2 ms·

> The community will pick them up and maintain them sensibly because there will be a need. The community can't offer the resources and competence necessary fo

> The community will pick them up and maintain them sensibly because there will be a need. The community can't offer the resources and competence necessary for maintaining a Browser on the same high level as Mozilla is doing now. The community would likely also not be able to influence, or even just follow, the workgroups for web-standards. Ultimately, they would be left out and have to play a game of catch. Of course, how much of that would be necessary is a different question, but long term, in a world without Mozilla, any Firefox-fork would become slowly useless, or even fast if Google decides to abandon the free web and go down a different route. If you want to see how useful this will end, look at all the other browser out there which are not Blink-based, a Firefox-fork or Safari. They do exist, and they all are pretty awful for general usage.

drpossum 2y ago
Ladybird is on the trajectory to do this. I agree it's an enormous project and different from a lot of other open-source offerings, but I think there very well could be even corporate offerings support. They'd support it the same way Linux and other big projects (like what Red Hat and Apache do) because there's business needs for browsers that aren't Chrome or Safari. It's not all, but it doesn't take much imagining some industries want a stable open source browser with, say, security features they can toggle in to their standards. I hear people here all the time who say they would pay for a good browser but won't because Mozilla doesn't spend it on the browser. I can see a productive marriage.
- slightwinder 2y ago
  Ladybird has the advantage that they can start with a new architecture, and they seem willing to sacrifice features. But I doubt we will see them become a real competitor for Chrome and Firefox. And we will have to see whether they will at least support DRM-services like Netflix, YouTube, etc. making them a viable alternative for the casual users, giving some foundation for gaining traction in mainstream.

drpossum 2y ago

Ladybird is on the trajectory to do this. I agree it's an enormous project and different from a lot of other open-source offerings, but I think there very well could be even corporate offerings support. They'd support it the same way Linux and other big projects (like what Red Hat and Apache do) because there's business needs for browsers that aren't Chrome or Safari. It's not all, but it doesn't take much imagining some industries want a stable open source browser with, say, security features they can toggle in to their standards. I hear people here all the time who say they would pay for a good browser but won't because Mozilla doesn't spend it on the browser. I can see a productive marriage.

slightwinder 2y ago
Ladybird has the advantage that they can start with a new architecture, and they seem willing to sacrifice features. But I doubt we will see them become a real competitor for Chrome and Firefox. And we will have to see whether they will at least support DRM-services like Netflix, YouTube, etc. making them a viable alternative for the casual users, giving some foundation for gaining traction in mainstream.