14 ms·

I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser

541 points by samwillis 3y ago

xvilka 3y ago
Congratulations! I wish someone would sponsor completing Servo as fast as possible, or completing rewriting of Firefox in Rust.
- cyberpunk 3y ago
  If only there was some kind of foundation which could choose where to spend the many millions of funding it receives each year...
  - grey_earthling 3y ago
    Of course the wisest thing to spend it on would be integrating a proprietary competitor to Wallabag. That's exactly what the open web needs most.
  - intelVISA 3y ago
    Then who is going to fund market disruptors such as Pocket?
- samwillis 3y ago
  Servo was moved to the Linux Foundation in 2019, and earlier this year Igalia (an open source consulting company) contributed funds and developer time to advance the project. I believe they have a small team full time on it. You can read more here: https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34400214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34400214 So, your "wish someone would sponsor completing Servo as fast as possible", is looking like it's coming true. Note though that Servo and Ladybird have vary different motivations and objectives.
  - intelVISA 3y ago
    > an open source consulting company Not sure how to feel about this combination, are they any good?
    - MatthiasPortzel 3y ago
      Igalia is responsible for a lot of open source contributions to web browsers. Here’s an article about them. => https://thenewstack.io/igalia-the-open-source-powerhouse-youve-never-heard-of/ https://thenewstack.io/igalia-the-open-source-powerhouse-you...
- est31 3y ago
  FTR, Servo has received funding by Mozilla by having their engineers work on it that amounts to way way more than 100k USD.
- jedisct1 3y ago
  Have you actually looked at it/tried to contribute to it? Servo was a promising experiment, but it eventually became a massive, complicated, unmaintainable mess.
ducktective 3y ago
The more browser engines, the better. It doesn't use neither Chromium nor Gecko.
- silisili 3y ago
  Small nit: this reads in English as a double negative. It's easier to picture if you think of neither as 'not either.' Perhaps 'it uses neither' or 'doesn't use either.'
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - stjohnswarts 3y ago
    You don't need either or neither to get the same point across. "It doesn't use Chrome or Gecko" works just fine :)
PCP7 3y ago
Really nice to hear and here's hoping that he uses it well, we need more than 2 web engines.
thih9 3y ago
More information about the Ladybird browser: https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/ https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform... Github repo: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Ladybird https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Ladybird
awesomekling 3y ago
Hello friends! I am very excited about this indeed :) If you’d like to know more about Ladybird, I did a presentation about it at the Web Engines Hackfest in Spain just two weeks ago: https://youtu.be/De8N1zrQwRs https://youtu.be/De8N1zrQwRs
- samwillis 3y ago
  Congrats Andreas. What you are building is incredible, both from a technological point of view but also for education and inspiration. That influence you can spread for me is the thing that is most exciting about the project!
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  Whenever I see your stuff it is always so cool. Im also glad to see everyone still going at it years down the line. Now that there is decent money to back it up it so much better! Party on!
- prox 3y ago
  Akling, I hope you keep doing inspiring work! Thank you for your contributions!
- deoxxa 3y ago
  I just want a browser that tastes like a real browser!
- lemper 3y ago
  Andreas my guy! congrats! and I'm sure many people have asked this request: please integrate adblocking to Ladybird.
  - DexesTTP 3y ago
    Well, good news about that, a simplified version of adblocking through content filtering[0] is already part of Ladybird (and has been part of Browser[1], the version of Ladybird integrated in Serenity, for a while). There is even a video[2] where Andreas implemented it! [0] https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Ladybird/WebContent/main.cpp#L106 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Ladybird/... [1] https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Userland/Applications/Browser/main.cpp#L49 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Userland/... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc22wPqpaBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc22wPqpaBQ
bruce511 3y ago
For more context see [1]. At first glance I felt that 100k wasn't really going to move the needle in creating a new browser engine but in fact (after reading the link below) it's not insignificant. There are a lot of contributers to this project, and funding the project lead is a big step in the right direction. Realistically another browser engine really isn't needed. 2 is enough. Given the scale of the work involved it'll take a lot more than money to make this mainstream. Bur that doesn't mean it's not important. These sorts of projects have value beyond main-stream use cases. While those uses are small, they can end up being significant. [1] https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/ https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform...
- mcherm 3y ago
  > another browser engine really isn't needed. 2 is enough. I profoundly disagree with this statement. 2 is too few.
- not_your_vase 3y ago
  > Realistically another browser engine really isn't needed. 2 is enough. Currently the internet is what Chrome is - if Google decides that they don't like something on the internet, they can just wipe it. Firefox is dying. (And Safari is... well... it does things). The internet has been rotting away for good part of the last decade. We definitely don't have enough browser engines, we are in dire need of more.
  - Raz2 3y ago
    > Firefox is dying Then I don’t understand how this new thing will not be stillborn. It is years before becoming usable and even then it will be worse than Firefox.
    - not_your_vase 3y ago
      Google definitely did everything they could to marginalize Firefox, but Firefox's position isn't entirely the making of Google. Mozilla was also busy messing things up, and alienate not only their adhoc users, but many of their diehard fanatics also. Firefox isn't dying because it's a bad browser or because it has no place on the market. It is dying because of mismanagement, mostly for not knowing what their users really want and need. They have no idea why their current users are using their browser, instead of Chrome. They just go with the stream, and seemingly are content that Google is keeping them on life support. But it doesn't mean that new browsers will make the same mistakes, or that there is no need for new ones at all. With that said, I would be lying if I would say that you are completely wrong. I just don't want you to be right, regardless how slim of a chance it is, because the state of internet is not getting any better that way.
hosteur 3y ago
This is great news. Congratulations Andreas. I am very impressed by your work. Can you shed some light on who’s sponsoring? Any strings attached?
- akling 3y ago
  Thank you! The sponsor has asked to remain anonymous for now. There are no strings attached, although we do stay in touch. :)
  - Sakos 3y ago
    What are the chances it's Google or Apple?
    - Sakos 3y ago
      Scratch that. My current guess is Valve.
    - badocr 3y ago
      Maybe it's Notch. It'd make sense to me.
  - ellis0n 3y ago
    Have a project. Tweeted to you
vimsee 3y ago
That is so cool. Been watching some of the youtube videos where Andreas is working on the browser and it is a joy to watch. Congrats to you Andreas!
hfo 3y ago
It worked, I checked out what that browser is.
tannhaeuser 3y ago
Congrats! Considering HTML but mostly CSS complexity is expanding all the time as we speak (discussed on the HN front page right now [1]), are there points to be addressed at the likes of W3C, Inc and github.com/whatwg to make your work easier or even possible? Such as versioned CSS specs/CSS profiles (subsets), test suites aligned with CSS or HTML versions, test suites usable without JS (eg web-platform-test for CSS requires in-browser scripting last I checked), formal specifications/better algorithmical layout descriptions, etc? Are you targetting specific HTML versions such as WHATWG's preview drafts/snapshots? Good luck with your project! Maybe naming your sponsors can help to get even more contributions and contributors? I can offer some help/advice with HTML parsing, but I guess you have figured that one out and are following the procedural parsing description, whereas my expertise would be the SGMLisms on which it is based (and its minute re-construction from the HTML5 spec). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36375582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36375582
- userbinator 3y ago
  but mostly CSS complexity is expanding all the time as we speak That's the biggest problem facing new browser implementations, and IMHO it's deliberate. Probably 99% of sites out there do not need any of the new crap that gets constantly added to the "standard", but continued propaganda by those constantly in power will practically guarantee that they will, under some guise of "progress" or "modernity". WHATWG is basically controlled by Big Tech (and was created because they didn't like the W3C's approach to stability) and popularised the idiotic oxymoron "living standard". Constant churn is how they're trying to maintain their monopoly, because they have the sheer manpower to outrun competitors.
  - tannhaeuser 3y ago
    I agree in principle; a reasonable spec that doesn't change all the time is what's needed for supporting next-gen browser development (as in inspire a new generation). But that's not what's happening at all; collaborators of github.com/whatwg even welcomed the rejection of HTML profiles/subsets and target device classes when the idea was brought up by MS (to save IE, but still ;) But the ones responsible for the piece of shit that is CSS are actually W3C, Inc. Not that the bad looks of Google having them by the balls is better than your scenario eg the impression W3C on its last legs receiving money to keep the illusion of a multi-party effort of web standards.
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
An actual new browser engine that is not based on Chrome. Wow. And now with money. That's something I really didn't expect to see anymore.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
hahhahanananana 3y ago
I'm curious about how the funds can be used. Is it treated like a personal donation to the developers?
jraph 3y ago
Ladybird looks amazing. Just as I was losing faith that building a browser from scratch today was an almost impossible task that only a big company could pull off, they proved otherwise. I compiled it and added packages to install on openSUSE for this in the readme... which was easy because you don't need much to build this browser! And it builds in a few minutes. I wish Discord was not mandatory to interact with the community (because I strongly believe in [1]). I will not use Discord so interacting with the community might be complicated if I ever want to work on it. Anyway, may Ladybird thrive. [1] https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infrastructure.html https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infras...
- tester756 3y ago
  >Just as I lost faith that building a browser from scratch today was an almost impossible task that only a big company could pull off, they proved otherwise. I feel like just intersection of people who know how web / webbrowser works and know how to write compilers is relatively low like both of those independently are rare
- userbinator 3y ago
  I compiled it and added packages to install on openSUSE for this in the readme... which was easy because you don't need much to build this browser! And it builds in a few minutes. Did you also make this post from it? I wish Discord was not mandatory to interact with the community Agreed. My preference is IRC or even mailing lists.
  - jraph 3y ago
    > Did you also make this post from it? Nope! Apparently it does not like the textarea used to reply to a comment on HN.
- troad 3y ago
  Very strong agree re Discord. Quite apart from Drew's ideological reasons to oppose Discord, with which I quite agree, I also tend to find that (a) busy group chats are not a great way to coordinate software development, and (b) the kinds of communities Discord is structurally designed to foster really don't tend to be communities I wish to be part of. I am a big fan of kling and his work on Ladybird though, and I wish the project the absolute best.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
Fantastic! Well deserved! It's the exactly right type of project. High profile and high impact. The status quo of the software industry needs to be shaken up, and this has the potential to be exact right sort of rude awakening. The fact that solo devs or small teams on a shoestring budget are time and time again shown to be surprisingly competitive with billion dollar companies retaining supposedly the best and brightest in the world is undeniably egg on their face. It raises concerning questions about the entire industry, how we do things when we build software, where money is flowing.
- badpun 3y ago
  Ladybird is currently far from competetive. Andreas himself told that his loose goal for Ladybird is to be able to render YouTube page correctly and play video with sound - 5 years from now.
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    I'm looking mostly at what it could be. Ladybird has every potential of becoming the Linux of web browsers. And it took Linux what, over a decade to mostly displace the competition in the server space. These types of projects are long term, but public perception matters. Making waves matters. The audacious possibility that it might just succeed matters.
    - badpun 3y ago
      Linux is Linux thanks to large involvement of big tech. It remains to be seen if any Big Tech companies would be interested in seriously supporting development of an open source browser.
      - samwillis 3y ago
        > It remains to be seen if any Big Tech companies would be interested in seriously supporting development of an open source browser. You're missing a "new" or "another" in that sentence.
FpUser 3y ago
Congrats for such a nice acknowledgement of your work. While looking at their other project I am curious that the author has decided to invent their own memory safe language currently implemented as transpiler to C++ written in Rust. Why not to just use Rust as their system language. I can imagine potential nightmares when debugging such concoction.
- timschumi 3y ago
  > While looking at their other project I am curious that the author has decided to invent their own memory safe language currently implemented as transpiler to C++ written in Rust. [...] I can imagine potential nightmares when debugging such concoction. Compatibility with C++ is required at this point in time to interface with the thousands of lines of C++ code that have already been written. Assuming that everything will be written in Jakt at some point, then one could look into making more grave changes without having to care about compatibility (including maybe skipping the C++ part alltogether). > Why not to just use Rust as their system language. Rust has been evaluated, but discarded (mainly, iirc) due to it's approach (or lack thereof) for OOP. Also, the whole "we want to make things ourselves" thing.
- npn 3y ago
  > written in Rust What? From my knowledge Jakt is written in C++ and Jakt itself, not Rust. Sure the first implementation was written in Rust but it was quickly replaced when Adreas took over the project.
  - FpUser 3y ago
    How do they debug Jakt code? I mean other than dumping things to screen which is not very pleasant experience.
    - npn 3y ago
      It is transpiled to C++.
- diath 3y ago
evnix 3y ago
Please go through his YouTube videos, he records a good portion of his work. I personally learnt a lot more from his videos than from any book.
quew 3y ago
Why don't people fork Chromium instead? License issues? Why reinvent?
- Sakos 3y ago
  Because Google retains tight control over Chromium and outsiders generally have no say in important decisions/changes. If Google kills support for one image format in favor of their own, that basically means every Chromium fork doesn't support that format. That said, most modern browsers already are forks of Chromium. It'd be nice to have a third option that isn't just Google or Google-funded.
  - bunga-bunga 3y ago
    “Chromium browsers” are not actual forks, they’re still the same Chrome. What they could do, as GP suggested, is actually fork an existing engine and start with a working foundation that’s already compatible with the existing web. Note: Google did it, they forked WebKit and now nobody calls Edge a “WebKit browser” Today people complain that Safari and Firefox are “the new IE” because they don’t keep up with the slew of updates Chrome pushes out. Nobody wants to support a third, brand-new super-buggy-forever engine. It’s an interesting bet, but incredibly high-risk or relegate to obscurity.
    - Sakos 3y ago
      Oh, right. Didn't see it from that angle, my bad. All the current "forks" of Chromium basically rely on continued development by Google, saving them from having to invest in all the engineers necessary to work on, maintain and develop a proper fork. So they can limit the size of their engineering teams to what's necessary for developing surface-level features like vertical tabs (Edge) or built-in adblocking and ... uh ... crypto (Brave). I'd say Microsoft throwing in the towel and building a flavour of Chromium instead shows that there's no corporation out there that's going to be willing to make a real fork. The only reason why Ladybird exists at all is because it's a part of SerenityOS, which was started because the founder wanted to make his own OS for daily use. Like, of course the guy's gonna write his own browser instead of just forking Chromium.
losvedir 3y ago
Wow, congrats! Does this change anything about the feel of working on it, I wonder? Until now, it has been a real passion project. I wonder if this will make working on it more of a chore, or if it will affect the "roadmap". I hope someone donates $100k to the programming language project of theirs next. And lastly, the most important thing is for him to stay sober. My understanding of the whole "serenity" project was as an alternative to drinking that was fun and fulfilling. I hope the money doesn't cause stress, or otherwise change what the project is or how it works, such that it no longer works for its original and primary function.
jdthedisciple 3y ago
Great to see this! However, I see Windows is supported only via WSL. If this is to be adopted by the mainstream then perhaps native Windows support becomes paramount at some point.
- diath 3y ago
  This is mostly because Ladybird is just a way to test LibWeb and other components outside of SerenityOS, it also purposefully doesn't have a lot of usability features and instead is packed with debug features. I assume that in the future somebody will build a proper browser UI with native support for Windows.
  - rhdunn 3y ago
    The various components need porting to Windows. Several attempts have been made, but thus far none have done al that is needed to make it work.
darthrupert 3y ago
Why twitter?
dizhn 3y ago
There's an opensuse package (unofficial) if anybody is interested in checking it out today. https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:xpufx/ladybird https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:xpufx/ladybird
- dizhn 3y ago
  Also a Fedora one.
blinkingled 3y ago
I have been following Andreas' YT channel for ~8 months now and it's been fun - miss the Car talk ones lately but the live bug fixing, the updates and how he has pulled himself out of some dark times - it's all very inspiring. IOW 2x100k would not possibly have gone to a better guy! He does this all for fun and even if Ladybird doesn't become the #1 browser the learnings in developing a x-platform browser in themselves would make this all worthwhile!
NayamAmarshe 3y ago
Awesome! Congratulations, Andreas!

541 points by samwillis 3y ago

Congratulations! I wish someone would sponsor completing Servo as fast as possible, or completing rewriting of Firefox in Rust.

cyberpunk 3y ago
If only there was some kind of foundation which could choose where to spend the many millions of funding it receives each year...
- grey_earthling 3y ago
  Of course the wisest thing to spend it on would be integrating a proprietary competitor to Wallabag. That's exactly what the open web needs most.
- intelVISA 3y ago
  Then who is going to fund market disruptors such as Pocket?
samwillis 3y ago
Servo was moved to the Linux Foundation in 2019, and earlier this year Igalia (an open source consulting company) contributed funds and developer time to advance the project. I believe they have a small team full time on it. You can read more here: https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ https://servo.org/blog/2023/01/16/servo-2023/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://people.igalia.com/mrego/servo/igalia-servo-tsc-2022/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34400214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34400214 So, your "wish someone would sponsor completing Servo as fast as possible", is looking like it's coming true. Note though that Servo and Ladybird have vary different motivations and objectives.
- intelVISA 3y ago
  > an open source consulting company Not sure how to feel about this combination, are they any good?
  - MatthiasPortzel 3y ago
    Igalia is responsible for a lot of open source contributions to web browsers. Here’s an article about them. => https://thenewstack.io/igalia-the-open-source-powerhouse-youve-never-heard-of/ https://thenewstack.io/igalia-the-open-source-powerhouse-you...
est31 3y ago
FTR, Servo has received funding by Mozilla by having their engineers work on it that amounts to way way more than 100k USD.
jedisct1 3y ago
Have you actually looked at it/tried to contribute to it? Servo was a promising experiment, but it eventually became a massive, complicated, unmaintainable mess.

ducktective 3y ago

The more browser engines, the better. It doesn't use neither Chromium nor Gecko.

silisili 3y ago
Small nit: this reads in English as a double negative. It's easier to picture if you think of neither as 'not either.' Perhaps 'it uses neither' or 'doesn't use either.'
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- stjohnswarts 3y ago
  You don't need either or neither to get the same point across. "It doesn't use Chrome or Gecko" works just fine :)

PCP7 3y ago

Really nice to hear and here's hoping that he uses it well, we need more than 2 web engines.

thih9 3y ago

More information about the Ladybird browser: https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/ https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform... Github repo: https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Ladybird https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Ladybird

awesomekling 3y ago

Hello friends! I am very excited about this indeed :) If you’d like to know more about Ladybird, I did a presentation about it at the Web Engines Hackfest in Spain just two weeks ago: https://youtu.be/De8N1zrQwRs https://youtu.be/De8N1zrQwRs

samwillis 3y ago
Congrats Andreas. What you are building is incredible, both from a technological point of view but also for education and inspiration. That influence you can spread for me is the thing that is most exciting about the project!
NovaDudely 3y ago
Whenever I see your stuff it is always so cool. Im also glad to see everyone still going at it years down the line. Now that there is decent money to back it up it so much better! Party on!
prox 3y ago
Akling, I hope you keep doing inspiring work! Thank you for your contributions!
deoxxa 3y ago
I just want a browser that tastes like a real browser!
lemper 3y ago
Andreas my guy! congrats! and I'm sure many people have asked this request: please integrate adblocking to Ladybird.
- DexesTTP 3y ago
  Well, good news about that, a simplified version of adblocking through content filtering[0] is already part of Ladybird (and has been part of Browser[1], the version of Ladybird integrated in Serenity, for a while). There is even a video[2] where Andreas implemented it! [0] https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Ladybird/WebContent/main.cpp#L106 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Ladybird/... [1] https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Userland/Applications/Browser/main.cpp#L49 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Userland/... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc22wPqpaBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc22wPqpaBQ

bruce511 3y ago

For more context see [1]. At first glance I felt that 100k wasn't really going to move the needle in creating a new browser engine but in fact (after reading the link below) it's not insignificant. There are a lot of contributers to this project, and funding the project lead is a big step in the right direction. Realistically another browser engine really isn't needed. 2 is enough. Given the scale of the work involved it'll take a lot more than money to make this mainstream. Bur that doesn't mean it's not important. These sorts of projects have value beyond main-stream use cases. While those uses are small, they can end up being significant. [1] https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform-browser-project/ https://awesomekling.github.io/Ladybird-a-new-cross-platform...

mcherm 3y ago
> another browser engine really isn't needed. 2 is enough. I profoundly disagree with this statement. 2 is too few.
not_your_vase 3y ago
> Realistically another browser engine really isn't needed. 2 is enough. Currently the internet is what Chrome is - if Google decides that they don't like something on the internet, they can just wipe it. Firefox is dying. (And Safari is... well... it does things). The internet has been rotting away for good part of the last decade. We definitely don't have enough browser engines, we are in dire need of more.
- Raz2 3y ago
  > Firefox is dying Then I don’t understand how this new thing will not be stillborn. It is years before becoming usable and even then it will be worse than Firefox.
  - not_your_vase 3y ago
    Google definitely did everything they could to marginalize Firefox, but Firefox's position isn't entirely the making of Google. Mozilla was also busy messing things up, and alienate not only their adhoc users, but many of their diehard fanatics also. Firefox isn't dying because it's a bad browser or because it has no place on the market. It is dying because of mismanagement, mostly for not knowing what their users really want and need. They have no idea why their current users are using their browser, instead of Chrome. They just go with the stream, and seemingly are content that Google is keeping them on life support. But it doesn't mean that new browsers will make the same mistakes, or that there is no need for new ones at all. With that said, I would be lying if I would say that you are completely wrong. I just don't want you to be right, regardless how slim of a chance it is, because the state of internet is not getting any better that way.

hosteur 3y ago

This is great news. Congratulations Andreas. I am very impressed by your work. Can you shed some light on who’s sponsoring? Any strings attached?

akling 3y ago
Thank you! The sponsor has asked to remain anonymous for now. There are no strings attached, although we do stay in touch. :)
- Sakos 3y ago
  What are the chances it's Google or Apple?
  - Sakos 3y ago
    Scratch that. My current guess is Valve.
  - badocr 3y ago
    Maybe it's Notch. It'd make sense to me.
- ellis0n 3y ago
  Have a project. Tweeted to you

vimsee 3y ago

That is so cool. Been watching some of the youtube videos where Andreas is working on the browser and it is a joy to watch. Congrats to you Andreas!

hfo 3y ago

It worked, I checked out what that browser is.

tannhaeuser 3y ago

Congrats! Considering HTML but mostly CSS complexity is expanding all the time as we speak (discussed on the HN front page right now [1]), are there points to be addressed at the likes of W3C, Inc and github.com/whatwg to make your work easier or even possible? Such as versioned CSS specs/CSS profiles (subsets), test suites aligned with CSS or HTML versions, test suites usable without JS (eg web-platform-test for CSS requires in-browser scripting last I checked), formal specifications/better algorithmical layout descriptions, etc? Are you targetting specific HTML versions such as WHATWG's preview drafts/snapshots? Good luck with your project! Maybe naming your sponsors can help to get even more contributions and contributors? I can offer some help/advice with HTML parsing, but I guess you have figured that one out and are following the procedural parsing description, whereas my expertise would be the SGMLisms on which it is based (and its minute re-construction from the HTML5 spec). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36375582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36375582

userbinator 3y ago
but mostly CSS complexity is expanding all the time as we speak That's the biggest problem facing new browser implementations, and IMHO it's deliberate. Probably 99% of sites out there do not need any of the new crap that gets constantly added to the "standard", but continued propaganda by those constantly in power will practically guarantee that they will, under some guise of "progress" or "modernity". WHATWG is basically controlled by Big Tech (and was created because they didn't like the W3C's approach to stability) and popularised the idiotic oxymoron "living standard". Constant churn is how they're trying to maintain their monopoly, because they have the sheer manpower to outrun competitors.
- tannhaeuser 3y ago
  I agree in principle; a reasonable spec that doesn't change all the time is what's needed for supporting next-gen browser development (as in inspire a new generation). But that's not what's happening at all; collaborators of github.com/whatwg even welcomed the rejection of HTML profiles/subsets and target device classes when the idea was brought up by MS (to save IE, but still ;) But the ones responsible for the piece of shit that is CSS are actually W3C, Inc. Not that the bad looks of Google having them by the balls is better than your scenario eg the impression W3C on its last legs receiving money to keep the illusion of a multi-party effort of web standards.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

An actual new browser engine that is not based on Chrome. Wow. And now with money. That's something I really didn't expect to see anymore.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

hahhahanananana 3y ago

I'm curious about how the funds can be used. Is it treated like a personal donation to the developers?

jraph 3y ago

Ladybird looks amazing. Just as I was losing faith that building a browser from scratch today was an almost impossible task that only a big company could pull off, they proved otherwise. I compiled it and added packages to install on openSUSE for this in the readme... which was easy because you don't need much to build this browser! And it builds in a few minutes. I wish Discord was not mandatory to interact with the community (because I strongly believe in [1]). I will not use Discord so interacting with the community might be complicated if I ever want to work on it. Anyway, may Ladybird thrive. [1] https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infrastructure.html https://drewdevault.com/2022/03/29/free-software-free-infras...

tester756 3y ago
>Just as I lost faith that building a browser from scratch today was an almost impossible task that only a big company could pull off, they proved otherwise. I feel like just intersection of people who know how web / webbrowser works and know how to write compilers is relatively low like both of those independently are rare
userbinator 3y ago
I compiled it and added packages to install on openSUSE for this in the readme... which was easy because you don't need much to build this browser! And it builds in a few minutes. Did you also make this post from it? I wish Discord was not mandatory to interact with the community Agreed. My preference is IRC or even mailing lists.
- jraph 3y ago
  > Did you also make this post from it? Nope! Apparently it does not like the textarea used to reply to a comment on HN.
troad 3y ago
Very strong agree re Discord. Quite apart from Drew's ideological reasons to oppose Discord, with which I quite agree, I also tend to find that (a) busy group chats are not a great way to coordinate software development, and (b) the kinds of communities Discord is structurally designed to foster really don't tend to be communities I wish to be part of. I am a big fan of kling and his work on Ladybird though, and I wish the project the absolute best.

marginalia_nu 3y ago

Fantastic! Well deserved! It's the exactly right type of project. High profile and high impact. The status quo of the software industry needs to be shaken up, and this has the potential to be exact right sort of rude awakening. The fact that solo devs or small teams on a shoestring budget are time and time again shown to be surprisingly competitive with billion dollar companies retaining supposedly the best and brightest in the world is undeniably egg on their face. It raises concerning questions about the entire industry, how we do things when we build software, where money is flowing.

badpun 3y ago
Ladybird is currently far from competetive. Andreas himself told that his loose goal for Ladybird is to be able to render YouTube page correctly and play video with sound - 5 years from now.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  I'm looking mostly at what it could be. Ladybird has every potential of becoming the Linux of web browsers. And it took Linux what, over a decade to mostly displace the competition in the server space. These types of projects are long term, but public perception matters. Making waves matters. The audacious possibility that it might just succeed matters.
  - badpun 3y ago
    Linux is Linux thanks to large involvement of big tech. It remains to be seen if any Big Tech companies would be interested in seriously supporting development of an open source browser.
    - samwillis 3y ago
      > It remains to be seen if any Big Tech companies would be interested in seriously supporting development of an open source browser. You're missing a "new" or "another" in that sentence.

FpUser 3y ago

Congrats for such a nice acknowledgement of your work. While looking at their other project I am curious that the author has decided to invent their own memory safe language currently implemented as transpiler to C++ written in Rust. Why not to just use Rust as their system language. I can imagine potential nightmares when debugging such concoction.

timschumi 3y ago
> While looking at their other project I am curious that the author has decided to invent their own memory safe language currently implemented as transpiler to C++ written in Rust. [...] I can imagine potential nightmares when debugging such concoction. Compatibility with C++ is required at this point in time to interface with the thousands of lines of C++ code that have already been written. Assuming that everything will be written in Jakt at some point, then one could look into making more grave changes without having to care about compatibility (including maybe skipping the C++ part alltogether). > Why not to just use Rust as their system language. Rust has been evaluated, but discarded (mainly, iirc) due to it's approach (or lack thereof) for OOP. Also, the whole "we want to make things ourselves" thing.
npn 3y ago
> written in Rust What? From my knowledge Jakt is written in C++ and Jakt itself, not Rust. Sure the first implementation was written in Rust but it was quickly replaced when Adreas took over the project.
- FpUser 3y ago
  How do they debug Jakt code? I mean other than dumping things to screen which is not very pleasant experience.
  - npn 3y ago
    It is transpiled to C++.
diath 3y ago

evnix 3y ago

Please go through his YouTube videos, he records a good portion of his work. I personally learnt a lot more from his videos than from any book.

quew 3y ago

Why don't people fork Chromium instead? License issues? Why reinvent?

Sakos 3y ago
Because Google retains tight control over Chromium and outsiders generally have no say in important decisions/changes. If Google kills support for one image format in favor of their own, that basically means every Chromium fork doesn't support that format. That said, most modern browsers already are forks of Chromium. It'd be nice to have a third option that isn't just Google or Google-funded.
- bunga-bunga 3y ago
  “Chromium browsers” are not actual forks, they’re still the same Chrome. What they could do, as GP suggested, is actually fork an existing engine and start with a working foundation that’s already compatible with the existing web. Note: Google did it, they forked WebKit and now nobody calls Edge a “WebKit browser” Today people complain that Safari and Firefox are “the new IE” because they don’t keep up with the slew of updates Chrome pushes out. Nobody wants to support a third, brand-new super-buggy-forever engine. It’s an interesting bet, but incredibly high-risk or relegate to obscurity.
  - Sakos 3y ago
    Oh, right. Didn't see it from that angle, my bad. All the current "forks" of Chromium basically rely on continued development by Google, saving them from having to invest in all the engineers necessary to work on, maintain and develop a proper fork. So they can limit the size of their engineering teams to what's necessary for developing surface-level features like vertical tabs (Edge) or built-in adblocking and ... uh ... crypto (Brave). I'd say Microsoft throwing in the towel and building a flavour of Chromium instead shows that there's no corporation out there that's going to be willing to make a real fork. The only reason why Ladybird exists at all is because it's a part of SerenityOS, which was started because the founder wanted to make his own OS for daily use. Like, of course the guy's gonna write his own browser instead of just forking Chromium.

losvedir 3y ago

Wow, congrats! Does this change anything about the feel of working on it, I wonder? Until now, it has been a real passion project. I wonder if this will make working on it more of a chore, or if it will affect the "roadmap". I hope someone donates $100k to the programming language project of theirs next. And lastly, the most important thing is for him to stay sober. My understanding of the whole "serenity" project was as an alternative to drinking that was fun and fulfilling. I hope the money doesn't cause stress, or otherwise change what the project is or how it works, such that it no longer works for its original and primary function.

jdthedisciple 3y ago

Great to see this! However, I see Windows is supported only via WSL. If this is to be adopted by the mainstream then perhaps native Windows support becomes paramount at some point.

diath 3y ago
This is mostly because Ladybird is just a way to test LibWeb and other components outside of SerenityOS, it also purposefully doesn't have a lot of usability features and instead is packed with debug features. I assume that in the future somebody will build a proper browser UI with native support for Windows.
- rhdunn 3y ago
  The various components need porting to Windows. Several attempts have been made, but thus far none have done al that is needed to make it work.

darthrupert 3y ago

Why twitter?

dizhn 3y ago

There's an opensuse package (unofficial) if anybody is interested in checking it out today. https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:xpufx/ladybird https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:xpufx/ladybird

dizhn 3y ago
Also a Fedora one.

blinkingled 3y ago

I have been following Andreas' YT channel for ~8 months now and it's been fun - miss the Car talk ones lately but the live bug fixing, the updates and how he has pulled himself out of some dark times - it's all very inspiring. IOW 2x100k would not possibly have gone to a better guy! He does this all for fun and even if Ladybird doesn't become the #1 browser the learnings in developing a x-platform browser in themselves would make this all worthwhile!

NayamAmarshe 3y ago

Awesome! Congratulations, Andreas!