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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

#231

Post by djeastm »

BirAdam wrote: post #197
greenyies wrote: post #128

I'm just not trusting a small browser dev team. The risk of exploits is too high

But you’d trust a megacorporation closely tied to government that has an explicit interest in tracking you, keeping paths for intelligence agencies and law enforcement open, and generally being deceptive? You trust browsers that openly phone home about your activity?

I gauge the risk of my government targeting me lower than the risk of hackers stealing/selling my information. Mainly because the latter has occurred to me numerous times already.

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

#232

Post by paddim8 »

efilife wrote: post #205
rice7th wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Imagine if ladybird gets used regularly by ~1000 nerds, which is its current audience, then gets forked by microsoft and the current ME gets replaced by ladybird. Even if ladybird got over 9000 users, there's no competing with megacorps. Also, its* not it's

Well maybe they're ok with that? They want browser diversity. Getting Microsoft to use a new engine is better for diversity than if they just used chromium like now.

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

#233

Post by paddim8 »

xcv123 wrote: post #121
Deukhoofd wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the exact opposite. Considering what they already have, 2 years seems very far away for an initial alpha.

Firefox and Chromium have 30+ million lines of code (excluding comments and blank lines). You underestimate the complexity of a web browser.

Do you know who Andreas is? He knows more than you.

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

#234

Post by ledgerdev »

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 :)

My favorite type of discussion! Language choice would seem super important long, long term and could provide long run advantage over other engines. Given the goals and philosophy of Ladybird zig seems like a complementary choice, and headed in the same direction in terms of community and freedom. And Perhaps just a sprinkle of something more verifiable than zig on the edges where correctness and safety are super critical. Have a look into tigerbeatle (https://github.com/tigerbeetle/tigerbeetle/blob/main/docs/TI...) and their philosophy.

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

#235

Post by logicprog »

awesomekling wrote: post #130
yuvadam wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla is dependent on advertising money from Google, is that only because they ventured in other directions? I'm not intimate with their finances, but it seems just building a browser is a large enough - expensive - R&D effort. Are you planning on charging your users?

We will never charge our users, or attempt to monetize them in any way. Our nonprofit will run on unrestricted donations only.

Despite that, I hope you'll consider a "pay what you can" popup when downloading the browser, or a donation button built into the browser settings page along with a one-time reminder, or something like that. I don't think that would be monetizing your users in any negative, extractive sense like ads do, it would still essentially just be a donation, just asked for in a more obvious way and made easy and convenient to do as part of using the app, instead of a vague separate thing that'll take work to find and that won't occur to most people to do. Personally I think charging users for software (as long as it is also FOSS) is totally fine, it's probably the only sustainable model for software that isn't ads or corporate sponsorship, and it actually serves to align the incentives of the software's developers more closely with users, instead of doing anything bad, but I respect that line.

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

#236

Post by alkonaut »

fregonics wrote: post #185
alkonaut wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice to see. The only thing that would meaningfully set it apart from the others would be to have a core that isn’t a big ball of C++. That would potentially allow it to be developed and maintained with less resource than the other browsers, and that would be the only way this ever reaches any kind of impact.

If I'm not wrong Firefox is already Rust. The language was even created inside Mozilla.

It is. They realized that writing a modern browser (i.e. one that for example uses multiple cores efficiently by doing layout/rendering/etc in parallel) is almost impossible in C++. To the point where creating a whole new language just to solve the problem would be a smaller undertaking. Which says something about the scope of this problem. And I really do think they are right.

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

#237

Post by parasti »

hipinspire wrote: post #85

It is a great honor to see a website I designed and coded at the top of the Hacker News front page! A big thank you to Chris Wanstrath for allowing me to work on it. I hope Ladybird becomes a mainstream browser, and I feel this is a moment similar to when Firefox rebranded from Phoenix. P.S. Check out my UI/UX portfolio at https://hipfolio.co

FYI, a couple of sections are cut off on mobile.

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

#238

Post by awesomekling »

account42 wrote: post #190
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 :)

Seeing someone ignore the naysayers and attempt the so-called impossible task of developing a new independent browser is awesome to see. It brings a glimmer of hope that the internet is not doomed to be ruled by advertising companies with only a stagnant controlled opposition browser as the alternative. That said, Ladybird is obviously far from becoming the daily driver for the average webizen. What do you think is g…

> What do you think is going to be the first milestone where Ladybird is going to be able to be a real alternative (even if limited to certain use cases) and in what timeframe do you think this can be accomplished?

At the moment, we are focusing primarily on our own use cases as developers, since those are the easiest to test and qualify. So websites like GitHub, web specifications, MDN, etc. are likely going to be very high fidelity before other parts of the web catch up ;)

> Also, do you already have any plans or ideas for how to improve the web browsing experience beyond what existing browsers provide or is your focus entirely on the engine catching up for now?

We are definitely focused on the engine catching up right now. There is an incredible amount of work to do, and we're doing the best we can :)

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

#239

Post by soundnote »

Tepix wrote: post #158
fguerraz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla's fate? You mean building a browser that works? Indeed, I doubt very much that Ladybird will get there.

I use Firefox every day, but they have lost so much market share that they have become pretty insignificant. They seem to have an oversized and poor management with fat paychecks.

Don't know about oversized, it felt partly more that eg. Baker was mostly interested in Mozilla as a platform for activism, not in making a good tool for users. The new interim CEO seems to have breathed life into actual browser development.

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

#240

Post by awesomekling »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #199
awesomekling wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will never charge our users, or attempt to monetize them in any way. Our nonprofit will run on unrestricted donations only.

You personally I believe without reservation about this, but the thing about creating a legal person is that it’s separate from you. Its control can—and in the long run, will—change hands. So please, please write this down somewhere, ideally somewhere binding on its future (can donations have conditions?).

We've committed to this in our application for tax-exempt status, so it's something the organization will be stuck with. :)
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