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Firefox Browser Ported to HaikuOS
- return_0e 2y agoI can't change the link now but this should be the correct link to the post: https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/progress-on-porting-firefox/13493/143 https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/progress-on-porting-firefox/1...
- mdp2021 2y agoYou mean https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/progress-on-porting-firefox/13493/143#post_143 https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/progress-on-porting-firefox/1... I.e.: "... /13493/143#post_143"
- rvnx 2y agoBeautiful to see such passion and great execution, especially for 20 years in a row. It's like a piece of art. I suspect the company that created BeOS actually lost the source-code and that's potentially the real reason they don't want to share, because from an economic perspective there does not seem anything of value there.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chucky 2y agoI think it's more likely the original BeOS source code contains proprietary code licensed from third-parties, which means someone would have to spend significant effort on figuring out what can and cannot be released.
- squarefoot 2y agoJust another proof that copyright laws must be heavily reformed asap because they continue to harm development also in cases where any reason of protecting some company's IP is long gone.
- bruce511 2y agoIs it though? I think there's scope to improve the laws around intellectual property, but I feel like it's a stretch to suggest that the lack of BeOS source code "harms development".
- rvense 2y agoAn open source desktop OS that was basically usable for day-to-day stuff and easy to install, released in 2001? I don't think it's hyperbole to say that that would have changed the course of computer history.
- pjmlp 2y agoAs someone that has the CD-ROM they shipped on magazines as advertising, it was mostly usable, for single users. And after they lost to NeXT, regarding being acquired, not much else happened in regards to OS development.
- squarefoot 2y ago"Promising OS dies after assets are acquired and put in a closet" is still one of the best arguments in favor of Open Source.
- klyrs 2y agoWere you there at the time? Because I was a big computer nerd at the time, huffing all the OS/OS fumes I could get my grubby little hands on. Windows 3 had already won the game -- and that was when non-computer-nerds were asking their computer-nerd friends for advice and getting PCs hand-built by the same. When win95 came out, the non-computer-nerds forgot that the command line existed. When win98 came out, even computer-nerds were losing interest in the command line. Win2k was (imho) the best windows operating system ever released. It was extremely stable and usable, supported everything but apple software and a few bits and bobs that nobody but us nerds cared about, and it took serious effort to buy a computer that didn't have it installed by default. So a year after win2k is released, your selling points are "basically usable" ( vs "highly compatible"), "free/[nerd-shibboleth]" (vs "hidden in the cost of a computer"), and "easy to install" (vs "already installed"). I think it's hyperbole to suggest that BeOS being open source would have dramatically changed the course of computer history. If anything, I think it's worth considering what would have happened to the already-paltry Linux Desktop experience if BeOS absorbed developer attention.
- tialaramex 2y agoMuch worse, it's likely the BeOS code includes a bunch of unlicensed stuff. Be had been caught more than once "accidentally" including GPL'd code in their proprietary OS back when they existed. I doubt it's just GPL code that "accidentally" gets copy pasted into a codebase like that. If somebody has the code (e.g. from a previous job) it's getting pasted in "Just temporarily" and never being removed because there are always higher priorities.
- memsom 2y agoThis^^^^ (though to be honest, Android has a lot of BeOS concepts in it because the same engineers ended up working on it too. It has Binder, and Intents are basically BMessages - there are all the Loopers, Handlers and Receivers too...)
- kryptiskt 2y agoPalm bought BeOS back in the day, but they didn't do anything with it. It was spun out with the PalmOS into Palmsource when Palm went to other OSes, so it didn't follow the rest of Palm into HP (and then LG). Palmsource was then swallowed by a Japanese company called Access, which was and apparently still is making a browser for embedded applications called Netfront.
- rbanffy 2y agoEarly Toshiba smart TVs used Access software. Wasn’t pleasant to develop for.
- sillywalk 2y agoPalmsource did open-source Binder, which is still around, and widely used.
- tadfisher 2y agoThanks for that history. I was under the impression it was an Android, Inc. invention, but that it came from BeOS is blowing my mind.
- memsom 2y agoNope. Dianne Hackbourne was a key Be developer. You also have most of the Intent system, the Receivers and Handlers as well as a lot of the general Android API to thank Be Inc for. When you look at the Be API, you can find analogues to most of the Android API, and once you realise that a bunch of the key developers were ex-Be Inc refugees it becomes a lot harder to see what is independent development, what was influenced by and what is a straight up clone of the Be API.
- memsom 2y ago> I suspect the company that created BeOS actually lost the source-code and that's potentially the real reason they don't want to share Nope. The source code exists. You can find rather corrupted chunks of it archived on a very famous archiving site. The other posters are correct - it belongs to someone and they don't want to release it because it contains a lot of proprietary code and cleaning it up to make it releasable would neuter it in a way that makes it pointless. That and the ~24 years where nothing was done to it making is way past useful even to Haiku.
- beretguy 2y ago[flagged]
- csoup2 2y agohttps://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sidebery/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sidebery/
- beretguy 2y agoI don’t need vertical tabs. I need native support for tab groups like Firefox USED TO HAVE. Even safari on iOS has tab groups.
- drooopy 2y agoI miss tab panorama.
- BlackLotus89 2y agoSidebery supports tree style tabs so tabs opened from a specific site are nested below that tab. Is this what you want? Or something like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/onetab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/onetab/ or https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-gr... ? I can't remember firefox ever having something like tab groups. When was this/How was this implemented. Seems like a feature which I would have liked/used Edit: Oh wow it was Tab Panorama and I faintly feel like I used it... Damn https://geekitdown.com/how-to-firefox-panorama-group-tabs/ https://geekitdown.com/how-to-firefox-panorama-group-tabs/
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- beretguy 2y ago> Oh wow it was Tab Panorama and I faintly feel like I used it... Damn That's right! I didn't think people would hate my original comments so much. That's weird... Why so? Do people disagree that tab groups are useful? Maybe if you barely ever use internet that's true. People are weird... Edit: nevermind, that makes sense, my comment is under the wrong posting, this about a port, not FF development, downvoted excepted :) But still, Firefox is pretty much the only relatively mainstream browser that does not have tab groups. That's... ridiculous.
- DaoVeles 2y agoI have said it before, Haiku feels like it is simultaneously 20 years in the future and 20 years in the past. The interface is so incredibly snappy but there is a lot of basics missing such as WiFi support. Seeing a modern browser supported does fill a big gap however. Who knows maybe one day through a series of silly unpredictable events it will be the OS of choice and running Ladybird browser in a similar fashion.
- ksp-atlas 2y agoI ran Haiku on a laptop and the Wi-Fi worked just fine
- popcalc 2y ago>WiFi support Works on my old Thinkpads.
- BlackLotus89 2y agoWiFi support missing? Afaik it uses *BSD network "drivers" and I remember having a wifi dialog/support Edit: https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/workshop-wlan.html https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/workshop-wlan.htm... here wifi seems to be working (which another commenter pointed out as well)
- rcarmo 2y agoIt doesn't support a lot of modern Wi-Fi chipsets. There was an entire wave of Broadcom-powered stuff that they weren't able to develop for.
- katzinsky 2y agoThat sounds more like licensing issues than "being 20 years in the past."
- broodbucket 2y agoThe result is the same for users, regardless of where the blame lies.
- Springtime 2y agoI seem to recall trying Firefox on HaikuOS circa ~2011, though searching around now it seems it was based on an outdated version at the time. Kudos for a modern port project.
- actionfromafar 2y agoFirefox ported to HaikuOS, before it's ported to Windows XP. :-) (If you need a modern browser on XP, in the meantime try the Chrome port: https://win32subsystem.live/supermium/ https://win32subsystem.live/supermium/ )
- desdenova 2y agoFirefox worked on XP when it wasn't dead yet. There's no reason to port newer versions to a system that's no longer maintained.
- aflag 2y agoWhy are you using windows xp?
- mouse_ 2y agoNot him but I list my own personal motivations here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40528117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40528117
- aflag 2y agoWhy not Linux and play diablo 2 with wine? Last time I tried it worked great.
- actionfromafar 2y agoIt amuses me.
- aflag 2y agoNostalgia is a powerful thing :) I have that for Windows 95 and 98. During the XP era I was mostly using Linux, though I did use xp for gaming every now and then.
- tonyhart7 2y ago"before it's ported to Windows XP" what does this even mean???, I remember using firefox on windows xp back then, the reason they stop make a release version for windows xp because its too old and people already move on to newer windows 7 (microsoft already stop supporting it)
- barbs 2y agoAny word on when the next version is coming out? Looks like the latest version (R1/beta4) was released in December 2022.
- coolcoder613 2y agoIn a couple weeks.
- throwme_123 2y agoFunny to see the main question in the forum is "How stable is it?" and does it crash less than other options. Haiku is fantastic and seeing it still developed after 20 years is awesome. But maybe it would benefit from some modern tech. Given the recent discussion on Swift for Ladybird, since huge parts of Haiku are written in C++ it might make sense to gradually introduce Swift to benefit from the language safety features.
- tmikaeld 2y ago"Modern tech" often require significant corporate backing and/or significant amount of funds. I'm amazed that Haiku OS is still going considering it's surviving on donations.
- tialaramex 2y ago> since huge parts of Haiku are written in C++ Sometimes pre-standard C++ and sometimes C++ 98. There's a lot of "C with classes" and stuff that C++ proponents will insist isn't now "really" C++ because that no longer suits their understanding of the language. As is common for that era it has its own custom string type, BString, and so on. So Swift is about 20 years over their horizon, and modern Swift is even further.
- pjmlp 2y agoSome things never change, regardless of the modern C++ discussions. Apple, Google and Microsoft "modern C++" frameworks also use their own types, instead of the standard library. See Android NDK, IO Kit / Driver Kit / Metal bindings, C++/WinRT and WIL.
- KerrAvon 2y agoIOKit dates to circa 1999; it’s not “modern C++” by any reasonable definition.
- pjmlp 2y agoBeyond discussing what Modern C++ actually means, Andrei Alexandrescu book, C++11, C++14, C++17, C++20, C++23, this only goes to show how "modern" is the C++ code from companies that should know better as WG21 members, and C++ compiler vendors. Let alone those that aren't neither WG21 members, nor C++ compiler vendors.
- ofrzeta 2y agowtf? Now I am switching! :-) Oh, I get it "The current status is that no text can be shown due to some rendering issues,so it is not usable at all" (nine days ago). Still, if you got Firefox you are ready for mainstream adoption.
- coolcoder613 2y agoNo, that was nine days ago. If you look at the most recent screenshots you can see that text rendering is working fine.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- haunter 2y agoThat made me think how many non-Unix FOSS operating systems are out there? Haiku, FreeDOS, Genode, ReactOS, Plan9, AROS, and RISC OS comes to my mind quickly.
- desdenova 2y agoKolibri also exists, not sure how alive it is nowadays, though.
- viraptor 2y agoThere's also FreeRTOS if you include microprocessors.
- rbanffy 2y agoI believe Contiki is one. It runs on pretty much anything.
- katzinsky 2y agoMicropython is really neat as an embedded OS. I don't think there's a PC target right now though.
- pjmlp 2y agoArduino (yes I know it isn't really an OS, but still), Zephyr, Oberon, Active Oberon, Inferno, mBed, Android and Chrome OS (Linux kernel isn't really exposed to userspace as in an UNIX system), Azure RTOS.
- Apocryphon 2y agoSkyOS: https://youtu.be/4LOCyT12X0Y https://youtu.be/4LOCyT12X0Y
- chungy 2y agoSkyOS isn't FOSS
- hodapp 2y agoI don't think it is maintained anymore, but add AtheOS/Syllable to the list.
- jcrona28 2y ago[dead]
- smallstepforman 2y agoSome history about Firefox and BeOS. Before Firefox, there was Mozilla, which had a BeOS port (called Bezilla). Bezilla was bloated and slow. So the BeOS community tried to make a stripped version of Mozilla with only the browser (minus all the bloat). This project became an inspiration to do the same for Mozilla, and that product became Firebug (or something similar - edit phoenix, then firebird), which due to trademark conflicts got renamed to Firefox that we all know today. So in a round-a-bout way, we have come full circle after 20 years, Firefox is finally ported to the platform that inspired its creation. Kind of poetic. We should write a 3-5-3 Haiku about this journey.
- cdman 2y agoI guess Firebug was the original "developer tools": https://getfirebug.com/ https://getfirebug.com/
- cmrdporcupine 2y agoIt was an amazing revolution that made complex app development of JS based front ends finally tolerable.
- pjmlp 2y agoIE already had debugging tools, however they had to be installed either via Visual Studio or Office Developer Tools.
- unilynx 2y agoAlso they barely worked for anything non trivial, let alone what we now call SPAs
- titusjohnson 2y agoIt flat-out made training people on CSS tolerable. I could have them install the Bookmarklet (before it became an Extension), show them how to use it, and boom, instant productivity boost. Being able to dig through the DOM and figure out what element was applying excessive margin or padding reduced 80% of my "heeeelp!" requests. Within months I couldn't imagine working without it.
- smallstepforman 2y agoHere is a more recent screenshot. https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/progress-on-porting-firefox/13493/143 https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/progress-on-porting-firefox/1...
- pornel 2y agoThis means Rust has also been ported to HaikuOS. Nice!
- donatj 2y agoThe question of "Is it more stable than other browsers" being "It can't render text" is somewhat hilarious. As of five years ago I still had an open ticket for a bug in BeOS Mozilla in their bug tracker from maybe the year 2000. I tried to search for it more recently and couldn't find it.
- WesSouza 2y agoIncoming MJD and Action Retro videos
- theandrewbailey 2y ago... on a heavily modded BeBox that's cursed.
- jijojohnxx 2y agoGreat read. Thoughts on real-world impact?
- vuna 2y agoThey didn't port it, but the first one (or rather the second one, but it doesn't matter) once we launched some new version via Wayland. So far, everything has not been tested enough and there are no implementations of different platform code, as a result of which it often crashes. This is still a draft port, not suitable for the average user. Someone wrote an article much ahead of time.
- Aleksdev 2y agoOnly took like 20 years!