Live data from Hacker News

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

lunduke.locals.com

621–630 of 777 posts

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

#621
post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's nice to think that you can just leave it to the users to pick and they'll always do the right thing, >it's literally the job of people who do have that capacity to fight for the user's best interests A user agent should not be concerned about "doing the right thing", that's none of its business. You are proposing a developer agent, not a user agent.

"Doing the right thing" for the user's best interests is the job of the user agent. It's just that simple. Giving the user a "choice" by implementing anti-features that they will be coerced into using by abusive websites is not really much of a choice. What you're really building there is a website agent, with a side of deception to make it sound like it's actually good for the user. Coincidentally, Google makes a ni…

>"Doing the right thing" for the user's best interests is the job of the user agent. It's just that simple.

No, a user agent's sole job is to represent its user. It's right there on the tin: User Agent. Forcing no DRM is just as bad as forcing DRM, it's not the user agent's business to decide for the user. The fact that most user agents today are actually developer/publisher agents is part of the problems we are having.

>I am objecting to the inclusion of DRM technology in web standards, where this pitiful semantic debate about what a user agent is for doesn't even apply in the first place. What is fit for the open web platform and respective standards has nothing to do with decisions made by user agent developers.

Commercial interests are not going to fly the free-as-in-beer pirate flag no matter how loudly you bang that drum, and if the internet is open then those commercial interests also certainly have a right to be part of it.

It's ultimately not a problem if internet standards allow room for DRM schemes, because in a properly functioning system the users will decide through their user agent if they want to engage in DRM schemes or not.

So long as you are fueled by self-righteous dogma with a seething hatred towards people just minding their own business, you're not going anywhere and I would even argue you're actually contributing to the very problems you want to see resolved.

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

#624
It's crazy how complex browsers have become ... You practically fork an OS to make a browser

> At the moment, many core library support components are inherited from SerenityOS:

LibWeb: Web rendering engine LibJS: JavaScript engine LibWasm: WebAssembly implementation LibCrypto/LibTLS: Cryptography primitives and Transport Layer Security LibHTTP: HTTP/1.1 client LibGfx: 2D Graphics Library, Image Decoding and Rendering LibArchive: Archive file format support LibUnicode: Unicode and locale support LibAudio, LibMedia: Audio and video playback LibCore: Event loop, OS abstraction layer LibIPC: Inter-process communication

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

#625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but Discord? In this day and age? What’s your recommended alternative?

IRC. And for slow discussions with long messages, you can use NNTP. (However, GitHub is accessible by git in case you only want to download the repository, regardless of what else they do; however, having multiple mirrors on other services as well can be helpful)

While I’d love to agree: many people these days simply don’t want to use IRC.

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

#626
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an expert in this stuff, but I did notice that the Ladybird website mentions only accepting unrestricted donations. That doesn't prevent power dynamics from evolving between sponsors and the project, of course, but it at least means that no sponsors get to explicitly demand specific things.

I think it's a valiant cause but even if that's what they claim right now, eventually they will have to weigh whether it's worth taking the $100k donation from sponsor A who doesn't demand working on feature X but just suggests it or risk the future runway of the project.

I think he best protection against that is to have many different sponsors so a single one of them pulling out isn't a death sentence. In that regard, Ladybird already seems to be much better off than Firefox.

Still the concern remains valid and without leadership sticking to strong principles nothing will protect against external influence forever.

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

#627

Can anyone explain like I'm an idiot concrete reasons how Google Chrome's dominance is bad for the web? Preferably things that have actually happened, not what might happen

Would you want to have all smart TVs manufactured by the dominant advertising company? How do you think that would turn out?

Android TV is pretty widespread already. Not that alternative smart TV software is much better about drowning you in ads.

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

#629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all sounds great until you start considering what needs to be done for accessibility. For blind readers as well as many different screen resolutions.

I agree. That's actually one of few problems with having just canvas - accessibility. Most libraries would not have it, and it would be a disaster for disabled users, but... That's one of few things current state AI could solve. Why not make a neural net that would read or summarize page for blind people? Instead we use it to generate bulsh*t junk content and fake comments...

It would also be a disaster for abled users. Accessibility empowers everyone.

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

#630
post #314

Ongoing discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40854836

We merged that thread hither since the submission was more about the significant new information.

Odd choice to move the discussion from a submission of the official website to one about a blog by an (afaict) unrelated pundit.
Post reply on HN