4 ms·

I think Ladybird will beat Servo at making an usable and good product, Mozilla might have more resources but that's not the only thing that you need if you want

I think Ladybird will beat Servo at making an usable and good product, Mozilla might have more resources but that's not the only thing that you need if you want to build great software.

tracker1 1y ago
Agreed. Servo is emphatically not anything resembling a priority at Mozilla and hasn't been for a long while.
- lawn 1y ago
  Mozilla gave up on it a while ago. It somehow survived after years with little progress and has relatively recently gathered speed again under new stewardship.
- zargon 1y ago
  Servo is not part of Mozilla any more.
echelon 1y ago
Servo's value is that it's written in Rust. Ladybird is C++ and that still has the same issues as every other engine. I suspect Ladybird will/has already leapfrogged Servo in performance and usage due to the Ladybird team and its momentum. Mozilla isn't doing anything with Servo anymore. But I also don't really see a compelling reason for Ladybird's existence - we already have Chromium, Blink, Gecko, etc. It's hard for me to imagine a world where Ladybird is a healthy contender for marketshare. The only real novel thing to do in this space is "rewrite it in Rust".
- nicoburns 1y ago
  > The only real novel thing to do in this space is "rewrite it in Rust". Ironically Chromium is now starting to include quite a bit of Rust. And of course Firefox has for some time.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- mnmalst 1y ago
  They are planning to use swift in the future. Last point: https://ladybird.org/#faq https://ladybird.org/#faq
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    I think that was being blocked by Swift features/libraries not being consistent across platforms, in that Swift for Linux/etc is missing stuff you'd get in macOS. I don't see that changing any time soon. If Apple truly wanted Swift adoption to be cross platform, they have the resources to do it, but they didn't do it.
    - stephen_g 1y ago
      No, pretty sure that's all basically fixed in Swift 6 (Sep 2024), I think it's more just the immaturity of the C++ interop in being able to bridge Swift to complex C++ code. That's a key feature of what Apple want Swift for (to gradually replace their C++ projects with Swift) but it's still pretty new. It'll take a while to mature.
  - echelon 1y ago
    That feels like the wrong language to bet the farm on. Swift is horrible to develop in cross-platform. The language ergonomics are great, but the support just isn't there. Also - swift is great for lots of applications, but a browser? Why use a garbage collected language for something that needs to be smooth? Unpredictable GC pause jitter is not something you want when smooth scrolling and rendering. Granted Javascript already negates that experience a little bit, but why introduce even more unpredictability? I get the feeling the leadership loves Mac/Apple, which makes sense in light of their recent iOS announcement. Maybe they're prioritizing that world.
- oblio 1y ago
  Aren't Chromium and Blink basically the same thing? And Gecko isn't embeddable.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    > And Gecko isn't embeddable. This is "In Review"[1], whatever that means. [1] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-embed-gecko-as-an-alternative-to-chromium-embedding/idi-p/186 https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-embed-gecko-...
    - oblio 1y ago
      Mozilla has been working on embedding Gecko since 2005. In practical terms, it can't be done. I'd be glad to be proven wrong.
      - niutech 1y ago
        There are: GeckoView and Gecko Embedded, so it's doable.
        oblio 1y ago
        Which roughly nobody uses.
        niutech 1y ago
        But it's doable.
  - tristan957 1y ago
    Blink is the backing engine of Chromium.
    - oblio 1y ago
      And therefore Chromium isn't a browser engine and shouldn't be listed there.
- niutech 1y ago
  I've compared Servo with Ladybird and the latter uses 3x more RAM for the same website: https://fosstodon.org/@niutech/114139305720083599 https://fosstodon.org/@niutech/114139305720083599 So Servo is more lightweight than Ladybird.
nicoburns 1y ago
> Mozilla might have more resources but that's not the only thing that you need if you want to build great software. Servo is no longer a Mozilla project, and hasn't been since 2020. It's now developed by Igalia, Huawei, and a collection of volunteers.

I think Ladybird will beat Servo at making an usable and good product, Mozilla might have more resources but that's not the only thing that you need if you want to build great software.

tracker1 1y ago

Agreed. Servo is emphatically not anything resembling a priority at Mozilla and hasn't been for a long while.

lawn 1y ago
Mozilla gave up on it a while ago. It somehow survived after years with little progress and has relatively recently gathered speed again under new stewardship.
zargon 1y ago
Servo is not part of Mozilla any more.

echelon 1y ago

Servo's value is that it's written in Rust. Ladybird is C++ and that still has the same issues as every other engine. I suspect Ladybird will/has already leapfrogged Servo in performance and usage due to the Ladybird team and its momentum. Mozilla isn't doing anything with Servo anymore. But I also don't really see a compelling reason for Ladybird's existence - we already have Chromium, Blink, Gecko, etc. It's hard for me to imagine a world where Ladybird is a healthy contender for marketshare. The only real novel thing to do in this space is "rewrite it in Rust".

nicoburns 1y ago
> The only real novel thing to do in this space is "rewrite it in Rust". Ironically Chromium is now starting to include quite a bit of Rust. And of course Firefox has for some time.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mnmalst 1y ago
They are planning to use swift in the future. Last point: https://ladybird.org/#faq https://ladybird.org/#faq
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  I think that was being blocked by Swift features/libraries not being consistent across platforms, in that Swift for Linux/etc is missing stuff you'd get in macOS. I don't see that changing any time soon. If Apple truly wanted Swift adoption to be cross platform, they have the resources to do it, but they didn't do it.
  - stephen_g 1y ago
    No, pretty sure that's all basically fixed in Swift 6 (Sep 2024), I think it's more just the immaturity of the C++ interop in being able to bridge Swift to complex C++ code. That's a key feature of what Apple want Swift for (to gradually replace their C++ projects with Swift) but it's still pretty new. It'll take a while to mature.
- echelon 1y ago
  That feels like the wrong language to bet the farm on. Swift is horrible to develop in cross-platform. The language ergonomics are great, but the support just isn't there. Also - swift is great for lots of applications, but a browser? Why use a garbage collected language for something that needs to be smooth? Unpredictable GC pause jitter is not something you want when smooth scrolling and rendering. Granted Javascript already negates that experience a little bit, but why introduce even more unpredictability? I get the feeling the leadership loves Mac/Apple, which makes sense in light of their recent iOS announcement. Maybe they're prioritizing that world.
oblio 1y ago
Aren't Chromium and Blink basically the same thing? And Gecko isn't embeddable.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  > And Gecko isn't embeddable. This is "In Review"[1], whatever that means. [1] https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-embed-gecko-as-an-alternative-to-chromium-embedding/idi-p/186 https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/ability-to-embed-gecko-...
  - oblio 1y ago
    Mozilla has been working on embedding Gecko since 2005. In practical terms, it can't be done. I'd be glad to be proven wrong.
    - niutech 1y ago
      There are: GeckoView and Gecko Embedded, so it's doable.
      - oblio 1y ago
        Which roughly nobody uses.
        niutech 1y ago
        But it's doable.
- tristan957 1y ago
  Blink is the backing engine of Chromium.
  - oblio 1y ago
    And therefore Chromium isn't a browser engine and shouldn't be listed there.
niutech 1y ago
I've compared Servo with Ladybird and the latter uses 3x more RAM for the same website: https://fosstodon.org/@niutech/114139305720083599 https://fosstodon.org/@niutech/114139305720083599 So Servo is more lightweight than Ladybird.

nicoburns 1y ago

> Mozilla might have more resources but that's not the only thing that you need if you want to build great software. Servo is no longer a Mozilla project, and hasn't been since 2020. It's now developed by Igalia, Huawei, and a collection of volunteers.