We’ve been searching for a memory-safe programming language to replace C++ in Ladybird for a while now. We previously explored Swift, but the C++ interop never quite got there, and platform support outside the Apple ecosystem was limited. Rust is a different story. The ecosystem is far more mature for systems programming, and many of our contributors already know the language. Going forward, we are rewriting parts of Ladybird in Rust.
To me the hope lies in Firefox forks
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Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, the forks can only get so far in removing upstream AI garbage and other proprietary/corporate-oriented whistles-and-bells. If, say, some AI feature becomes so ingrained inside Firefox upstream, so deeply it ends up becoming some hard dependency for fundamental functioning of the browser (i.e. a feature that, if removed at the code-level, would render Firefox simply unable to function), no WaterFox, IronFox, Fennec or LibreWolf would be able to keep up with the latest versions: they’d either need to do a hard fork trying to independently maintain an entire codebase for a browser, or they’d need to use downgraded versions.
Not even to say about licensing shenanigans. We’ve seen many open-source projects suddenly changing their licensing to include legalese thin letters. We’ve seen open-source projects requiring developers to sign up some kind of NDA before being allowed to contribute with code. Seems like initially-open licenses aren’t written on stone when it comes to big projects, and Firefox is a big project.
The universe of open-source software is being slowly hijacked by corporate interests. This is not different with Firefox, which (as I said in another reply to someone in this thread a few minutes ago) is Mozilla’s main product (if not the main product, it’s certainly among their main projects). The same Mozilla which has been pivoting to AI (e.g. acquisition of Anonym; subtle phrasing changes from “About Firefox” page which used to state how “Firefox will never sell your data”, now this phrase is gone).
I use WaterFox on a daily basis. It’s by far the best browser I’ve been using. I tried LibreWolf but it doesn’t really likes my Portuguese ABNT2 keyboard (which has accents I use often), even after disabling ResistFingerprint, so I ended up sticking with WaterFox. On mobile, I use Fennec on a daily basis, and I’m worried about the end of “sideloading” on Android which will likely mess with its installation. But I’m aware of how both browsers rely on upstream code from Mozilla Firefox, whose enshittification is already an ongoing phenomenon. And that’s really depressing when it comes to the future of browser landscape, because we’re hoping for a true alternative. Servo is the last bastion of said hope (until it gets EEE’d by corporate interests, given how Linux Foundation itself is increasingly surrounded by corpos.
I’m more of a GNU/Stallman person who values autonomy and libreness as non-negotiable principles. I’m only using Android because I’m stuck with it due to certain societal impositions (banks and gov apps), otherwise I’d be long using a custom phone, which wouldn’t even be Linux, but something way more “unorthodox” for a phone such as FreeBSD or Illumos/OpenIndianna, systems of which I already used on a PC environment and got quite fond of.
you mean the DCOs? those are nothing like NDAs. if not, which ones you mean?
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Possibly. I don’t know the specific acronym they use, but regardless of the acronym: to me, it smells and looks like NDAs insofar it’s some kind of analogous version of a “secretive initiation ritual” for a developer who’s just trying to help an open-source community. It’s an agreement where the developer accepts that anything they contribute free-of-charge is going to be used for enterprise (paid) purposes and any contribution is subject to be altered or removed as the management pleases, sometimes it also involves literal NDA if private (often “enterprise/premium edition”) repos are intertwined with the open-source (“community edition”) repos.
The ideal open-source, at least to me, would require a developer, any developer no matter who they are or how long their experience is, whenever they wanted to contribute with their coding skills, to simply do a PR or fork a repo, with no bureaucratic or “selling the soul to the Great Corporate” requirements for doing so.
Developing is already mentally demanding for a developer, and adding licensing shenanigans to the equation only complicates things, because now the developer, who’s used to talk the language of computers, would need to become knowledgeable about ambiguous social cues, corporate legalese and the differences between a “MIT” and a “GPL” (that’s one of the main reasons why I’m quite fond of WTFNMFPL licensing: no legalese).