I would have preferred Rust, a language created by Mozilla instead of one with ties to Apple, but I’m not a dev so I can’t really judge. What are your thoughts?
Rust was made by Mozilla? TIL
Yep. It was developed to improve parallelization and security of Firefox. Many core parts of Firefox have been replaced with Rust implementations.
I see now. Rust is the color of fox, and foxes eat crabs. It all makes sense now.
That’s weird.
Independent of corporate interests
.
Picks one of the few languages created due to corporate interests
This will die on the vine
An interesting choice that is. Picking something like Rust would have benefitted them with a big community of open source enthusiasts that could help with contributions
they explained that they chose it because it is interoperable with their existing C++ code base
But Rust is rather good at that, too, via cxx. Mozilla similarly had a C++ codebase where they wanted to integrate Rust.
Granted, this is raw theory. Maybe Swift is better in practice. But yeah, to me personally, it would need to be massively better to pretty much give up on open-source contributions.
Thank you :/
Ladybird Browser Team Selects Swift as Preferred Language Andreas Kling announces Swift as Ladybird’s future language for better safety and ergonomics. Full transition awaits Swift 6.
ByBobby BorisovAugust 11, 2024 Ladybird Browser Team Selects Swift as Preferred Language Ladybird is a new name in the Linux ecosystem you might not be familiar with. So, let’s briefly explain what it’s all about.
It’s a web browser initiative, funded by $1 million, spearheaded by GitHub co-founder and former CEO Chris Wanstrath and tech visionary Andreas Kling. It seeks to challenge the status quo with a new browser written from scratch, completely independent of corporate interests. Our article on the subject has more on this. Now, back to the topic.
Over the past few months, Ladybird’s developers have been experimenting by rewriting different parts of the browser project in various languages. The outcome was clear: Swift emerged as the preferred choice among the team. According to Kling, the feedback favored Swift for its modern features and robust safety protocols.
Another significant advantage of Swift is its ongoing improvements in interoperability with C++. This development means Ladybird can adopt Swift gradually, without extensive rewrites, easing the transition and reducing potential integration issues.
Now, I’m sure you associate Swift with app development for Apple devices, where it’s been the go-to technology. But recently, that’s started to change.
What I mean is despite its strong associations with Apple, Swift has been making strides towards independence. It has been reorganized under a separate GitHub organization, distancing itself from Apple-specific projects.
This shift, coupled with better support for non-Apple platforms and diverse development environments, positions Swift as a more versatile and broadly applicable programming language.
Looking ahead, Ladybird plans to implement Swift once version 6 exits beta this fall. The upcoming release promises compatibility with the latest versions of Clang, essential for integrating Swift with Ladybird’s existing C++ code.
It’s worth noting that no browser engine has yet been developed using Swift, making this project particularly challenging. As things are still in the early planning stages, we shouldn’t expect to see any initial versions of the Ladybird browser this year.
A more realistic timeline suggests an early preview release could happen in 2025, though the developers have not yet committed to specific dates.
For more information, refer to Kling’s post on X.
Bobby Borisov Bobby Borisov
Bobby, an editor-in-chief at Linuxiac, is a Linux professional with over 20 years of experience. With a strong focus on Linux and open-source software, he has worked as a Senior Linux System Administrator, Software Developer, and DevOps Engineer for small and large multinational companies.
For anyone who knows more about this, how does it compare to Servo? https://servo.org/
WTF?
That page freezes my firefox and uses a lot cpu power
Why is there so much hype around this?
Ladybird or rust?
Ladybird
The biggest part is that Chromium has all but taken over the browser space, and Google is additionally 90% or so of Firefox’s funding which likely gives them power even when it’s unspoken. That is to say that Google has way too much control over browsers to go along with their way too much control over internet traffic in general. The recent Manifest V3 thing and Mozillas “privacy preserving” ad personalization also likely have significant effects.
I agree with what you said but there is next to no chance a new browser engine from scratch will be able to challenge Blink’s dominance.
Google’s power comes from a combination of unfortunate factors. They have limitless money to support Chrome’s development. They are one of the biggest vendors of online services. They are one of the biggest drivers of new web standard adoption.
Breaking this monopoly will require regulation and enforcement, not a “tech visionary” and a GitHub co-founder playing hero.
The alternatives have to exist first before the monopoly can break. One doesn’t have to think the browser will singlehandedly change the entire browser space to be hyped about more alternatives. I am just excited to see some amount of motion in opposition to the decline into the google-net. Not that this is the only thing happening but it is an interesting one that I hope pans out.
But alternatives already exist in the form of Safari and Firefox.
So you’d rather live in a world where nobody does anything about it because politicians won’t do anything? That’s an idea to move forward 🙄
My point is that no one talks about using regulations to curb Google’s browser monopoly ever. Even the anti-trust suit against them was related to their search offering. This relates to how Mozilla is beholden to Google for funding, and other players in the game being big corporations themselves.
politicians won’t do anything
Politicians can be made to do stuff. It is not always easy or even possible but activism sometimes works. Either way it is more likely to work than a toy browser for a niche segment of nerds becoming a viable alternative.
I do get your point, and in a perfect world that would be the solution. However, there are too many considerations to keep in mind with this:
1.- it’s usually the nerdy crowd that is willing to go out of their way to resist monopolies like this. The rest of the people cannot be bothered with this because they risk missing an Instagram post of a dog scratching a carpet. So, creating a solution geared at nerds is highly likely to achieve the desired effect.
2.- doing something like this is still doing something, which is much more than anyone can expect from “regulators”. Librewolf, Mulkvad browser, Brave, etc, are there because a bunch of nerds did them, nothing was being regulated.
3.- in every post about enshitification I’ve seen the last couple of years the need to regulate these companies always comes up. This has had little to no impact in getting those regulations even started.
Those are only 3 of the many reasons why we do need more of these independent and nerd focused applications. If we didn’t have them, then we’d be unequivocally fucked.
Lemmy and Mastodon, what was/is being regulated to make them happen instead of fakebook, Quitter and fucking reddit? Nothing at all.
You make a good point, but the chances of anything happening on the regulatory side of things in the near future is basically null. I hope I’m wrong.
Because people love Rust, even though it’s not entirely FOSS.
What are you referring to? https://www.rust-lang.org/policies/licenses and https://github.com/rust-lang/rust?tab=readme-ov-file#license seem to say otherwise…
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See responses to that comment.
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Bruh that’s now what I was talking about at all. I don’t consider closed trademarks something that makes software not free. Rust is basically source-available. You can’t modify it without permission. It’s basically proprietary software.
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Then why are people saying you can’t distribute modified versions at all without permission?
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I do wonder: why not rust? It would have been amazing. A fast language on par with C++ that also is memory safe. But Swift? You gotta be kidding me…
Swift is a fantastic language and with c++ interop out of the box it’s the obvious choice.
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I’ve read through your links. They don’t have much to do with the codebase itself, but with protecting the trademarks.
From what I read, you’re free to change whatever you want. You just can’t go around using their trademarked names for your modified version.
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That… is not a restriction on freedom 3. You could complain about your inability to use the rust name for anything you want but that is not the same thing as your ability to distribute modified versions of the software. It is also fairly standard practice for foss software to restrict the use of such trademarks. For example, Gnome does pretty much the same thin. FreeBSD as well. Libre Office also has similar restrictions, although they are defined more nebulously. It is not clear to me what usages are allowed with the Linux trademark but they certainly do restrict who can use it and for what and you must get permission before using it. See also, about trademarks in FOSS: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9d96e1bf-bced-48f7-b5b4-ee561e7a9348
The software is free. The trademarks are not. The four freedoms are about the software and not about trademarks. You could fork Rust and call it Corrosion, just like people have forked Firefox and called it Waterfox.
There’s a reason why software is being made with Rust now. It has the speed of C++ (sometimes faster), has a nice syntax, is memory safe by default, has the best compiler error messages and also the book is very good. I learnt entirely by the book and it’s very good at explaining things.
