[HN Gopher] The Ladybird browser project
___________________________________________________________________
The Ladybird browser project
Author : defied
Score : 582 points
Date : 2024-02-06 06:37 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ladybird.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (ladybird.dev)
| wtracy wrote:
| Shopify is a sponsor! I wonder how that came about.
| asicsp wrote:
| See https://awesomekling.substack.com/p/welcoming-shopify-as-
| a-l...
|
| Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502433 _(246
| points | 7 months ago | 66 comments)_
| rob74 wrote:
| We need more companies like Shopify, that actually share some
| of their revenue with open source projects they benefit from
| (or even, as in this case, projects that they don't directly
| benefit from)! But I'm afraid the current financial situation
| will lead to less, not more, of that...
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Step 1: Register Company
|
| Step 2: ????
|
| Step 3: Profit.
| gkbrk wrote:
| How many days can Google resist the urge to charge 30% for
| payments on Chrome after Chrome gets all the marketshare and
| the last drops of Mozilla are milked by the CEO? It's both good
| PR and a hedge against an (unlikely) bad scenario in the
| future.
| szehe wrote:
| i love these progress screenshots:
| https://serenityos.org/happy/1st/
| harha_ wrote:
| Looking at the timestamps, the pace of progress just him
| working alone in the beginning is nothing short of amazing. He
| seems to be a true jack of all trades when it comes to
| programming.
| kramerger wrote:
| I would love to use this as my daily driver, but a lot of popular
| sites don't even work with Firefox.
|
| I hate what a small group of lazy front-end people have done to
| our world...
| la_oveja wrote:
| small group of lazy front-end people? i think you actually mean
| a small group of chrome developers single-handedly deciding how
| web should work, while having the vast majority of the market
| share to push those decisions.
| kramerger wrote:
| No, I blame it on front-end people.
|
| I've seen them putting all effort on eye-candy while ignoring
| that the page only works on "retina" display and then only on
| Safari.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Blame the UX and Product Managers, not the engineers.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Well, no, that is not how it works. Blink undoubtedly has an
| oversize influence on 'web standards' (which are more and
| more defined as 'whatever Blink does') but that would not be
| that much of a problem if web developers built and tested
| their sites against more than just Chrome and Edge (Blink)
| and Safari (Webkit). History is repeating itself since the
| same thing happened when Microsoft's _Internet Explo[rd]er_
| was the dominant browser and developers only tested against
| that, putting a 'Best viewed using Internet Explorer' badge
| on their sites.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars
| la_oveja wrote:
| i am aware, i work as webdev and my current project is only
| Blink compatible. my employer does not want me to waste any
| time ensuring i support other browsers that are not going
| to be used.
|
| web should be able to be viewed in any browser and get the
| same document.
| benrutter wrote:
| I'm not particularly experienced with web browsers, but
| whenever I hear people who know what they're talking about,
| I always leave convinced that this is exactly the problem.
|
| If there are sites that work on Chrome but not Firefox, it
| just seems to me that either:
|
| - Chrome or Firefox must be breaking web standards
|
| - Web standards must be unspecified for that use case
|
| I have no idea the fix though, the web is so massively
| complex now, that I don't even know what specifying
| standards for every use case would involve.
| timw4mail wrote:
| Most web standards are codifying existing functionality,
| not the other way around.
|
| Chrome/Blink has exclusive APIs, that often are not on
| track to be a standard.
|
| This makes Safari (Webkit) and Firefox (Gecko) look bad,
| because they end up having to implement the same APIs,
| and _then_ , maybe, it's standardized. Browser extension
| APIs come to mind.
|
| I wish the situation was more neat and tidy, but it's
| not.
| MatthiasPortzel wrote:
| As a web developer, the things that bother me the most are
| the small differences in edge cases between the rendering
| engines.
|
| What happens when you put a percentage height on a row in a
| table. What happens when an element has a margin that doesn't
| fit in its parent. How does adding display: flex effect how
| text is laid out inside an element.
|
| These are things that Gecko and WebKit/Blink handle
| differently. Some of them are defined in the spec and have
| tracking bugs, but some of them just aren't addressed. I
| don't think it's maliciousness or laziness on anyone's part,
| but the web is too complicated for there to be multiple
| perfectly compatible rendering engines.
| jraph wrote:
| > but a lot of popular sites don't even work with Firefox
|
| Which ones? I have always exclusively used Firefox and rarely
| have issues.
| angiosperm wrote:
| I can't get Reddit to work in Firefox or Chromium. No idea
| why.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Weird, I use it with Firefox every day.
| jraph wrote:
| It's often an extension. Maybe you happen to use the same
| problematic extension(s) on both Firefox and Chromium.
| Maybe try with an empty profile :-)
| nalinidash wrote:
| You may have added it to an adblock filter list by
| mistake.Try disabling and trying them.
| angiosperm wrote:
| Nope, tried that.
| lonkdedonk wrote:
| A couple of things have helped me solve issues when
| trying to load sites in Firefox that will work in
| Chrome/Vivaldi, etc.:
|
| 1.) Refresh Firefox: Click the menu button with 3 lines
| -> "Help" -> "More troubleshooting information" ->
| "Refresh Firefox..."
|
| 2.) Check your Enhanced Tracking Protection settings from
| the Privacy & Security tab in the Settings menu. If it's
| set higher than Standard, it could be causing sites like
| reddit, sites that use Cloudflare for protection, etc.,
| to load incorrectly or fail to load entirely.
| benjijay wrote:
| Have you tried either in an incognito/private browsing
| session? If it works there then it could point to needing a
| cache/cookie clear. If not then the issue may lie outside
| your box (try a vpn?)
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Both old and new UI? What problems are there?
|
| I've never had issues loading/using reddit from any browser
| aside from their annoying "use our app" popups.
| veunes wrote:
| Same here, I've been using Firefox for about five years now,
| and it seems like it opens absolutely all websites
| aljgz wrote:
| Count me in as well. I only use Google Chrome for Google meet
| calls, as some feature are not working on Firefox (I'm sure
| this has nothing to do with the fact that Google makes both
| chrome and meet ;)
| norman784 wrote:
| Meet also does not work properly in Safari, each time I
| have a meet call I need to use Chrome, so Google might
| using non web standards.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Does it work in Ungoogled Chromium? I use that just on
| principle when nothing else works (which, in agreement
| with the previous posts, is rarer for me than people seem
| to claim)
| throw7 wrote:
| My goto example is roll20.net. During a gaming session some
| feature or thing didn't render. Switch to chrome... worked
| perfectly.
|
| The real problem is that firefox is tier 2 support or not
| even. It's a small percent of users so it's a cost/benefit
| for these businesses.
|
| A recent issue I had was buying tickets from air india. You
| can't with firefox... it'll hang at a certain point. Switch
| to chrome... works perfectly.
|
| The web is dead. It's basically client/server nowadays.
| Firefox is still my main browser, but I keep chrome/chromium
| around when I need it.
| cpeterso wrote:
| Thanks for trying to use Firefox first!
|
| You can report websites that don't work in Firefox on
| webcompat.com and Mozilla web developers will test and
| diagnose the problem. When possible, they attempt to reach
| web developers at the site (using personal contacts or
| referrals when official channels aren't working) to share
| the bug report and a suggested fix.
|
| In other cases, Firefox can include a site intervention
| script to patch the site or send a different browser User-
| Agent string to make it work.
| kome wrote:
| > I would love to use this as my daily driver, but a lot of
| popular sites don't even work with Firefox.
|
| you mean minor aesthetics differences or functionality? I just
| use firefox, I don't even have chrome, and _everything_ works.
| And I use mainstream web, nothing too niche.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| Not my experience at all. Firefox works great for all the
| popular sites and 99+% of the unpopular ones. The trouble comes
| with websites that generally seem shoddy. I haven't had to
| install and delete Chrome for a long time!
| kgeist wrote:
| Same. Actually I've had it the other way around a few times,
| when a site doesn't work in Chrome but works in Firefox.
| Perhaps though it was some caching issue because it worked OK
| in Chrome's Incognito mode. However, it was easier to just
| fire up Firefox than diagnose/debug Chrome.
| imperialdrive wrote:
| In many many years of Firefox use, it has always loaded my
| sites with perhaps only one exception, but that was an odd
| graphics css treatment the signed out Patreon homepage used,
| probably fixed by now.
| lemper wrote:
| what sites, bro? i see this kind of statement many times yet
| they never give me any answer.
| MatthiasPortzel wrote:
| https://GitHub.com/webcompat/web-bugs/issues
| sesm wrote:
| Are you sure they are lazy? Maybe they are overworked,
| exhausted and constantly pressured by management to output new
| features? Did you ever work as a front end developer?
| timeon wrote:
| Interesting. I use Safari for most sites and when there is rare
| case that site does not work I open Firefox and it just works.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Which sites don't work with Firefox? I'm a daily Firefox user
| for 15 years now and I can count on a few fingers the amount of
| sites that were "broken" in FF (and weren't a legacy IE issue).
|
| This seems like hyperbole, frankly.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| I exclusively use Firefox, and I probably browse more websites
| than most. I very rarely run into websites that don't work on
| Firefox, and I can't recall the last time I ran into a page
| that didn't work on Firefox when serving a Chrome UserAgent
| (btw, if you're a web developer and you're accessing your
| user's UA, you're doing something horribly wrong. Stop).
| stephen_g wrote:
| It's really quite incredible that one guy basically started a
| project to create a whole operating system from scratch for fun
| and to give himself something interesting to do, and then
| accidentally created one of the most viable new browser engines
| in a decade or two...
|
| I've been watching the development videos for a year or two, and
| the speed that this has progressed in such a short time is
| unbelievable. Now they have multiple volunteers and enough
| sponsorship to pay more than one developer, it's pretty exciting
| what could happen here!
| pjerem wrote:
| Wasn't this guy working in the WebKit team at Apple for years
| before ?
|
| It's still really impressive but he is not the new kid in town
| when we talk about developing browsers.
| jraph wrote:
| Yes, he was.
| jart wrote:
| He was probably their top guy too. Sort of like how Lucifer
| was the top angel in Heaven before his drug problems
| brought about his fall from Apple and since then he's been
| a true light bringer working tirelessly to give us awesome
| software as he recovers from addition.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I mean Lucifer writing software tracks
| ireadmevs wrote:
| > as he recovers from addition.
|
| Divide and conquer for the win!
| sowbug wrote:
| "It takes 20 years to make an overnight success."
| kouru225 wrote:
| I can't tell from the link. What makes it so viable?
| gkbrk wrote:
| Compared to a lot of other new browser engines, this one
| actually renders a lot of web content decently. And if you
| follow their update videos, they improve their coverage
| really quickly.
|
| Ladybird also comes with their LibJS runtime, which has good
| coverage of the JS standards and even manages to implement
| some new features before the big browsers all get to it.
| fersarr wrote:
| Sorry, could you explain what this means "this one actually
| renders a lot of web content decently."?
| TheCoreh wrote:
| When you open sites on other "new" browser engines you
| typically get a really butchered visual result, with
| layouts completely broken, elements missing, wrong
| colors, etc. For example, Servo didn't support floats
| until recently, and IIRC even simple sites like Hacker
| News look "wrong".
|
| Ladybird's approach has been to start with a somewhat
| naive implementation of features, then choose popular
| websites and apps and just continuously iterate to make
| them gradually look better, by fixing the parts that
| stand out. This pragmatic approach means that their
| supported feature set, while nowhere near 100%, can
| decently render 90% of websites due to being aligned with
| the most commonly used features.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I can't relate / do not recognise these claims of
| incorrect rendering; is there a resource out there that
| shows images of how it's supposed to be vs what it looks
| like? I thought this was a problem of the past, IE
| compatibility with web standards kind of thing.
| Thorrez wrote:
| Which browser are you talking about that renders
| everything correctly? Are you using a Servo-based
| browser? Is there even a Servo-based browser that someone
| can easily download and use?
|
| Servo themselves say they only pass 55.8% of tests[1].
| This thread[2] says Servo doesn't support SVG[2] as of
| Nov 2022.
|
| [1] https://wpt.servo.org/
|
| [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/z2d7pr/ser
| vo_base...
| gosub100 wrote:
| just download a no-name browser and see for yourself
| mminer237 wrote:
| For example, here's the BBC homepage in Firefox, Servo,
| Ladybird, and NetSurf: https://i.imgur.com/kCReCPd.png
|
| Here's Wikipedia: https://i.imgur.com/IshNWU2.png
|
| Ladybird implements far more web technologies than more
| well-funded, longer-running alternative browser projects.
| SkiFire13 wrote:
| > I thought this was a problem of the past, IE
| compatibility with web standards kind of thing.
|
| For the mainstream browser engines, yes, but if you're
| starting a browser from scratch the amount of stuff you
| have to implement is _massive_ and cannot be implemented
| in the span of even a couple of years.
| jll29 wrote:
| He is a world expert on Web rendering, and an extremely capable
| C++ developer. One of their success recipes is to code up the
| various specifications directly, which is - today - the best
| way to go about this. They are also heavily test-driven.
|
| He did not even use the C++ standard library, when he says
| "from scratch" it includes his own string class, for better or
| worse, which is fine since it's "just for fun", "to learn" etc.
| And just when you think a library and an OS are crazy, he
| announced a browser and a JavaScript engine on top. Then a JIT
| compiler, then Jakt, their own novel programming language,
| because neither C++ nor Rust is what makes him perfectly happy.
|
| More than his expertise I admire his modesty and kindness -
| unlike Linus etc. he is not full of himself, and each of his
| videos gives lots of credit name by name of who did what. A
| perfect role model for open source.
| LeFantome wrote:
| I think their C++ library is one of the reasons they can
| create capable software so quickly actually. They have
| jetisoned just a tonne of C++ nonesense and added some really
| nice modern features such as how they handle memory and
| errors.
|
| Also, you would think that having to implement EVERYTHING
| themselves ( they are making their own image decoders as an
| example -- inclding SVG ) would slow them down. However, as
| it is written in a mono-repo from soup to nuts, this allows
| them to very rapidly add support throughout the stack. They
| do not have any of the endless conversation and arguing that
| happens between components in Open Source. They do not have
| to work around things missing upstream. If they need
| something, they add it.
| jorvi wrote:
| > they are making their own image decoders as an example --
| inclding SVG
|
| Considering the vast amount of exploits that continually
| comes out of media decoders everywhere, this basically
| guarantees I will never _ever_ use this browser.
| gkbrk wrote:
| That's fine, I'm sure they weren't targeting only you
| when they developed it. So it will still have utility for
| the developers of the project and other users.
| jorvi wrote:
| Let's be dismissive of bad security practices I'm sure
| it'll work out fine.
|
| There would be absolutely nothing sacrificed by using
| open source, well-tested libs for image decode.
| trashburger wrote:
| Have you looked at how it's implemented? The image
| decoder is completely separate from the main browser and
| is in a sandboxed process (with restricted syscall and
| filesystem access). If the image decoder is exploited,
| there's nothing the attacker can do.
| jorvi wrote:
| Look at how many of the past big exploit chains on
| iPhones, Chromium etc involved media decoding at some
| point in that chain.
|
| It's like crypto, you have to be very deliberate with
| your choices, and it's generally ill-advised to roll your
| own.
| Misdicorl wrote:
| That advice has context. Do not roll your own _if the
| feature is not your core product offering_. So don 't
| roll crypto if you're not selling crypto. If it is your
| core offering (and media decoding is absolutely a core
| offering of a web browser), you should choose carefully
| whether to get it off the shelf or roll your own.
|
| Otherwise how would new/better stuff _ever_ get built?!
| jorvi wrote:
| If Apple and Google can't even find all the
| vulnerabilities in their libs, how on earth would a
| scrappy team of a few devs, especially since media decode
| isn't the sole thing they're focused on?
|
| > Otherwise how would new/better stuff ever get built?!
|
| The problem here is that people are salivating to use
| this as their daily driver. When WireGuard was still in
| development, everyone got told in very strong terms to
| not use it in any setting that required actual security.
|
| Browsing the web at large is sort-of hostile by default.
|
| Ladybird is a great project, and I hope it keeps
| developing, but any user that thinks their media decode
| libraries will be bulletproof libs free of
| vulnerabilities are nuts.
| Misdicorl wrote:
| > but any user that thinks their media decode libraries
| will be bulletproof libs free of vulnerabilities are
| nuts.
|
| Sure. And its a high bar to challenge the same or better
| vulnerability profile that the established players have.
| But a "small scrappy team" which is capable of doing
| everything this team has done certainly garners a lot of
| confidence that the bar is _possible_.
| tremon wrote:
| _If Apple and Google can't even find all the
| vulnerabilities in their libs, how on earth would a
| scrappy team of a few devs_
|
| Perhaps a few devs have nowhere near the required escape
| velocity to create vulnerabilities before they can be
| fixed, nor the pressure of PMs to ship substandard code?
| ptx wrote:
| Where can I find more details on how this sandboxing
| works?
|
| Edit: Seems like it's using OpenBSD's pledge API?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpRw6KQnY0k&t=8107s
| mouse_ wrote:
| If something is bad, we should be trying to rewrite it.
| Will you not touch WireGuard because OpenVPN is full of
| holes?
| jorvi wrote:
| If massive companies like Google and Apple can't even
| find all the vulnerabilities, how are you expecting a
| scrappy team to?
|
| Don't get me wrong, how far they've gotten is very
| laudable and as a educational exercise it is really cool,
| but it starts being a pretty massive risk if users start
| using this as a daily driver.
| cantours wrote:
| Google and Apple are just a bunch of scrappy teams trying
| to work together on insanely massive and bloated code
| bases. Numbers of bugs scale with lines of code.
|
| Small scrappy team writing simple and consice code from
| scratch is likely to produce fewer bugs than enterprisey
| monstrosities.
| jonjacky wrote:
| This project reminds me of the approach at Xerox PARC in
| the 1970s. Alan Kay wrote [1]:
|
| _(At PARC we avoided) putting any externally controlled
| system, in- house or out, on one 's critical path. ...
| Thus, virtually all the PARC hardware ... and software ...
| were completely built inhouse by these few dozen
| researchers.
|
| This sounds disastrous, (because) in programming there is a
| widespread first order theory that one shouldn't build
| one's own tools, languages, and especially operating
| systems. This is true --- an incredible amount of time and
| energy has gone down these ratholes. On the second hand, if
| you can build your own tools, languages, and operating
| systems you absolutely should because the leverage that can
| be obtained (and often the time not wasted in trying to fix
| other people's not quite right tools) can be incredible._
|
| 1. http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004001_power.pdf
| user_7832 wrote:
| When would you (or anyone else) say would it be the best
| to consider doing everything by yourself from scratch?
| For example, I want to build a little arm server. I'm
| realistically going to use linux server or similar as I
| don't want to make my own OS. But if I'm undertaking
| something on a microcontroller - there's definitely a
| point where bare metal starts winning. How do you find
| that?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I think you misconceive how open source projects need to
| work. Some projects (especially those in the web-dev niche)
| might view their relationship with upstream the way you do.
| But others do not.
|
| For Ardour, we feel entirely free to just bring an upstream
| library into our source tree if we need to. And we also
| have our dependency stack builder that configures and
| occasionally patches upstream libraries to be just the way
| we need them. We do not wait for upstream adoption of our
| patches.
|
| Most recently, for example, we became aware of impending
| moves by various Linux distros to remove GTK2, which we
| rely on. Even though we don't support distro builds, we
| want Linux maintainers to still be able to build the
| software, so we just merged GTK2 into our source tree.
|
| This idea that using a 3rd party library becomes some sort
| of constraint is very, very far from reflecting universal
| truth. If we need to hack a 3rd party lib to make it do
| what we need, we just do it. Meanwhile, we get all the
| benefits of that lib. Ardour depends on about 86 libraries
| - we would be insane to rewrite all that functionality from
| scratch.
| shiroiuma wrote:
| >He did not even use the C++ standard library, when he says
| "from scratch" it includes his own string class, for better
| or worse
|
| I can't imagine how it can be for worse; the standard C++
| string library is awful. It makes perfect sense that a super-
| talented C++ dev would make something better if they have the
| energy and time.
| mda wrote:
| Isn't this a recipe for disaster from security perspective?
| bowsamic wrote:
| The C++ library used in Serenity is much nicer, saner, and
| more modern than the STL
| SkiFire13 wrote:
| > then Jakt, their own novel programming language, because
| neither C++ nor Rust is what makes him perfectly happy.
|
| TBH Jakt defaults to reference counting, which makes it
| compete more with Swift and Go rather than C/C++/Rust.
| bobajeff wrote:
| As far as I can tell Jakt's reference counting is not
| optional. So it may be closer to Swift.
|
| That being said I've seen a few people here suggest it's
| easier to use rust's Rc and Box for everything and treat it
| like Haskell or Scala. So it might not be so different in
| practice.
| jancsika wrote:
| > One of their success recipes is to code up the various
| specifications directly, which is - today - the best way to
| go about this.
|
| Would love to read more details about this, or have a link to
| a video where he describes and follows the process.
| zerd wrote:
| I learned about the project from the co-recursive podcast
| episode. Fascinating story. https://corecursive.com/serenity-
| os-with-andreas-kling/
| twiclo wrote:
| What could happen? Why is a new browser engine needed?
| jraph wrote:
| I have hopes it will become a daily usable browser. A new Web
| engine is great. I hope Servo succeeds at this too.
|
| I would consider contributing but development is coordinated on
| Discord and I avoid proprietary software... [1]. It's a shame.
| Can't blame them though, they are doing it for fun.
|
| [1] https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-
| infras...
| martypitt wrote:
| Wow - that article was a tough read. I like a LOT of what Drew
| has to say, but this seems over the top.
|
| He claims that authors promoting their open source software on
| channels like Twitter, Hacker news, LinkedIn or even Github is
| "selfish and unethical outright":
|
| > Many projects choose to prioritize access to the established
| audience that large commercial platforms provide, in order to
| maximize their odds of becoming popular, and enjoying some of
| the knock-on effects of that popularity, such as more
| contributions.
|
| > To me, this is selfish and unethical outright, though you may
| have different ethical standards.
|
| I find Zealotry like this tough, and promotes a definition of
| FOSS that feels hostile against those who want to simply build
| something cool, and share it with the world - (or even more
| controversially, make money from FOSS).
|
| Given such a strong view, it's really surprising that he then
| posts stuff like "Can I be on your podcast"[1] to try to
| promote Hare - his programming language.
|
| He didn't ask for podcasts that aren't distributed on platforms
| like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. In fact - he's right there with
| several appearances promoting Hare.
|
| That feels like hypocrisy.
|
| [1]: https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/09/Can-I-be-on-your-
| podcast....
| jstanley wrote:
| > you may have different ethical standards
|
| Isn't this the exact opposite of zealotry? Zealotry is
| imposing your ethical standards on others.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Zealotry is imposing your ethical standards on others
|
| It's even more specific than that though isn't it? A
| fanatical belief in a single cause to the exclusion of all
| else.
| jraph wrote:
| Yes. "fanatical" is key here.
|
| The commenter somewhat retracted their use of this word
| in a sibling comment, but it seems important to me that
| we don't confuse strong views with zealotry. Drew's views
| are certainly very strong.
|
| Strong views can be rational and well thought. I even
| believe they are often the ones that can push the world
| to a better place. Usually you can even argue with
| someone yielding strong views if they are rational
| (unless the person is bad at communication / is an
| asshole, of course it's possible). Strong views can shake
| you up and are not always enjoyable.
|
| Zealotry is just plain irrational and dangerous and
| there's no way you can have a constructive discussion
| with a zealot.
| martypitt wrote:
| You may be right, Zealot may not be the right word here.
|
| But after reading that article, I was definitely left
| feeling judged because I choose to do exactly the things
| he's talking about, for exactly the reasons he's
| suggesting. Maybe that's on me, but I certainly felt his
| standards imposed on me, disclaimer or not.
|
| Also, given the conviction with which he argues with in the
| article, that disclaimer feels a little weak -- kinda like
| when someone says "No offence, but... <very offensive
| thing>".
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| It's at least a form of _casual_ zealotry. "You may have
| different ethical standards" is clearly the author's
| passive-aggressive way of saying "your ethics might not be
| as righteous as mine", as opposed to "reasonable minds may
| disagree".
| jraph wrote:
| I certainly read this sentence as your second option. It
| may depend on the tone you imagine for Drew's sentence.
| jraph wrote:
| > or even more controversially, make money from FOSS
|
| I doubt Drew is against making money from FOSS. He actually
| runs a business (businesses?) around FOSS.
|
| I don't think it's controversial to make money from FOSS
| anymore. FOSDEM just happened, many companies making money
| from FOSS were there, and they are liked. Some specific ways
| of making money might be less appreciated, but not the whole
| concept.
|
| People are not silly, they know money helps develop (free)
| software and also many would love to be paid to work on free
| software.
|
| > That feels like hypocrisy.
|
| No, that feels like living in an imperfect world and trying
| to make it better. To improve something, you generally need
| to be part of it and its imperfections.
| martypitt wrote:
| > No, that feels like living in an imperfect world and
| trying to make it better.
|
| Fair call.
| dash2 wrote:
| > No, that feels like living in an imperfect world and
| trying to make it better. To improve something, you
| generally need to be part of it and its imperfections.
|
| Right, but that's the hypocrisy, no? He's being rude about
| people who use github, or post an article on HN, but surely
| most of those guys are doing just the above. When is it OK
| to use non-free software and when not? Maybe there's a
| dividing line you can draw about "platforms".
| jraph wrote:
| Are you talking about Drew or "those guys", whoever they
| are?
|
| Let's focus on Drew. I've not seen him mention HN, which
| by the way doesn't require running non-free software, and
| he literally runs a free software competitor to GitHub.
| I've not seen him be rude to people using GitHub. He
| certainly strongly criticizes them.
|
| I assume he uses GitHub to communicate with projects
| hosted there. If he does, I don't think he could be
| blamed for meeting people where they are. He is not
| arguing about this, he is arguing against hosting non
| free software on proprietary infrastructure and
| strengthen it instead of helping strengthen the free
| software ecosystem. Which he doesn't do. He doesn't host
| his projects on GitHub.
|
| He could boycott GitHub to make an even stronger point,
| but I believe that isn't practical at this time when you
| are part of the open source community. And running a
| whole GitHub competitor is way more than most people do
| for this cause. Accepting to reluctantly use GitHub (or
| Discord, or whatever) and spreading the word against its
| use is not contradictory.
|
| Hypocrisy would be telling people not to use proprietary
| infrastructure to manage your free software project, and
| then hosting on GitHub.
|
| Specifically about podcasts because that's what people
| seem to take issue with here: podcasts are usually hosted
| somewhere else, in addition to Spotify. Historically,
| podcasts are handled with RSS feeds, there's nothing more
| standard and open than this. It would be wrong to force
| people to use Spotify to hear his podcast, but that's not
| the case. He also _should_ accept to be hosted on
| Spotify. When you are spreading ideas, you should want to
| reach people who are not yet as aware as you are in your
| cause. If you stay outside the world you criticize, you
| don 't reach people inside it. And more importantly, he
| didn't mention Spotify at all; in particular, he didn't
| say "please host me on Spotify". Podcast [?] Spotify.
|
| I see hypocrisy nowhere.
|
| Activism is hard, you know. You often need to do
| compromises for you activism to be efficient. Nobody is
| perfect. Should you wait to be perfect before making
| something for your cause?
| martypitt wrote:
| I'm struggling to see the distinction here.
|
| Sure, Podcast [?] Spotify, just as Git [?] Github. But
| people choose to distribute their code on Github for
| exactly the same reason the people choose to distribute
| their podcasts on Spotify - reach.
|
| That exact reach is what Drew argues so articulately
| against - in fact he expressly calls out marketing on
| Twitter and Facebook as a "mistake", and damaging against
| the FOSS community. He goes on to encourage people to
| prefer open infrastructure with lesser reach, even if
| that comes at the expense of effectiveness:
|
| > Such projects would prefer to exacerbate the network
| effects problem rather than risk some of its social
| capital on a less popular platform. To me, this is
| selfish and unethical outright.
|
| It's hard to see how that same argument doesn't extend to
| promoting your software on podcasts which are primarily
| distributed via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.
|
| On the topic of Activism, I think I'd agree with you, if
| he was on Spotify podcasts promoting other "Free" podcast
| platforms.
|
| But he's not - he's promoting a programming language.
| jraph wrote:
| I'll grant this to you.
|
| My opinion is that he didn't explicitly ask for the
| podcasts to be on Spotify or Apple. That Spotify and
| Apple Podcast are the main way of consuming podcasts is
| not of his making. And maybe he requests podcasts not to
| be hosted on those platforms. Maybe not.
|
| But I can see how you may find that there can be some
| contradiction here.
|
| To me this would be a "you still need to be part of this
| imperfect world" thing, or a "imperfect activism" thing,
| but I would totally understand someone disagree with this
| / find that it's not coherent.
| dash2 wrote:
| You're right, he mentioned Reddit not HN. I was speaking
| loosely when I said "being rude" - he criticizes them.
| jraph wrote:
| Now, I wouldn't be shocked to read someone consider HN as
| a proprietary platform.
|
| > I was speaking loosely when I said "being rude" - he
| criticizes them
|
| Ok, we are on the same page. The distinction is important
| to me :-)
| mrd3v0 wrote:
| Promoting free software through unfree software IS selfish
| and hurtful to society.
|
| Just because you don't necessarily have a solid
| counterargument to his convictions, doesn't make anything he
| said "over the top." That's just a disingenuous dismissive
| attitude towards what is clearly a post on his personal
| website that builds on established and clearly communicated
| values (freedom of software.)
|
| There's absolutely nothing in that article that criticises
| making and sharing free software. It is clearly criticising
| using a certain type of medium to share free software. If
| that's zealotry, then any argument against doing anything is,
| too.
|
| I wager that this hostility felt by these views are
| projections of guilt, devoid of criticisms towards said views
| or values. In fact, I'd argue that having no opposition
| towards a certain ethos then opposing it for frivolous
| reasons such as personal offence out of a public blog post is
| as close to hypocrisy as one can get.
| jraph wrote:
| > Promoting free software through unfree software IS
| selfish and hurtful to society.
|
| Well, it's a tough call. I agree that communicating trough
| them strengthens them because of the network effect. But if
| you never reach "unaware" people with your ideas where they
| are (on those platforms, that is), you are not really
| helping either.
|
| So it's not clear using those platforms _only_ hurts. It
| could be a net win, all effects taken in account.
|
| In any case, I agree that you should not force people to
| use these platforms to follow you.
| djha-skin wrote:
| Podcasts are actually distributed via rss. Proprietary
| platforms pick them up but they're actually one of the few
| forms of media that the public widely consumes via open
| standards.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| You can promote the software, as well as mirror the code of
| the software, on multiple services. (Unfortunately, while the
| code and documentation can be mirrored, the discussions
| usually won't be.)
|
| Requiring the use of priorietary software to access and
| discuss it is a problem, and requiring complicated software
| is not that good either, but it is also possible to use open
| protocols with multiple software.
|
| (In the specific case of GitHub, they had previously allow
| viewing files without needing JavaScripts; that has changed
| now, but the data is included as JSON data within the HTML
| file, so I was able to write my own much shorter script to
| substitute for theirs. Of course, that does not help much if
| you do not have that script, but you can still use the git
| protocol to download the files, or to use the API (the form
| for creating a new repository has stopped working on my
| computer, but I have been able to do so by using the API).)
|
| One thing they do not mention is NNTP, which I think can be a
| helpful alternative than mailing lists (although you can also
| have multiple interfaces for the same messages).
| jraph wrote:
| You might be interested in GitHub's cli tool, which is open
| source, if you want to access GitHub without running their
| proprietary JS code.
|
| https://cli.github.com/
| Thorrez wrote:
| I think HN is proprietary.
| jraph wrote:
| Indeed. I'm fine with HN though. I'm not the one running the
| non free code. One can browse it and participate to it
| without running any proprietary software. It works without
| JS, and the JS code is trivially small anyway. There are open
| source clients too. That's a pass for me. The day this
| changes, you won't see me here anymore.
|
| That would correspond to the NonFreeNet antifeature in
| F-Droid [1].
|
| They could update the code they released for good measure
| though [2].
|
| Running Discord is on another level for me. I would consider
| accessing a Discord using a Matrix or IRC bridge.
|
| [1] https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#NonFreeNet
|
| [2] https://github.com/wting/hackernews
| badpun wrote:
| So you'd be against running a modern commercial video game
| on your machine, but you'd play it if it was running in a
| Google datacenter, and transmited the rendered pixels to
| you via Google Stadia?
| jraph wrote:
| No. I would call this process "open source laundering".
|
| Actually, that's kinda an issue I see with those bridges
| and why I'm not totally comfortable with them. Now, if
| the bridge is run by the people who set up the closed
| communication tool in the first place, that's a grey
| area. That makes them run an open protocol / standard
| with proprietary software, which is better than nothing.
| I'm okay with having to reach a proprietary network with
| some free software. Should I join an XMPP network run
| with a proprietary implementation that I wouldn't
| probably even know about it, but at least it has usable
| open source implementations. That's my take. I would be
| happier if we could just skip the Discord and use the
| real thing though.
|
| But you know, I would be fine with you considering I'm
| not completely coherent. I'm not indeed. I have
| thresholds higher than those of RMS which makes me less
| coherent than him on this topic.
| jug wrote:
| It's been so inspiring to see him and his crew of hackers build a
| new, independent browser from scratch. I must admit I didn't
| think it was possible on this small scale in terms of man hours
| and funding.
|
| However, the thought has also crossed my mind if we're finally
| seeing fruits of browsers being better standardized on "95%"+ of
| the popular features -- and if writing a browser today is in fact
| easier than both writing AND maintaining a browser a decade back.
| While the web is of course still evolving, it feels more "settled
| in" than 10-15 years ago.
|
| There's also the factor that past developers didn't have the more
| complete roadmap set when they initially planned browser design,
| but now we have huge amounts of web standards already there AND
| also know how popular they got over time i.e. what to prioritize
| to support a modern web. One might superficially think there's
| simply more of everything, but I also think ideas that can be
| discarded. Just imagine that Internet Explorer had XSLT support,
| and FTP was common once upon a time!
|
| It would be interesting to hear more about their own thoughts on
| these topics!
|
| Edit: My bad; XSLT is still commonly supported and by all major
| browsers but a rarely used feature and stuck in limbo in XSLT
| 1.0. So it's probably among those things that can be safely
| omitted for quite some time.
| nox101 wrote:
| It also helps that there are tests
|
| https://web-platform-tests.org/
| LeFantome wrote:
| Indeed. These may be even more important...
|
| https://github.com/tc39/test262
| rjh29 wrote:
| > if writing a browser today is in fact easier than both
| writing AND maintaining a browser a decade back.
|
| Probably not. Yeah we have web standards and some idea of how
| to architect it, but the total set of APIs and HTML/CSS
| features a browser supports is probably changing faster than
| the Ladybird team can actively implement it. The API surface is
| just impossibly large compared to 10 or 15 years ago. Look at
| all of these: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API
|
| And that doesn't include the updates to Javascript, MathML,
| SVG, HTTP-based security features, encryption or media support.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| It's a lot of work but most of it is very doable for several
| reasons:
|
| - standards are really detailed at this point and a large
| reason why the three remaining browser engines (chromium,
| safari, and firefox) largely do exactly the same things.
|
| - There are a lot of open source components. It's not
| necessary to start from scratch on things like wasm and
| javascript interpreters for example. There are some nice low
| level graphics libraries out there as well. And of course
| things like Rust are now pretty mature and there's a lot of
| rust code out there that does stuff that a browser would
| need.
|
| That being said, it's one hell of a hobby project to take on
| and I don't see much economical value in an independent
| implementation of something provided by free by three
| independent browsers already; two of which are open source.
|
| Which begs the question: why?!? Is there qualitative argument
| here of doing the exact same thing but somehow better?
| rjh29 wrote:
| In the case of Ladybird they build everything from scratch
| (intentionally) so existing open source code cannot be
| used.
|
| The main argument for doing it is because it is fun, just
| as with SerenityOS. Having alternative implementations is
| never a bad thing for web diversity though.
| shiroiuma wrote:
| Of course, alternatives are almost never a bad thing, and
| devs should feel free to work on whatever floats their
| boat when they're volunteers, but developer resources are
| scarce, and there are other things in the FOSS realm that
| could use some attention where there really aren't great
| alternatives. But again, if these people prefer to work
| on this, that's OK. Just because the world could use a
| better X doesn't mean these devs have enough interest in
| X to be effective at building such a thing in a volunteer
| capacity: in my experience, having personal interest in a
| project makes you much more productive than working on
| something you really don't care about.
| jefozabuss wrote:
| Not to mention the number of possible vulnerabilities that
| will be needed to be pentested and fixed.
| sph wrote:
| It is not any easier, because we still have a monopoly running
| the show, only it's not called Microsoft anymore.
|
| If anyone threatens Google position, they can literally throw
| money at the problem, invent some overcomplicated standard,
| implement it in Blink, and have the competition chase them. It
| doesn't need to go through W3C either, if it works in Chrome,
| all web developers will adopt it and any smaller engine will
| necessarily have to support it or risk losing whatever little
| market share they have left.
|
| Having control of the internet now is of greater strategic
| importance than it was 20-30 years ago when Microsoft was king
| of the hill.
| pygy_ wrote:
| This is where Apple'grip on the iOS browser engine choice
| paradoxically comes in clutch.
|
| It is conceptually despicable, especially for devs, but it
| prevents Google from completely running the show.
|
| Now the European Union is coming after Apple without trying
| to rein in Google's influence... This seems short-sighted.
| Hrun0 wrote:
| The current dispute between the EU and Apple has nothing to
| do with Safari though and is about the Apple store, not
| sure how that's relevant?
| pygy_ wrote:
| It is my understanding that Apple losing here would
| prevent them from enforcing WebKit as the sole iOS
| browser engine. I may be mistaken.
| naraic0o wrote:
| no, they're also forcing Apple to allow other browser
| engines on iOS, which was previously banned. other, third
| party iOS browsers still used the safari webkit engine.
|
| > In addition, apps that use alternative browser engines
| -- other than Apple's WebKit -- may negatively affect the
| user experience, including impacts to system performance
| and battery life.
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-announces-
| chang...
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Every app may negatively impact system performance and
| battery life. A better webview could positively impact
| system performance and battery life. This statement from
| Apple was made in bad faith, and it didn't fool the
| regulators. It definitely shouldn't fool technologists.
| bigfudge wrote:
| It could improve performance, but let's not kid ourselves
| that there are many companies that care about the
| minutiae of battery life as much as Apple. I mean, have
| you used a windows laptop recently. It's -so- much worse
| than a MacBook that I refuse to believe it's all about
| the m* magic chips. Sleep, power cycling, prioritisation
| just all seem to be better implemented.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| I haven't, but I have used a Linux system recently, and
| the experience is far better than a Mac. Even the
| regulators can see that Apple doesn't care about battery
| life and performance so much as it cares about the
| billions it extracts from Google for the search engine
| deal. Allowing better browsers means that fewer people
| will be stuck on Apple's inferior browser, and Google
| will pay correspondingly less to access them.
| bigfudge wrote:
| Is that really true? I've tried a number of laptops with
| Linux and the sleep and power management always still
| seemed terrible. What do you have? I borrowed a Lenovo x
| something, and a Dell. Does it matter which brand because
| of drivers and firmware etc?
| ykonstant wrote:
| >Now the European Union is coming after Apple without
| trying to rein in Google's influence... This seems short-
| sighted.
|
| At the very least, if the EU really wants to limit the tech
| giants' grip on the web, it needs to fund independent open
| source web engine development handsomely; their pockets are
| more than deep enough and projects like ladybird and servo
| can use the extra resources.
| legacynl wrote:
| > if the EU really wants to limit the tech giants' grip
| on the web
|
| You're misunderstanding the goals of the EU. The EU only
| cares about limiting their grip as a result of their main
| goal. The main goal of the EU is to protect the rights of
| their citizens, which they do by enforcing existing anti-
| monopoly laws.
|
| The EU has in principle no problem with a company gaining
| giant market share by providing a successful service or
| product. There would be no problem if Google or Apple
| would gain 99% market share by everybody voluntarily
| choosing their product. But it is a problem if they then
| use that marketshare to make it harder for competitors to
| compete.
|
| I.e.: you're wrong to say that they're trying to minimise
| the 'grip' they have. They are merely trying to prevent
| companies abusing that grip.
|
| That being said; I'm pretty sure that the EU does
| actually fund a lot of open source development
| npunt wrote:
| The Digital Markets Act is a new law
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act
| shiroiuma wrote:
| It'd be nice if Apple allowed Firefox to use their own
| engine, while not allowing Google's engine. But I can't
| imagine Apple being that nice.
| legacynl wrote:
| > European Union is coming after apple.... seems short
| sighted
|
| I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the
| goals of the EU in this matter. The objective is not to
| keep both companies on even keel, but it is merely about
| enforcing existing anti-monopoly laws. If this results in
| Google gaining a de-facto browser monopoly then those same
| laws can be used to break up that monopoly when we get to
| it.
|
| What would be the alternative in your opinion? Allow Apple
| to break the monopoly laws in hope that they will be able
| to rein in the growth of the Google browser? What good is a
| law if it will not be enforced?
| JimDabell wrote:
| > What would be the alternative in your opinion?
|
| Force Apple to allow alternative rendering engines, but
| only the ones with <50% market share. This would promote
| diversity in rendering engines without giving what is
| already by far the most dominant rendering engine the
| opportunity to get more of a stranglehold over the
| market.
|
| People already mistake Blink-only APIs like Web USB, Web
| Bluetooth, Web MIDI, etc. for web standards. The market
| is already dangerously close to where it was 20 years
| ago, where a vast number of web developers treat the most
| popular rendering engine as if it's synonymous with the
| web. Handing more opportunities for market share to Blink
| is playing with fire.
|
| You want Apple to allow Gecko or Ladybird? Sounds great!
| But the monopoly that threatens the web at the moment is
| Blink.
| pennomi wrote:
| Blink isn't dangerous, Chrome is. You can have a privacy
| focused Blink browser.
| redder23 wrote:
| You fail to get it, YES Blink indeed is in fact dangerous
| because its controlled by Google and they dictate what
| they allow and what will be next things in the Browser
| and basically force everyone else to follow up with
| features they implement. They have a way to big control
| over browsers with the large market share they have. It
| has very little to do with with privacy. I use Brave
| myself. Using Blink as rendering option is cool and its
| cool that is open source but it does not change the
| control Google has over browsers. People could fork it of
| they disagree with things they do but if they are not as
| big as Apple the fork would disappear into meaningless
| and would never even come close to somehow influence and
| web standards ...
| jwells89 wrote:
| Another thing the EU could do which would help is to
| prohibit cross-promotion of browsers, as Google has quite
| aggressively done since Chrome's inception and Microsoft
| is returning to doing with Edge.
|
| That means no more "download Chrome" prompts on Google
| search and YouTube, no pestering people to install Chrome
| when tapping links in Google iOS apps, no bundling of
| Chrome in installers of unrelated software (very common
| on Windows), etc.
|
| Some sort of rule against favoring one's own browser in
| web apps (as has happened with GSuite and YouTube on
| multiple occasions) would also be nice but unfortunately
| strikes me as unlikely.
| paulddraper wrote:
| How is that a law?
|
| That's just playing sides.
| npunt wrote:
| > it is merely about enforcing existing anti-monopoly
| laws
|
| It's never ever that simple in politics, and this is
| about a _new_ law (Digital Markets Act). Ask yourself:
|
| - How were all the terms in the Digital Markets Act
| determined?
|
| - Which players or initiatives were able to scoot by
| unnoticed (e.g. Chrome's grip on web standards)?
|
| - What is the interpretation of what constitutes a
| gatekeeper? (note: its actually 'gatekeeper' not monopoly
| we're talking about).
|
| - Who will decide whether Apple's changes are in
| compliance?
|
| It can be true that their aims are generally to have more
| fairness in the market, but there's always going to be
| other factors at play in this kind of legislation. Note
| that the DMA was written in a way that allowed Europe-
| based Spotify and Booking.com to avoid being labeled
| gatekeepers.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| If only Mozilla hadn't run Firefox into the ground
| (effectively) we wouldn't need to reply on Apple.
| inversetelecine wrote:
| As I still use Firefox, I have to agree with this.
|
| The performance improvements are nice, but trying to make
| a Firefox another Chromium skin irks me. Plus I still
| miss the official compact mode.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > without trying to rein in Google's influence
|
| That's the problem. They should go after Google too.
| Honestly all of these megacorporations should be broken up.
| grey_earthling wrote:
| > if it works in Chrome, all web developers will adopt it
|
| This is why we, tech nerds who understand the problem, must
| resist monopolies: object to using such APIs. Chrome wouldn't
| be in quite this position if, instead of embracing the
| monopolist, more techies had warned their non-techy friends
| and family away from it, like they did with IE.
| sph wrote:
| Laziness and inertia is the reason monopolies exist, yet
| when you inquire individually everybody have their own
| inane reasons to keep the status quo alive.
|
| Elsewhere in this comment section someone literally said
| they use Chrome because Reddit does not work in Firefox,
| which is utter nonsense.
| bigfudge wrote:
| This is a tragedy of the commons, rather than simple
| laziness. Choice of messaging apps is the same. I may
| know that the world would be a better place if everyone
| ditched WhatsApp and used signal, but I want to schedule
| tennis matches today, and the value of a open source
| future is distant and heavily discounted by the knowledge
| that it is low probability, even if I do my part.
| eitland wrote:
| I have been rather loud about this and while I don't think
| my voice has meant much I think I have been part of a
| growing group of people who - together - are making a dent
| in this monopoly.
|
| Becoming part of it isn't hard either, if you test software
| either as a SW engineer on a team or as a full time tester
| it might actually save you some time :
|
| - If you use Mac, test in Safari first. On any other
| platform, install Firefox (or the Debian version, or
| Librewolf) and use it as the first tool to test
| applications.
|
| - If it doesn't work (and the customer hasn't very
| explicitly said they absolutely only care about Chrome or
| IE^CEdge) report it as a bug.
|
| I mean, seriously, who would have accepted a feature that
| only worked in IE 6?
|
| ---------
|
| OK, some people might say: but IE 6 was an old and outdated
| browser, you cannot compare IE 6, or any version of IE for
| that matter to Chrome.
|
| Or one might say: Chrome has already won, your idealism is
| appreciated, but you are too late.
|
| Well, here is the thing: IE was at one point in almost the
| exact same postition as Chrome is now:
|
| - biggest browser by far
|
| - endorsed (or even enforced) by IT
|
| - lots of features only worked in IE. (I remember one
| particular customer who seemed to be obsessed with security
| to the point were we had to keep a VM with Windows XP and
| IE 8 around with both Active X and Java Applets enabled to
| sign into them. This was around 2014..! Yes, if you find
| this notion of security absolutely ridiculous then we
| agree.)
|
| ---------
|
| OK, one key difference:
|
| Back in 2006 when I started fighting IE we had Mozilla on
| our side. Firefox was innovating like crazy. We had
| extensions that let us embed IE in a tab to render certain
| web sites. We could automatically archive a full website
| for offline access (full rewrite of links so they worked on
| our copy was included). Full developer tools that everyone
| knows from every browser these days started out as just an
| extension to Firefox, named Firebug IIRC.
|
| Today, while I understand that the extension API had to be
| reigned in before a disaster happened, it went way to far
| and today we cannot even get a function in the API to
| programmatically remove the top tab bar when we add a tab
| bar on the side. And not only that, but if someone asks
| about that particular issue, someone will come and hush and
| hide the comment.
|
| So godspeed to Ladybird devs and Orion devs, Librewolf devs
| and actually even Safari devs and everyone else who
| challenges the current monopoly!
| razakel wrote:
| We warned people that the government was snooping on
| everything you transmitted or received.
|
| They didn't listen or care.
| inversetelecine wrote:
| Many took tech jobs to help further that cause. Perhaps
| unknowingly?
| scblock wrote:
| "Tech nerds" built web sites that only worked in IE back
| then and "tech nerds" are building websites now that only
| work in Chrome. Didn't have a clue back then, and don't
| have a clue now. Forget warning "non-techy" people and
| clean your own house first.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Ethics go out the window so long as the flow of shiny new
| features remains unimpeded. The only reason devs turned
| against IE is because Microsoft got complacent and
| essentially abandoned it, letting Gecko and WebKit steal
| the spotlight... a move that Google is smart enough to
| know to not repeat.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > object to using such APIs
|
| Doesn't work since the corporation can just fire you and
| replace you with someone who has no such objections.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Google's control of the internet is exaggerated. Amazon is
| not dependent on any web browser to reach clients, they can
| just launch their own app and be done. And yes, they can do
| it all platforms.
|
| How is Instagram dependent on whatever Google decides? How is
| Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat? How are streaming platforms
| dependent on Chrome? Big businesses with a ton of users
| easily launch their own apps to sidestep Chrome. And if
| Chrome makes fundamental breaks of HTML and CSS, then most of
| the internet is going to be broken in Chrome.
|
| If your bank website stops working in Chrome, they're not
| going to change their website. They're going to ask you to
| install another browser.
| JTatts wrote:
| I can guarantee that if a bank website stops working in
| Chrome they will be instantly working around the clock to
| fix the website!
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Or not? I remember when banks required you to have IE
| long after nobody was using IE. I remember when banks
| showed an alert against using Safari long after it became
| the most common mobile browser. Banks also have their own
| apps and are not dependent on Chrome.
| bigfudge wrote:
| That was in a time when expectations were low and all the
| banks were pretty equally crap. There are better choices
| now, and even my mum would be pissed off of her bank
| website didn't work in her current browser.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Would she be pissed off at A) The bank? B) The browser?
| C) The computer? D) Her internet provider?
|
| People can change browser more easily than changing
| banks. They can even have multiple different browsers on
| their machine, and one for only doing banking.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| For many people, the icon on the desktop they click isn't
| important. They just know when they click that icon, it
| brings them to "the internet". If she's one of those
| people, my guess is she blames the bank.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| The biggest companies might be immune, but anyone else's
| incentive is quite high to use Chromium (Electron) to build
| that app on.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Counterpoint: A lot of these newer features are only used on
| a small fraction of websites; things like webgl are only used
| for games and tech demos, most websites work just fine
| without it.
| userbinator wrote:
| The problem ultimately isn't Google pushing new "standards",
| since plain HTML and other existing ways of doing things that
| work in many more browsers still works; it's the trendchasing
| web developers who somehow feel the need to make sites that
| only work in Chrome, and the propaganda that Google to
| encourage that behaviour.
|
| It's almost as if backwards-compatibility is seen as
| something to be avoided in certain web dev communities. Lots
| of "drop support" and "moving forward", zero consideration
| for simplicity and interoperability.
| autoexec wrote:
| > if we're finally seeing fruits of browsers being better
| standardized on "95%"+ of the popular features -- and if
| writing a browser today is in fact easier than both writing AND
| maintaining a browser a decade back.
|
| A decade back, maybe... but _decades_ ago the number of things
| you had to support was just so much smaller even if you only
| looked at HTML! Consider https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1866.txt
| vs https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/
|
| Writing a web browser was hard in the old days for a lot of
| reasons, but trying to write a full-featured one today is a
| huge undertaking and we're _still_ adding a bunch of new
| features all the time and expecting browsers to support them
| Aeolun wrote:
| > Consider https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1866.txt vs
| https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/
|
| I thought, oh, that's not so bad. Then I realized what I was
| looking at was a 10 page index.
| akling wrote:
| > It's been so inspiring to see him and his crew of hackers
| build a new, independent browser from scratch. I must admit I
| didn't think it was possible on this small scale in terms of
| man hours and funding.
|
| Thanks jug! I'm super proud of all the folks who have worked on
| it with me :^)
|
| > However, the thought has also crossed my mind if we're
| finally seeing fruits of browsers being better standardized on
| "95%"+ of the popular features -- and if writing a browser
| today is in fact easier than both writing AND maintaining a
| browser a decade back. While the web is of course still
| evolving, it feels more "settled in" than 10-15 years ago
|
| This is definitely true! I've worked on browsers on and off
| since 2006, and it's a very different landscape today. Specs
| are better than ever and there's a treasure trove of tests
| available.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| The web as a platform keeps getting better. As someone who's
| been developing for it for a living since 1998, I'm delighted
| to see and to share things like "Interop 2024"^1 and Web
| Platform Tests ^2, which are improving the adoption pace and
| reliability of key platform features:
|
| 1. https://www.webkit.org/blog/14633/get-ready-for-
| interop-2024...
|
| 2. https://wpt.fyi
| grishka wrote:
| IMO most of the complexity of modern browsers is in all those
| strictly optional, app-like features. PWAs, service workers, JS
| JIT and all that stuff. If you want to build just a hypertext
| viewer, not a full-fledged OS/application environment, just
| leave them out and nothing of value will break. Things also
| become substantially simpler if you aren't looking to make your
| JS execution as performant as theoretically possible (and you
| don't really need to with how most websites actually use JS).
| codemusings wrote:
| Love Andreas Kling and the Serentiy OS project. Hate that he's
| only on Twitter. Mastodon seems like the perfect fit for his
| audience.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I dunno, he's pretty committed to his positive utlook on
| things. Mastodon seems to be the far angrier place in
| comparison to Twitter. Twitter used to be a lot more like that,
| but it seems like most of the angriest people on twitter moved
| ot mastodon when Elon took over.
|
| It's (IMO) very pronounced and hard to avoid on Mastodon.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Doesn't seem that way to me much anymore - definitely as time
| has gone on it feels like a lot of the behaviour police (who
| were everywhere scolding people for not using content
| warnings and stuff) got blocked by enough people that they've
| mostly given up which is nice. Sure, in the Explore tab there
| still a lot of "people being angry at politics" but if you
| are careful with who you follow you shouldn't see that in
| your feed...
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| Not only that but the frontpage of Mastodon is more angry
| political stuff than anything technology related.
| gsich wrote:
| From the FAQ:
|
| " Q: Why bother? You can't make a new browser engine without
| billions of dollars and hundreds of staff.
|
| Sure you can. Don't listen to armchair defeatists who never
| worked on a browser. "
|
| Nice take.
| winterplace wrote:
| Source: https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-
| platform...
| webprofusion wrote:
| Great to see some competition still alive in browser engine
| development. See also Servo (previously part of Mozilla)
| https://servo.org/ - that and Ladybird are still very
| underdeveloped compared to every day browsers.
|
| It's a huge shame that there are no nightly builds of ladybird to
| try out but I assume that's because they just don't want the bug
| reports (if everything doesn't work it's pointless getting random
| bugs filed).
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Last I tried Ladybird didn't take very long to build. This was
| admittedly sometime last year and it's likely slower now, but
| still. It's very far from a 9 hour chromium build.
| vmfunction wrote:
| Don't forget WebKit. It leads to project such as
| https://surf.suckless.org
| jraph wrote:
| WebKit is established and controlled by the richest company
| of the world. Most websites make sure they work on it because
| hardware (exclusively) running it are widespread. Why should
| someone interested in new players care? Anyone knowing about
| Servo and Ladybird has most likely heard of it anyway.
|
| (agreed, it _is_ a credible alternative to Blink 's
| dominance)
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Because it can be used to do cool things, has an
| interesting development history, and most importantly:
|
| > it _is_ a credible alternative to Blink 's dominance
| ripley12 wrote:
| IIRC there are no builds because forcing people to compile it
| themselves ensures that users (and people who file issues) have
| a certain amount of technical competency. Keeps life easier for
| maintainers, but will probably change if/when the project
| matures.
| AndyKelley wrote:
| Is it just for fun or not? I think it's important to face this
| question, because users should not trust a just-for-fun browser
| with their security, and we should not look to Ladybird as a
| meaningful contribution towards competition in the browser space
| if it's just for fun.
|
| If it's just for fun, we need to temper our expectations
| accordingly.
| jraph wrote:
| I think it's a "just for fun" project that is getting a bit
| serious, and sponsored.
|
| And that having expectations as a end user is still a bit
| premature.
|
| You can expect the project to move somewhat fast.
| 10000truths wrote:
| "Just for fun" is precisely how Linux started:
| Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm
| doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
| professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Similarly people shouldn't have used Linux for serious use
| cases back then. We are talking about the present.
| whyever wrote:
| They don't provide binaries, so I don't think there is a risk
| of having users.
|
| Is it really important to answer this question? A lot of widely
| used software started as "just for fun", e.g. Linux or OpenSSL.
|
| I think tempering our expectations should be the default for
| Open Source software.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| While Mozilla is re-selling privacy service (see other news on
| HN), others are building a better browser. Without the need of
| $6B.
| kome wrote:
| Mozilla has definitely a management problem. But the product is
| good. very good even.
| ykonstant wrote:
| Unfortunately, Mozilla is not interested in providing an
| easily embedable web engine. It makes sense: it goes against
| their interests as a company whose main product is a fully
| featured web browser.
|
| Google, on the other hand, provides a web engine with a nice
| license and reasonable ergonomics that can be used for all
| sorts of projects. This allows them to execute an EEE
| strategy:
|
| Embed (into all kinds of projects)
|
| Enforce (moving-target standards of your own making)
|
| Exhaust (any potential competitor/resources that needs to
| chase after them)
|
| This is why I wish we can get an alternative, OSS, easy-to-
| embed engine soon.
| sylware wrote:
| It seems there is zero c++ in their web engine (cannot clone
| their repo right now and github is spitting raw json while
| browsing their source code with noscript/basic (x)html browsers).
|
| Is this true?
| nhinck3 wrote:
| No, it's basically all c++
| sylware wrote:
| Sad, I wish for a modern web engine in plain and simple C99
| (let's allow us some benign bits from c11).
|
| I guess I'll stick to links and/or lynx and/or netsurf.
| materielle wrote:
| The code might be closer to your wish than you think.
|
| So, they stay on the bleeding edge if C++ compilers. So in
| terms of core language features, they are C++20-something.
|
| But, everything is written from scratch, including the
| standard library.
|
| As such, the code is a lot cleaner than a typical C++
| codebase.
| sylware wrote:
| The problem is c++ itself, with its grotesquely and
| absurdely massive and complex compilers, mechanically due
| to its syntax complexity. And yes, rust is hardly less
| worth.
| dev213 wrote:
| This is a really cool project, but:
|
| "Where are the ISO images?
|
| There are no ISO images. This project does not cater to non-
| technical users."
|
| This comes off as really abrasive. Wanting an ISO image to
| quickly test this out is not an indicator of someones technical
| ability.
|
| I'm sorry I don't want to boot up a linux vm, install a lot of
| development packages and then build my own boot image just to try
| this out.
| zaebal wrote:
| SerenityOS nightly builds: https://serenity-builds.halves.dev/
| cal85 wrote:
| > This comes off as really abrasive.
|
| I think that's often the point with OSS projects, especially
| those that have an ambitious long term vision. If you "don't
| want to boot up a Linux VM" etc, they don't want you. It's a
| filter. It means their concern at the moment is the coherence
| of their community, not increasing their numbers. It's the same
| reason projects like this often have absurdly ugly logos, and
| landing pages that don't work on mobile. Fast growth is often
| seen as destructive when you already have a nice little
| community vibe. It's essential to maintain that vibe carefully
| if you have a long term goal of building something important.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Counterpoint, it would be another release / packaging they
| would have to build and maintain, unless they find a volunteer
| that can do it without detracting from their core business,
| it's not worth the investment (to them).
|
| Anyone can set up a pipeline to distribute ISO images though,
| it's open source.
| dev213 wrote:
| Sure, if that's the reason, I completely understand. However
| that's not the reason they stated in their FAQ. It really
| comes off as gatekeeping
| acuozzo wrote:
| Gatekeeping is the right solution sometimes, no?
|
| What if the goal is to keep the relevant communication
| channels populated _exclusively_ with technical users?
|
| I've seen F/OSS projects completely overrun with support
| requests from non-technical users. Is it wrong to want to
| avoid this from the start?
| cpach wrote:
| Very cool project!
|
| I also find it curious that they are sponsored by a real estate
| site (:
| Hanschri wrote:
| Ohne Makler sponsored the project with 10k USD to make their
| website render correctly in Ladybird, it was covered in one of
| the browser update videos last year[0].
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/xdVOdrWuzLQ?t=147
| cpach wrote:
| Ha! Didn't know. Very cool IMHO.
| hendi_ wrote:
| I just needed a reason to throw money at him ;)
| cpach wrote:
| Haha, kudos!
| fifteen1506 wrote:
| I always mix SerenityOS and TempleOS :(
| BMSR wrote:
| Is there collaboration between Serenity/LB and Igalia?
|
| Seems like they're involved in many browser technologies, and
| other technologies.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igalia
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkIX5ryZZ4
| hosteur wrote:
| I am fascinated by this project.
|
| What are the chances that this could become a real world usable
| replacement for chrome or Firefox witching the next couple of
| years?
| TheCoreh wrote:
| My gut feeling with how far they've come in so little time says
| it's definitely in the double digit percentage points.
| zamadatix wrote:
| "Usable" as a term is a bit of a wash in the browser world.
| Some people will argue Firefox or Chrome are unusable due to
| some minor annoyance and others will say filling is still
| usable. Trying to give an answer though I'd say most will say
| it works with most sites in a few years time but most would
| also not recommend it due to security concerns. It's not that
| they haven't thought about security, sometimes they even try
| newer more segmented approaches than current major browsers
| use, just that everything has been done from scratch and the
| work to make the code safe and battle tested as other browsers
| would be more than the work to make the browser to that point.
| ptx wrote:
| Are there any plans to rewrite the browser implementation in the
| Jakt language once that gets a bit more stable? Memory safety
| would be a unique advantage over other browsers (aside from
| Servo).
| TheCoreh wrote:
| I am also looking forward to that, but I think the Serenity
| philosophy is to not make any long term plans and commitments.
|
| If the language becomes mature enough, and there are people
| interested enough in doing that porting, it will likely happen.
|
| I think their C++ code is also constrained enough due to the
| use of their custom standard library that it would be possible
| to write a transpiler from C++ to Jakt.
| yarekt wrote:
| It sounds cool, and it's nice that someone is disproving the
| myth. I use Qutebrowser daily, these projects are great, but not
| without their pain points: once you start using them in anger
| you'll quickly realise lots of basic features are missing. It
| would be really nice if the more common oss libs had more work
| done on them to unbloat them
| talkingtab wrote:
| A thought experiment. What about a new kind of browser for a new
| kind of web? Much of CSS is obsolete. So doing a "modern" version
| (I'm thinking css grid and flex in particular) would provide the
| same functionality without the cruft. All that old stuff about
| the holy grail three columns layout.
|
| And for me there is the question of canvas, threejs, react-three-
| fiber and react-drei. Is it possible that - especially with
| mobile - that canvas could be used to provide a better user
| experience? Who writes games for mobile with a HTML and CSS? Not
| saying it can't be done, but I wonder how many web sites require
| HTML & CSS instead of canvas?
|
| A big barrier to browser competition is needing to implement
| obsolete and outdated technology. Why not just a minimum set of
| html and canvas.
|
| Just thinking. Your thoughts?
| sho_hn wrote:
| I've worked a bit on browser engines, although it was quite
| some time ago.
|
| I don't think it'd help much.
|
| - There's been a Cambrian Explosion in the web API surface era.
| The modern stuff dwarfs the old stuff. Dropping support for
| older/less frequently used mechanisms does not shed as much
| code and complexity as you might think.
|
| - Beyond mere surface area, the level of engineering required
| to implement a sort of "Restricted Core Profile" to a
| competitive degree (e.g. performance) is quite high, if you're
| talking true blank-canvas development.
|
| - There's a long tail effect in full force, where even mostly-
| modern websites will use and rely on some cruft here and there,
| making very few pages work in your supposed browser.
|
| That is to say, it's still a very large, tough project. But the
| FOSS community has achieved quite a few large, tough projects;
| it's not the same as saying that it's not possible, of course.
| novagameco wrote:
| I think there are modern frameworks which render everything in
| webgl/webgpu with the canvas
| fzzzy wrote:
| What exactly is obsolete about css? There are still valid use
| cases for float and inline block. border-box also fixes most of
| the teeth-gnashing from the 00s. I think it's a nice idea but I
| don't see what would get cut. Tables are still best for actual
| tables of data, too.
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread:
|
| _Interview with Andreas Kling of Serenity OS (2022)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286638 - Feb 2024 (134
| comments)
|
| Related to OP:
|
| _Ladybird browser update (July 2023) [video]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36939402 - July 2023 (1
| comment)
|
| _Chat with Andreas Kling about Ladybird and developing a browser
| engine_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36620450 - July
| 2023 (65 comments)
|
| _Shopify Sponsored Ladybird Browser_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36502583 - June 2023 (1
| comment)
|
| _I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805 - June 2023 (166
| comments)
|
| _Early stages of Google Docs support in the Ladybird browser_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33511831 - Nov 2022 (84
| comments)
|
| _Github.com on Ladybird, new browser with JavaScript /CSS/SVG
| engines from scratch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33273785 - Oct 2022 (1
| comment)
|
| _Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32809126 - Sept 2022 (473
| comments)
|
| _Ladybird: A truly new Web Browser comes to Linux_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014061 - July 2022 (8
| comments)
|
| _Ladybird Web Browser_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987506 - July 2022 (2
| comments)
|
| _Ladybird Web Browser - SerenityOS LibWeb Engine on Linux_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976579 - July 2022 (2
| comments)
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Is there a way to create a binary to use this browser in a
| normal-ish way. Looks like the docks recommend using a script to
| run it, but I'd like to be able to package it for my personal
| package repository.
| vimsee wrote:
| I just made a wrapper script that calls the script in the
| serenity repo (which I cloned into my home directory) and put
| the script in PATH e.g. in /usr/bin/ladybird. The content my
| script.
|
| > #!/usr/bin/env bash
|
| > cd ${HOME}/serenity && ./Meta/serenity.sh run lagom ladybird
|
| I guess you could create a .desktop file that invokes the
| script, or just the "serenity.sh" script directly.
| redder23 wrote:
| Written in C++? Makes no sense to me. I have high hopes for Servo
| but this seems like a waste if its a C++ project.
| F3nd0 wrote:
| I want to feel excited for Ladybird, but it's an incredible shame
| that such a promising and potentially very important project has
| settled on a pushover licence and Discord for their communication
| platform. The latter especially is an antithesis of freedom and
| openness, which I feel ought to be valued by people celebrating
| Ladybird's progress.
| ambigious7777 wrote:
| I may just be being dumb here, but what is a pushover license?
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