3 ms·

I don't understand this claim. If Mozilla is so awful at developing Firefox, why isn't anyone forking it? Open source is not an empty slogan

grapeskin 5y ago
Browsers today are massive projects to maintain. They're basically entire OSes and software suites at this point. The days of a browser that can be maintained by 2 guys and updated once every 16 months and still be decent are long gone. That said, I can recognize that developing and maintaining a browser is a massive undertaking while also acknowledging a project taken a turn for the worse. A lot of software these days has weird priorities (most involving cramming more ads in).
lmm 5y ago
Open source is mostly an empty slogan in Firefox's case - it was a code dump from Netscape and it's never really been able to attract outside contributions. If you want a browser that was actually built as open source, Konqueror has been right there for decades, but users don't care about that.
hyperhopper 5y ago
Because nobody forks things that are bad?
cute_boi 5y ago
I have contributed to both Firefox and chrome, and the amount of legacy code in Firefox makes it so arcane & recondite. They haven't even upgraded jsm, xpcom etc.. And if you apply your logic to chromium. It is being forked and there are many browser like Vivaldi, Brave, Edge etc.. Open Source is definitely not an empty slogan. If there is product A and B, people will choose A if A is better, easier to maintain and popular.
moralestapia 5y ago
Why isn't anyone willing to commit a few million dollars per year plus lots of human resources for not much in return forking it? FTFY
Nasreddin_Hodja 5y ago
> If Mozilla is so awful at developing Firefox, why isn't anyone forking it? Actually there are some forks (Waterfox, Librewolf, Torfox, etc.), but they are focused on removing anti-features rather than on developing.

grapeskin 5y ago

Browsers today are massive projects to maintain. They're basically entire OSes and software suites at this point. The days of a browser that can be maintained by 2 guys and updated once every 16 months and still be decent are long gone. That said, I can recognize that developing and maintaining a browser is a massive undertaking while also acknowledging a project taken a turn for the worse. A lot of software these days has weird priorities (most involving cramming more ads in).

lmm 5y ago

Open source is mostly an empty slogan in Firefox's case - it was a code dump from Netscape and it's never really been able to attract outside contributions. If you want a browser that was actually built as open source, Konqueror has been right there for decades, but users don't care about that.

hyperhopper 5y ago

Because nobody forks things that are bad?

cute_boi 5y ago

I have contributed to both Firefox and chrome, and the amount of legacy code in Firefox makes it so arcane & recondite. They haven't even upgraded jsm, xpcom etc.. And if you apply your logic to chromium. It is being forked and there are many browser like Vivaldi, Brave, Edge etc.. Open Source is definitely not an empty slogan. If there is product A and B, people will choose A if A is better, easier to maintain and popular.

moralestapia 5y ago

Why isn't anyone willing to commit a few million dollars per year plus lots of human resources for not much in return forking it? FTFY

Nasreddin_Hodja 5y ago

> If Mozilla is so awful at developing Firefox, why isn't anyone forking it? Actually there are some forks (Waterfox, Librewolf, Torfox, etc.), but they are focused on removing anti-features rather than on developing.