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I hope people remember this when advocating for chromium. Just because it is open source doesn't mean they don't control it. We need to start the long process o
by godelski 8d ago
I hope people remember this when advocating for chromium. Just because it is open source doesn't mean they don't control it. We need to start the long process of hard forking now or turn to alternatives like Firefox as a new foundation.
> Google simply regrets android being open source.
Android wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't open source. With all the work from outside Google. The same is true chrome.
But they won't learn that on their own. They are breaking the deals. So we move. We force their hand
- suprjami 7d ago> or turn to alternatives like Firefox Implying I ever left Firefox in the first place.
- simondotau 7d agoI’m a web developer and I have never dailied Chrome or a Chromium descendant. Firefox for daily, Safari for the occasional cross-check.
- nomel 8d ago> So we move. We force their hand What do you have in mind?
- PaulCarrack 8d ago> We need to start the long process of hard forking now or turn to alternatives like Firefox as a new foundation.
- sieabahlpark 8d ago[dead]
- luqtas 8d agooh yes sure. just like we can shift the population into installing Debian into their machines so we also deter M$ and Apple abuse /s
- Rohansi 8d agoIt's so much easier to switch browsers than platform/OS. Unless you have an iPhone or iPad.
- olyjohn 8d agoWe did it before. Thanks to Firefox we broke the IE6 monopoly even on Windows.
- mitxela 8d agoHow did that happen, anyway? Tabs? What's the next killer feature after tabs? Maybe sync?
- NOTanAlagent 8d ago[dead]
- grahamburger 8d agoHaven't all the major browsers had sync for ages? I've been using Firefox's built-in sync for so long I don't even remember what it was like without it.
- epihelix 7d agoAdblock, I would have thought. And Google can't compete in this space, by their very nature. This is the message that Firefox needs to push: Hate ads? Use Firefox.
- EbNar 7d agoConsidering that Firefox by itself doesn't block anything without extensions, that seemingly less than 10% of users use extensions and that tgere5are already quite a few snappier browsers that block ads by default...
- mitxela 7d agoOoh, I think you're right. Even better if it can bypass more annoyances, cookie popups, captchas and (if legal) paywalls. Maybe it should have Libredirect built in. It could be a user agent, instead of a site owner agent.
- deleted 8d ago[deleted]
- shevy-java 8d agoWell, it is time to realise that GPL and similar variants, are better in the long term. I like MIT too, but GPL worked so much better for the linux kernel. Google and others abuse the ecosystem of open source contributors here.
- microtonal 8d agoYou mean the Linux kernel that the GrapheneOS project has to request every update for and then has to wait up to weeks to get a Google Drive link? The GPL is worth nothing if nobody is enforcing it aggressively.
- dvdkon 8d agoThe GPL is the only reason they even get that. More enforcement would certainly be good, but it's not like the GPL is worthless without a legal team backing you up.
- nomel 8d agoCould you quote the part of the GPL that they're not adhering to (which you seem to be implying), in this situation?
- microtonal 7d agoThere has been a long discussion about this a while ago on HN when these delays came up. The relevant blurb: Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, Many people argued that 'customarily used for software interchange' is worded-as is to always be relevant to the times when the license is applied and that providing access to a Git repository is customary nowadays. In fact: - The upstream Linux tree is distributed through Git. - The relevant Pixel kernel sources used to be distributed through Git. IANAL, so I am not sure how this part of the license will hold up in court, but the spirit is clear. Providing a Google Drive link is not customarily used for software interchange. Also, I think it is fairly clear that the procedure is put in place to make everyone's life difficult, given that the relevant source used to be distributed through Git.
- JumpCrisscross 8d agoDonate to Ladybird https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/
- jm4 8d agoThey have their own problems. They may be "open source", but they don't accept contributions. I'm skeptical it will ever become more than a hobby project.
- tech234a 8d agoCommit activity actually increased after they blocked external contributions in June: https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/graphs/commit-activity https://github.com/LadybirdBrowser/ladybird/graphs/commit-ac...
- ragnese 8d agoIs not accepting contributions the only/biggest issue you have with the project? I'm honestly becoming more and more okay with the "cathedral" style of open source. Depending on the project, catering to "the community" can lead a loss of focus, lack of a cohesive "vision" or scope, and just generally trying to be everything to everyone without the resources to maintain a giant beast. With something like a browser (engine), I'm totally okay with someone saying "I'm an expert and I'm trying something with my own vision/priorities. I don't want input from random people that I have to spend time evaluating."
- seb1204 8d agoYes I can relate to this. Picking good, valuable feedback out of the noise has become a chore.
- takeda 8d agoIt's on BSD license, Google or someone else can again Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
- 7d ago
- saghm 8d agoI'm reading your comment on Firefox. You can probably read mine and write a reply on it too!
- godelski 7d agoThat's crazy! I'm commenting from Firefox! What a crazy world! How is this even possible?!
- the_real_cher 8d agoLOL "start" using Firefox. I've been using Firefox for half a decade. There's zero I miss about Chrome.
- OtomotO 8d agoLOL half a decade. I've been using it for more than 20 years. I don't know why either of use loled though
- vsviridov 8d agoLOL, I've been using it since Netscape Navigator 3.0 Gold, via Mozilla M3 (SeaMonkey tech preview), Phoenix, Firebird, and then finally Firefox :D
- nunodonato 8d agoMosaic :P
- cecexacjrgec 8d agoMe too. Too bad I had to abandon it because Mozilla seem more focused on making AI-nonsense than a browser nowadays. No, Firefox, you don’t need AI features. You do need a better UI. You do need smoother scrolling. You do need privacy focus (which automatically means you do not need AI features). You do need to feel like you belong on the platform you’re installed on and not wish everything were Linux. You do need better designers that understand UX is not just “add controls everywhere”.
- StilesCrisis 8d agoHard forking doesn't solve the problem of closed source. If the goal of a hard fork is "the community will invest equal resources that Google does today" then you wildly underestimate how many engineers work on Chrome.
- Forgeties79 8d agoBut the open source project wouldn’t need to invest as much as Google does. There are all kinds of features and things they are working on that the general public really does not care about.
- StilesCrisis 8d ago[dead]
- paulryanrogers 8d ago> But the open source project wouldn’t need to invest as much as Google does. Not at first. Yet over time the work increases as one must differ more and more from Chrome. I believe that's why so many forks are giving up on Manifest V2.
- Forgeties79 8d agoDifferentiating isn’t as important as not engaging in Google‘s heinous practices
- charcircuit 8d agoForks are giving up on mv2 because it's not as important as the people online say it is. If mv2 was what would cause a browser to gain market share they would keep maintaining it, but if the market is not rewarding browsers with mv2 then it does not make sense to maintain.
- armadyl 7d agoSeriously. The average person in real life has no idea what MV2 or MV3 is. And despite what people here would have you believe uBlock Origin Lite works nearly as good as uBO and is generally indistinguishable from its MV2 counterpart. A casual user wold not be able to tell the difference, nor do they care.
- saghm 8d ago> But they won't learn that on their own I think they're fully aware of this. They just don't care, because the goal of "get market share super high" has been reached, so now they have no need for it to continue being open. I don't disagree about what that means we should do; I just don't think we should assume they're being naive here. It's like writing a program to play chess; you should select your move assuming the opponent is smart and will make the optimal counterplay rather than assuming weakness, and then if they end up being less smart than that, you're still in a good place.
- lokar 8d agoI think this is true, but I also believe the original people who built it are not the people in charge now.
- pjmlp 7d agoLike most projects, anyone that thinks Linux or Steam will stay as they are when the generation that started it all is gone, is in for a surprise.
- joquarky 7d agoI'm convinced that this is causing a lot of problems right now, including outside of the tech industry. A lot of the people now in charge of large organizations have never been down in the trenches. Or even near them. They operate in an abstract world with very little connection to reality.
- echelon 7d agoWe haven't had antitrust enforcement for 25 years. It's high time we did. Google needs to be broken up.
- necovek 7d agoMS was never broken up.
- 7d ago
- awakeasleep 8d agoThe “we” in your post is interesting to me. Who do you mean? Individuals?
- cecexacjrgec 8d ago> or turn to alternatives like Firefox as a new foundation. With the way Firefox is heading, that might not be the best idea. Nowadays Mozilla seem more focused on riding the AI-hype wave than actually making an excellent browser people want to actually use.
- stuaxo 8d agoIt's not really a "both sides" thing given the scale difference between what Google is up to and that.
- cecexacjrgec 8d agoNo one is forcing Mozilla’s hand (afaik) and no one is actually thinking “if Firefox had a chatbot that might convince me to move over”. Youre right that it is not a “both sides” thing, its a “Mozilla thing”. Through and through.
- mitxela 8d agoSome people are thinking "Firefox doesn't have a chatbot so I'll use chrome" though
- wolrah 7d agoReally? How many people can that possibly be, and how many of those would a reasonably sane developer actually want? If your competition is attracting the worst kind of users, do you really want to get in their way?
- arcanemachiner 8d ago> Android wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't open source. Yes, and now that they've achieved market saturation, it's time to pull up the ladder. Thanks for all the free work, suckers!
- spydum 8d agoDon't worry, we will fork and just repeat the pattern with new names! See you next time!
- pjmlp 7d agoGNU generation is over 50 nowadays, and newer don't really get open source as we used to. I mean, FOSDEM full of Apple laptops on the corridors, the message was really lost.
- mahboi 7d agoGoogle started making proprietary APIs for their Pixel on their non-open version of Android. Even if they stopped contributing to the open Android, what ladder did they pull up? The open Android is still there.
- jauntywundrkind 8d agoIt's sad we lost ChromeOS. They got Linux, they got open source, they didn't make so so so many unforced errors. Now that the chromebooks are also Android, it feels like the slide is only going to grow ever more fearsome.
- charcircuit 8d agoThere are already several different forks of Chromium and they are able to make their own decisions on points where they want to differentiate from upstream or other browsers in the market.
- xmprt 8d agoGoogle is starting to turn into early 2000s / late 90s Oracle.
- Henchman21 8d agoAhem. Ladybird.
- DANmode 7d ago> Just because it is open source doesn't mean they don't control it Just point out how that hurts security or privacy and we’re with you!
- throwaway27448 7d ago> advocating for chromium. Advocating for chromium to do what?
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 7d agoWho's we?
- p0w3n3d 7d agoSo we move. We force their hand How?
- dmacedo 7d agoI would say its even more proactive than support other projects. It is becoming clearer that every single technically competent member of the friends or family is now required to educate and proactively change devices. Remember this upcoming Christmas that the ye oldie tradition of fixing PCs clearing awful exploiting phone apps (and cancelling subscriptions) should also include the "fix my browser" again, instead of Internet Explorer being replaced by Chrome, our collective duties is to replace Chrome with Firefox, plus its useful extensions to block ads and improve the web experience removing trackers etc. Your call to arms today is to ensure all your tech colleagues join the movement, and then we can see Google's management views on "market growth"; they forget they made Chrome, we sold it - its our fault we forgot the "infinite growth of shareholder value"...
- duskdozer 7d agoWhat's the licensing on AOSP? Everything I look for points to Google-owned things. Is it a GPL/similar that Google is actually legally required to share its changes?
- drooopy 7d agoI wish that a consortium of Android phone makers would/could "LibreOffice" Android.
- leni536 7d agoReminder to think twice when signing CLAs when contributing to these big company open source projects.
- httgp 7d agoHeavily rooting for Ladybird.
- faust201 7d ago> I hope people remember this when advocating for chromium. Just because it is open source doesn't mean they don't control it. We need to start the long process of hard forking now or turn to alternatives like Firefox as a new foundation. This is correct but rarely in practiced. During firefox DRM/HTML5 issue, I know many people from Free software foundation Europe absolutely telling in their blogs, talks etc please stop Mozilla from implementing this DRM or that... but finally when I spoke to these in private they told --- ya, whatever - I need to see this series in netflix etc- so I have another device with chrome etc to watch it. (Indeed Firefox did implement it) This behavior is the reason average Joe gives up...
- thisislife2 7d agoAnd this is also why I advocate for xGPL for open source projects. FSF's GNU Public Licenses are the only open source licenses (that I am aware of) that envisioned a users "right to repair" decades ago. This is enforced by ensuring that any source code licensed and distributed under xGPL, has to remain open source. If even a part of the source code is licensed under GPL, and used in any project, you cannot close source it easily. Other permissive licenses, like MIT, BSD or Apache, for example, don't guarantee the open source nature of the product that is licensed under it as it allows anyone to also use the code and distribute it without the source code. (This is also why we should be be vary, and quite sceptical of, Canonical's new Rust-based port of GNU CoreUtils too. Apparently, Canonical plans to replace GNU CoreUtil completely in Ubuntu with this port. The original GNU Coreutils are licensed under the GPL, but the Rust based ports are not. This means that Canonical will now have the ability to stop distributing the source code of its CoreUtils port in future Ubuntu Oses).
- toxik 7d agoAnd you just know Canonical thinks this is feasible because they can just copyright wash it with an LLM. "Write GNU coreutils in rust" is all you need to say.
- graemep 7d agoThe important bits of Chromium are LGPL licensed,originally a fork of other people's code. Google cannot close it as easily.
- m-p-3 7d ago> or turn to alternatives like Firefox I never left. The only thing I don't like is that I can't directly donate to fund Firefox, only towards the Mozilla Foundation in general.
- AstralSerenity 6d agoI'm personally fine with that. Mozilla Corporation (Firefox) remains the largest part of Mozilla. As the cash cow, it will always receive what it needs, but it will also act as the vehicle for funding possible avenues of diversity. Mozilla is never going to be independent off of Firefox alone -- that revenue simply doesn't exist. I wish Mozilla had taken Proton's approach, but regardless, I hope they manage to throw something that sticks. A fully financially secure Mozilla would truly allow their organization to shine.
- marysol5 5d agoThe fragmentation that has occurred in Android Google does hate, they've been working to try and piece it back together, getting manufacturers to stop bastardising the OS.