• AnimalsDream
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    587 days ago

    I don’t understand why everyone wants to jump ship to a whole new browser, when the governance of a browser is the real issue to solve regardless of which browser is supported. A good stewardship model has to be established by people of integrity, technical skill, and funding. From there forking making a hard fork of Firefox is way cheaper and easier than trying to invest in one that’s not even finished.

      • AnimalsDream
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        35 days ago

        There are more than two browser engines. But it’s important to emphasize supporting Firefox’s engine because we’re already at threat of there being only one dominant engine.

      • AnimalsDream
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        256 days ago

        Okay, you do you. But it still doesn’t make sense to try to rally everyone else behind a whole new unfinished browser, when an otherwise very good one just needs new leadership.

        • @grepe@lemmy.world
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          106 days ago

          i do not control mozilla leadership or their mishandling my data. the most influence i can exert as an individual is by not being a willing participant to their mischief. i’ll be happy to come back if the leadership changes and i get some guarantees.

          • AnimalsDream
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            36 days ago

            Absolutely untrue. Firefox is entirely open-source. Forks of it already exist. The only thing that’s needed is for people who are willing and capable, to create a more dedicated stewardship model and the rest of us to get behind the hard fork they release. This is exactly the kind of thing software freedom is meant to allow us to do.

            • @LeFantome@programming.dev
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              25 days ago

              It is a debatable point which would be easier:

              1 - get Ladybird to the point it is competitive

              2 - establish a viable and popular alternative dev and governance infrastructure capable of stewarding and evolving Firefox

              The fact that people want to try option one is far from crazy.

              • AnimalsDream
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                15 days ago

                The problem with your scenario is that problem 1 is problem 1 and 2 for Ladybird, whereas Firefox is already a mature code base.

  • @Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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    487 days ago

    Not only C++ but also Swift, which just feels strange

    Why build a new browser in C++ when safer and more modern languages are available?

    Ladybird started as a component of the SerenityOS hobby project, which only allows C++. The choice of language was not so much a technical decision, but more one of personal convenience. Andreas was most comfortable with C++ when creating SerenityOS, and now we have almost half a million lines of modern C++ to maintain.

    However, now that Ladybird has forked and become its own independent project, all constraints previously imposed by SerenityOS are no longer in effect.

    We have evaluated a number of alternatives, and will begin incremental adoption of Swift as a successor language, once Swift version 6 is released.

  • Arthur Besse
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    7 days ago

    with mandatory male pronouns for users in the documentation.

    (and no politics allowed!)

    note

    this issue was resolved eventually by another dev; afaik the lead dev stopped commenting on it after he closed a PR and said people who wanted to remove the docs’ implied assumption of users’ maleness were “advertising personal politics”.

    edit: ok, i went and checked, here are the details:

  • @rickdg@lemmy.world
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    447 days ago

    Let’s see how ladybird writes docs in the future. Will they assume the user is a man and shut down any corrections for being political?

  • mesa
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    357 days ago

    Everyone knows links2 is the best browser.

    #links2gang

  • Possibly linux
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    7 days ago

    That’s not controlled by Google…

    It is also important to note that the license is still foss and GPL compatible. In the future they could made it GPL.

  • @mlg@lemmy.world
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    106 days ago

    Hey it could be worse. It could be the completely and utterly worthless MIT license.

    • @vfsh@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      187 days ago

      Is he the one constantly spewing hateful shit in the Issues on GitHub whenever people ask him to not use only “he” and “him” in the docs?

      • @floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        That dev definitely doesn’t seem like the best human around, but this is all around terrible to me. Calling the project “dehumanizing” and “vile” because of this is ridiculous. Are people really willing to have their browsing tracked and sold rather than using a browser that has an assumed gender in the documentation? Not saying that they shouldn’t use gender neutral language, but as the original issue said, it’s a minor nitpick, let’s be honest. It’s also something that’s representative of one dev as a person, not of the project as a browser. Additionally, it could be something as simple as the dev coming from a gendered language, where the word “user” itself is masculine, and doesn’t see it the same way as English speakers asking for neutral language.

      • @LeFantome@programming.dev
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        15 days ago

        Constantly? Or once?

        And was the “hateful shit” a single request to keep politics out of the project and stay technical?

        And was the request to be more gender neutral granted?

        I mean, I have not drilled into it. But I keep reading these complaints on Lemmy and the only link I have seen features a single response from him. It feels like a lot of manufactured controversy.

      • @TheFadingOne@feddit.org
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        7 days ago

        I’ve only tangentially picked up things about this but this is an example for it

        (For some context, if you didn’t already know this, Ladybird originated from a SerenityOS component and the first reply is from the lead dev)

          • @Turret3857@infosec.pub
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            67 days ago

            was that nukeop? that Guy is a known asshole. He was also quoted Saying licenses don’t matter and threw a huge fucking hissy fit when someone forked his project and gave it a copyleft license because of making such a stupid statement. Unfortunately the website archiving the drama is down, and I could only find an archive if the first iteration of it (it had at least 2 more paragraphs after this) https://archive.is/UT9Xe

          • @LeFantome@programming.dev
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            15 days ago

            I cannot see who made that comment. Pretty sure it is not the dev who is getting crucified. I am not sure it is even anybody that contributed to SerenityOS or Ladybird.

            I certainly do not see anybody from the project endorsing that language.

            I mean, I read the comment on Lemmy. Should I now go around saying not to use Lemmy and using that quote as evidence for why?

        • @toothpaste_ostrich@feddit.nl
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          7 days ago

          Oh… That’s… Disappointing. Firefox it is, then, for now.

          It’s weird… It makes “business” sense, too. If you want people to use your stuff and you can choose to appeal to more people, why wouldn’t you? I think we’ve reached the stage of normalcy now where using “they” and “them” are not in itself something that would necessarily scare away right-wing users (given you want to keep appealing to that attractive market, too.)

        • @LeFantome@programming.dev
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          What are we reacting to here? The single comment from the actual dev saying that the project wanted to avoid politics? Or the actual hateful comment from some bystander?

          Ladybird has split from SerenityOS and from that community. Hopefully the bystander has been left behind.

          As for the actual project founder, if all he has ever said is that one statement, I am impressed with his level of restraint given how some have vilified him for it.

          • @TheFadingOne@feddit.org
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            14 days ago

            I mean, from what I’ve heard there are other things but I haven’t looked deeper into that so far, so I can’t comment to that.

            My 2 cents regarding that specific PR is that I find it very disappointing to shut down a PR pushing for neutral language in build instructions for supposedly “advertis[ing] […] personal politics” because in my opinion this sends a clear signal of non-inclusivity. Your mileage may vary on this I guess.

            Is this a reason to boycott a project? Maybe, Maybe not. That’s your decision. I will definitely be on the lookout if this is “systematic” in the project but I didn’t have the time to look into it so far.

  • ZeroOne
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    77 days ago

    Is it that difficult to implement a CopyLeft licence ? Well we do have Servo (A modular browser engine) in development & SeaMonkey is a thing too (Which is an entire internet-application suite)

      • Steve Dice
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        6 days ago

        That’s false. Derivative software that doesn’t use the BSD licence has no bearing on the BSD-licenced software itself. For example, Sony using FreeBSD for the PS3 operating system has zero impact on the freedom of a FreeBSD user. The GPL, on the other hand, directly infringes on the user’s freedom to fork and redistribute the software.

        • @WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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          36 days ago

          The GPL, on the other hand, directly infringes on the user’s freedom to fork and redistribute the software.

          that’s plain bullshit. under GPL, you are free to fork it and redistribute it

            • @WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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              6 days ago

              well of course. you can’t betray the will of upstream: to not feed the rich. not a big ask.

              but the user, as you said, has no reason to object to that, because it protects them from parasites

              • Steve Dice
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                01 day ago

                This argument only works if you assume everything that isn’t the GPL is feeding the rich.

        • @Adanisi@lemmy.zip
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          46 days ago

          The only “freedom” the GPL infringes on is the ability to take the freedom the code originally had away from an end-user.

          • Steve Dice
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            -26 days ago

            That’s also false. The GPL doesn’t only restrict non-free licences, it restricts any licence change on the derivative work. If I fork a GPL project and want to redistribute my changes with a free licence such as MIT, the GPL will prevent it to protect itself. It’s an authoritarian licence that doesn’t respect your freedom.

            • @Adanisi@lemmy.zip
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              I fail to see how the share-alike nature of the GPL is “authoritarian” and “doesn’t respect your freedom”.

              It is built to guarantee the freedom of the user. It’s imperfect, as it has to work within the constraints of the copyright system, but it’s a hell of a lot better than licenses like MIT for propagating freedom to end users.

              Here’s a real world example:

              If I want to root my android device with KernelSU or build a custom ROM, I need to recompile the heavily customised kernel built by the vendor for my specific device. Because Linux (the kernel of android) is under the GPL, the manufacturer is compelled to give the user the same freedoms that were given to them, which means I can download the source code and do this.

              If Android were based on, say, the FreeBSD kernel instead, this would be impossible. There would be very few, if any, android custom ROMs, because the vendor could, and would, withhold the modifications they made to the kernel.

              • Steve Dice
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                -16 days ago

                You’re again assuming that the GPL only restricts non-free licences. This is not the case. If I add a feature to a piece of GPL software, I can’t use BSD on my new code even though the new code isn’t derivative work. Hell, if I write a completely independent piece of software that links to GPL software, my new software has to be GPL even though not a single line of GPL code was used. All of this also applies to free licences like BSD. The GPL doesn’t protect freedom, it protects itself.

                • @Adanisi@lemmy.zip
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                  6 days ago

                  You’re assuming that the GPL protecting freedom and protecting itself are mutually exclusive. They aren’t. Again, the GPL is written to ensure the code remains free forever.

                  Also, I’ve already pointed out the flawed nature of licenses like MIT and BSD, and if the GPL could be relicensed to them, it would provide a very easy way for proprietary developers to strip the freedom from the GPLed code when passing a derivative on to their users.

                  It is unfortunate that it cannot be relicensed to other copyleft licenses, as that would not pose such a problem, but without an explicit list of licenses it can be relicensed to I’m not sure that’s even legally possible under copyright.

        • @ehfkjrehfjer@lemmy.world
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          26 days ago

          Redistribution only becomes an issue if you try changing the license or selling it. GPL primarily protects against businesses profiting off of it. There are use cases for both licenses.

          • Steve Dice
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            16 days ago

            The GPL doesn’t restrict selling. Go read the damn thing before arguing about it.

    • @boonhet@lemm.ee
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      -27 days ago

      I won’t fight you because I agree. But a lot of people think it’s more free to have freedoms end when it comes to proprietary forks and such.

      To me, that’s just one less freedom.

      • @QuazarOmega@lemy.lol
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        87 days ago

        Copyleft protects the freedom of the user, regardless of who is the developer, I think that is way more important if what we want is to make software for humanity rather than pragmatic business choices.
        It is a point of what you regard as real freedom, do you wish to eventually lock in your users or let who might fork/take over your project do that?

  • vaguerant
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    1497 days ago

    As long as we’re filling out our fantasy browser brackets, I’m hoping that the Servo engine and browser/s can become viable. Servo was started at Mozilla as a web rendering engine only, before they laid off the whole team and the Linux Foundation took over the project. Basically revived from the dead in 2023, the current project is working on an engine and a demonstration browser that uses it. It’s years away from being a usable replacement for current browsers and the engine is certainly the main project. A separate browser which employs Servo as its engine is a more likely future than an actual Servo browser.

    Still, you can download a demo build of the official browser from the web site. Currently, it’s only usable for very simple web sites. Even Lemmy/Mbin display is a little broken, and I think of those as fairly basic. YouTube is out of the question. One of the sites that’s been used to demonstrate its capability to render web pages is the web site for Space Jam (1996) if that gives you any idea of its current state.

    • @stetech@lemmy.world
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      Honest question, since I have no clue about web/browser engines other than being able to maybe name 4-5 of them (Ladybird, Servo, Webkit, Gecko, … shit, what was Chromium’s called again?):

      What makes browsers/browser engines so difficult that they need millions upon millions of LOC?

      Naively thinking, it’s “just” XML + CSS + JS, right? (Edit: and then the networking stack/hyperlinks)

      So what am I missing? (Since I’m obviously either forgetting something and/or underestimating how difficult engines for the aforementioned three are to build…)

      • @qqq@lemmy.world
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        JavaScript alone is not a simple beast. It needs to be optimized to deal with modern JavaScript web apps so it needs JIT, it also needs sandboxing, and all of the standard web APIs it has to implement. All of this also needs to be robust. Browsers ingest the majority of what people see on the Internet and they have to handle every single edge case gracefully. Robust software is actually incredibly difficult and good error handling often adds a lot more code complexity. Security in a browser is also not easy, you’re parsing a bunch of different untrusted HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You’re also executing untrusted code.

        Then there is the monster that is CSS and layout. I can’t imagine being the people that have to write code dealing with that it’d drive me crazy.

        Then there are all of the image formats, HTML5 canvases, videos, PDFs, etc. These all have to be parsed safely and displayed correctly as well.

        There is also the entire HTTP spec that I didn’t even think to bring up. Yikes is that a monster too, you have to support all versions. Then there is all of that networking state and TLS + PKI.

        There is likely so much that I’m still leaving out, like how all of this will also be cross platform and sometimes even cross architecture.

        • vaguerant
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          177 days ago

          Adding on to this, while this article is fast approaching 20 years old, it gets into the quagmire that is web standards and how ~10 (now ~30) years of untrained amateurs (and/or professionals) doing their own interpretations of what the web standards mean–plus another decade or so before that in which there were no standards–has led to a situation of browsers needing to gracefully handle millions of contradictory instructions coming from different authors’ web sites.

          Here’s a bonus: the W3C standards page. Try scrolling down it.

        • @stetech@lemmy.world
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          36 days ago

          Thanks for these explanations, that makes a lot more sense now. I didn’t even think to consider browsers might be using something else than an off-the-shelf implementation for image/other file formats…, lol

          • @qqq@lemmy.world
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            46 days ago

            Sorry I didn’t mean to imply they don’t use shared libs, they definitely do, but they have to integrate them into the larger system still and put consistent interfaces over them.

            • @stetech@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              Yeah I realize that. My go-to comparison would be PDF. Where Firefox has PDF.js (I think?), Chromium just… implements basically seemingly the entire (exhaustive!) standard.

      • @cmhe@lemmy.world
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        What makes implementation so difficult is that browsers cannot just “work”, they need to be correct in what they do. And support all websites.

        The standards of HTML, CSS and JS have developed over a long time, not only is the amount of stuff massive, over time sometimes strange features where implemented, that were then used by website developers, and now these all need to be handled correctly by all new browsers.

        Emulating and reimplementing existing stuff is often more difficult, especially if you cannot leave out any feature, no matter how obscure, because that might break someone’s website.

  • @NateNate60@lemmy.world
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    757 days ago

    I’m never going to be one to dog on something before I try it. If it’s good and can offer the same or better experience as Firefox then sign me up. The biggest sticking point for me, though, is potentially losing Firefox’s massive add-in library. I really like my uBlock Origin and Restore YouTube Dislike and my VPN extension and Metamask and all the other crap I’ve got there.

    • @Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
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      you can try it now if you want and it does work surprisingly well, but their timeline is still “alpha in 2026”

    • TXL
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      127 days ago

      Yes. Good filters and privacy/security are an absolutely vital requirement today. Unbreaking things and adding features via extensions or something are also good.