the GPL is that it's less free than other licenses.

This is true for you, now. But that's not to say it does not increase freedom over time, over a couple of generations of software enhancements.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#237

Post by rileymat2 »

rakoo wrote: post #231
ynniv wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer my problem with the GPL is that it's less free than other licenses. It's an interesting legal hack, but it can only succeed in its goals by boiling the ocean. I just want to write things, and sometimes making money involves not publishing all of your source code. Having to choose between options and idealism limits the popularity of GPL projects.

But you allowing yourself to not provide me with the code makes me less free, so you are the problematic one in this situation. GPL's freedom is not about you as a dev, it's about me as a user.

Yeah, it strikes me a bit like, this will be hyperbole, complaining about forbidding slavery reduces freedom because you are not allowed to have slaves.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#238

Post by clucas »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #96
Const-me wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they were falling behind in performance They were only falling behind in performance on google’s web pages such as youtube. Read that comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18697824

If a "hidden empty div" is all it takes to break your browser's performance, I'm sorry, that's just not impressive.

You are picking the least important detail of the story. The deal is, Google found a simple way to kill the performance of a rival browser... so they exploited it and immediately started advertising how slow the rival was. By the time the rival fixed the performance issue, the damage was done. If true, that's pretty dirty, and it directly contributed to the growing browser monoculture.

Re: I'm fed up with it, so I'm writing a browser

#240

Post by figital »

Am so tired of Windows 11 I’ve just started writing my own desktop / toolbars / windows / struts using X11. It’s more than good enough and not much more difficult than writing webapps (in fact half of this project is various web apps. Then Python / c / lua / whatever.

It’s still a little buggy and I have to reboot now and again … but not much more than usual.

At least I control much of the experience now and for the rest of my life. And I’m learning a lot of fun stuff. It’s been a huge time waster but in a very good way. And it’s very snappy. And all of the configs/settings/code synchs with git (eventually lol).

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