Sure would be nice to have another Web engine.
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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Absolutely this is great news now thenthing is making ppl adopt it.
Servo, Basilisk and Ladybird make me very optimistic about the future of web browsers. I'm glad to see that people are working on alternatives divorced from Mozilla, as it seems they don't care anymore.
Why do you think they don't care anymore? Agreed on the Servo optimism, though. And I hadn't heard about Basilisk before, so thanks for mentioning it.
The new CEO mostly.
I noticed you're not the person I was replying to, but since you've joined the conversation, would you mind clarifying who and what the issue with them is?
As I understand it, Baker left the position, and Chambers is only temporarily assuming it—that is to say, we don't actually know who'll be CEO next year, I think.
I might be out of the loop, here. I don't imagine you're talking about the foundation, either.
I'm actually just echo'ing what others have said.
My choice to move to LibreWolf was because the latest controversial ad stuff in Firefox
I'm actually just echo'ing what others have said.
Sorry, I don't want to be mean, but genuinely, why would you reply and mention the CEO if you don't know what the issue with them is? Had I not inquired further, would you ever add this context, unprompted?
Re: your move to LibreWolf, it's your prerogative. If you like, keep at it. I will mention that I've seen a lot of misunderstandings regarding the latest ad stuff in Firefox, so I hope you got the correct picture to make your decisions, but I won't bore you with details needlessly.
I did actually look into the "ad stuff" as I'm a webdeveloper. And it's not a good thing. Google has tried the same. It's crap and a stupid choice. I read it was because of the CEO, but I don't care about that personal crap, yet others seem to do.
And please, I'm not helping some AI understand this. I'm not going to bother and waste too much time on this. It's just a post.
Basilisk is the odd one out here. It is a continuation of pre-Servo Firefox ( Firefox before Rust ). It is not exactly a “new” engine.
Ladybird is probably the most exciting project as it is most likely to create a new independent browser suitable for daily use.
Servo was very exciting back when Mozilla was heavily invested in it. Sadly, it was long dormant. It really seems to be heating up again though so that is awesome.
I was so excited for Ladybird, right up until I found out the project lead and main developer, Andreas Kling, is scared of pronouns.
Again, I'm aware some folks think this is annoying, but if you're the kind of user who shuns Brave because the CEO does stupid shit, Ladybird probably isn't the way to go either. Not for the moment, at least. People deserve the right to make informed decisions, so I'll keep sharing this, and I encourage others to do the same when relevant, but don't harass anyone, please.
If you don't care about any of this, it's a very interesting project. I just can't say I approve.
Annnnnd here's the other side of the story. https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5823666/ladybird-web-browser-developer-attacked-by-unhinged-dishonest-activists
Lunduke is not a credible source. He's inconsistent and has misled people countless times. I'll still check it out and respond, but will also link other resources.
Edit: You know, I wanted to respond to the linked post by Lunduke point by point, but sincerely... I'm so tired of seeing his kind of content. It's always the same mistakes, and he never learns.
And I'm not sure if he's even worth bringing into this discussion. I made my point, and I provided my source. If anyone wanted to talk, ask further, even dispute, I'm willing to explain myself and provide further resources.
But I never called Andreas transphobic, or misogynistic, or a slave owner. Lunduke found the absolute worst materials to represent something he dislikes. Why is that relevant here? Should I answer for these people, who I've never met? Do they represent me?
Also, in his cherry-picking, Lunduke erases important context simply because it doesn't support his views. Lea's and Andreas' conversation on Twitter painted a more complete picture of the issue with Andreas' actions, but of course Lunduke only shows the tweet of Andreas being seemingly reasonable.
Worse, it's like he genuinely has no idea what he's talking about sometimes. He just needs to build a narrative and push it onto others, hopefully finding people who'll take his views on reality as gospel.
Attacks Across Open Source
So many projects:
SUSE & openSUSE. Hyprland. Asahi Linux. Elementary OS. NixOS.
Lunduke, what? Genuinely, what are you on?
- Nix has long had an amount of drama, just search "are flakes ready." Or are you talking about the complaints when people didn't feel comfortable being sponsored by military companies? Very reasonable human behavior? Is that what's wrong with Nix? And despite it all, it's still one of the best ways to manage dependencies I've ever seen!
- Hyprland? What's wrong with Hyprland? Yeah, the project has a toxic community, vaxry (lead dev) failed to understand why this was bad and failed to fix it, then eventually got kicked off Freedesktop because others didn't want to deal with his shit. Now they get to build their own little kingdom, and it's apparently "working out" for those who remained.
- Asahi is the way to have a good Linux experience on newer M-series Apple hardware, which recently got a Fedora spin and gets better every update... what could possibly be wrong with it? Is it the fact that one of the most prolific developers supports LGBT rights? No, that can't be it, there's no way Lunduke—
In fact, if recent history is any indication, we're likely to see additional attacks involving Open Source Software projects and companies -- by the Trans Political Activists -- in the near future.
...Trans rights are ruining open source? That's your grand theory?
Might be, as it seems he doesn't take trans folks very seriously:
Back in 2022 -- yes, two years ago -- on the Discord chat server for the Hyprland window manager project, a man who identified as "Trans" listed his preferred prouns as "she/her". lunduke
I'm so sorry, but Lunduke's brand of journalism tires and saddens me. It's a slap in the face to anyone who cares about not only understanding the full picture of events, but being just in how you deliver the truth to others. And then, on top of that, he acts like a jerk.
Here's a video by Niccolò, KDE developer, showing how Lunduke is inconsistent, heavily biased and spectacularly fails at his own (and only) job.
~~While I do agree, he has sourced and linked all statements~~
Edit: ._. What does any of that have to do with Andreas, ladybird or Serenity.
I do not care if you have some sort of hate for the blogger, all the statements made in the article are sourced. You're acting like the blogger is attacking you specifically or something.
Andreas said it simple (While in different words). What does your sex have to do with the project? Absolutely nothing.
all the statements made in the article are sourced.
If only his sources matter, link those instead. Bringing in Lunduke's article means bringing in his views. That's not some special Lunduke-hate-boner property, if anyone linked an Israeli news website in a thread about Gaza, I'd call that ridiculous too. Articles reflect their authors, and you happened to pick one of the worst authors in tech.
You're acting like the blogger is attacking you specifically or something.
Because Lunduke's ideas can cause real damage to people's lives, and I'm tired of seeing them. Again, I'm sorry if I come across as affronted—this genuinely, deeply frustrates me. And it's hard to hold that down.
I don't blame you. I don't know how you found the article, or how you read it. But please reconsider sharing Lunduke's stuff. The man's one step away from conspiracy theorist, or hell, maybe he counts as one already.
Andreas said it simple (While in different words). What does your sex have to do with the project? Absolutely nothing.
"In different words" is doing a lot of work, there. But that's a great point you made, sex has nothing to do with the project. So why did he reject a simple change which only made sex even less relevant?
And I ask again: which other side is Lunduke representing that you felt was important to include?
Apologies, I added a lot to my comment in an edit before I saw your reply. Regardless, which other side is Lunduke representing that's important to share?
That’s ridiculous.
Forcing all pronouns to male is injecting politics into it, and to turn around and say “dont inject politics into it” is ridiculous. The dev is a fucking idiot, as is whoever wrote that garbage.
Go ahead and read the current build instructions since the original commit is from 3 years ago. https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documentation/BuildInstructions.md
Do you see the use of pronouns anywhere?
https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/pull/24647
July, they are still pulling this shit today. Fuck off with your dishonest nonsense.
Thank you for suggesting we not harass anyone. That is a lot better than I have seen elsewhere related to this.
Andreas doesn't need a bunch of people harassing him for a multitude of reasons that may or may not be true. What I believe he needs, is to reevaluate his actions and grow out of what seems to be a toxic mentality, conscious or not.
I'm not the very knowledgeable on this, but I think most people don't grow from being attacked.
Realistically, it can't stop the stubborn. But if it helps anyone reconsider, I'll take it.
Long term servo is unlike to be another web engine. It’ll just replace Firefox. Firefox’s old engine won’t get as much development. Then we’ll be left with Safari, Firefox (servo) and googles web manipulation vehicle Chrome safari with more tracking and higher battery/ram consumption.
Mozilla is not really associated with Servo anymore.
I would be surprised to see Firefox move to Servo.
It would be really great if Mozilla could pick Servo back up, and make it Firefox's engine, and make it like chromium, where the engine and browser are not so tighltly coupled together. GNOME Web could be so much better if it had the performance of Firefox.
What's wrong with gecko?
It cannot be embedded the same way as blink to use other front ends, instead they need to be forks of Firefox with customisations that need to be maintained every update
GNOME Web stopped using Gecko as a backend when it was still embeddable. They decided on WebKit for other reasons.
If you like what you see, strongly consider contributing to Servo financially: https://opencollective.com/servo
I did and I feel quite happy about it. Here's hoping there is more web engines out there 👍
I'm just learning there's another web engine? I heard about Ladybird but not this. Now I need to try it.
Servo was an experimental ground for Mozilla in some ways (like testing out a new CSS engine and porting it back to Gecko if it works). So it's quite normal for people to be unaware of it, it was not meant for the public.
But later on it was abandoned by Mozilla and stuck in a limbo, until it got picked up by the Linux Foundation. Now it's a standalone project and I wish them well. We really need a new FOSS web engine.
Gecko isnt?
One of the differences is that Gecko written in C++ while Servo is written in Rust
It's also more optimized and modern
That may explain the language it was written in (if that even matters? Not a developer) but why is Gecko supposdely not open source?
The language doesn't really matter, the important thing is that it's a new codebase with a focus on memory safety and performance, and Rust helps servo achieve that goal. Gecko is an older codebase, so its focus would be more on compatibility.
Both are open source, servo is mostly exciting because it's a ground-up reimplementation, so it's not shackled by older decisions.
I don’t think he’s suggesting it isn’t open source, just we need more open source engines.
Ah you got my comment wrong! I didn't mean to suggest Gecko is closed source. I just wanted another web engine that is also open source.
Happens. Sorry :D
Gecko is open source. They were saying it would be good to have a new FOSS browser engine that isn't Chromium or Gecko to add some competition to the mix
Gecko is of course Open Source. It is also pretty much the oldest browser engine code base and written in C++. Servo is modern and Rust. Gecko started at Netscape.
The other problem is that Gecko is hard to embed.
I hate having to rely on Gecko alone to keep Google from having complete control of the web. Very happy to hear about Servo.
Servo was codeveloped with rust by Mozilla, to get a faster and safer engine. Servo basically showed where improvements needed to be done and then rustc was modified to fit the need.
I tries it a couple months ago and it was horrible, didn't even support flexbox back then and it kept crashing. The latest nightly builds are almost usable for basic web browsing though, it's amazing how fast servo improves
Yeah, they mostly built the structure, and it seems they're filling in the details now. It would be awesome to see it become usable for everyday browsing.