LibreWolf is not a fork, though. It’s a customised version of FF, so every shit they introduce has to be painstakingly removed by the LW team, provided that is even possible. (See Manifest V3 in Chrome.)
They duplicate the code, creating a “fork” under their control, and make independent changes to the code. That is all that is needed to satisfy the “fork” definition.
Interesting, because there is no mention of that anywhere on their website. Indeed, the workflow overview in their source repo clearly states that in order to build LibreWolf, you need the current Firefox source tree, and this is reflected in the Makefile, which fetches the Firefox source tarball associated with the same version. Nothing points to a repository they created at any prior point.
Can you link to some official statement that supports this claim?
They take Firefox, make changes to it, then release it. As such, it is a fork. More specifically a “soft fork” since they continue to pull changes from upstream (Firefox).
EDIT: Oh I see you’re focused on the “duplication of the code” part. A bad phrasing on my part. It doesn’t matter the specifics of how they pull in the source code, it is pulled in and used as the basis for librewolf’s modifications.
They could even pull it in on first launch and compile the latest version of Firefox with their modifications for subsequent launches and it would by all means be a fork, since they are shipping a modified version.
A bazillion understaffed forks ranging from unusable because they have more tinfoil hats than developers, and unusable because the single developer doesn’t understand why remote debugging shouldn’t be enabled by default.
“AI should always be a choice—something people can easily turn off."
“It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.”
How does he not get how contradictory these positions sound. Really a missed opportunity to brand themselves as the browser without AI bullshit and gain users who want to get away from that crap. Sure, they promise it’ll have an off switch, but even if that’s true, they’re still wasting a lot of their very limited budget pursuing it. Really shows where their priorities are.
OK, what happened?
https://www.pcmag.com/news/mozillas-new-ceo-its-time-to-evolve-firefox-into-an-ai-browser
I really hope Firefox gets forked, and ends up like OpenOffice
zipzap your wish is granted:
https://librewolf.net/
LibreWolf is not a fork, though. It’s a customised version of FF, so every shit they introduce has to be painstakingly removed by the LW team, provided that is even possible. (See Manifest V3 in Chrome.)
It certainly is.
They duplicate the code, creating a “fork” under their control, and make independent changes to the code. That is all that is needed to satisfy the “fork” definition.
Interesting, because there is no mention of that anywhere on their website. Indeed, the workflow overview in their source repo clearly states that in order to build LibreWolf, you need the current Firefox source tree, and this is reflected in the Makefile, which fetches the Firefox source tarball associated with the same version. Nothing points to a repository they created at any prior point.
Can you link to some official statement that supports this claim?
A custom version of Firefox, focused on privacy, security and freedom.
This project is a custom and independent version of Firefox, …
LibreWolf is a free and open-source fork of Firefox, …
This repository contains all the patches and theming that make up LibreWolf, as well as scripts and a Makefile to build LibreWolf. There also is the Settings repository, which contains the LibreWolf preferences.
They take Firefox, make changes to it, then release it. As such, it is a fork. More specifically a “soft fork” since they continue to pull changes from upstream (Firefox).
EDIT: Oh I see you’re focused on the “duplication of the code” part. A bad phrasing on my part. It doesn’t matter the specifics of how they pull in the source code, it is pulled in and used as the basis for librewolf’s modifications.
They could even pull it in on first launch and compile the latest version of Firefox with their modifications for subsequent launches and it would by all means be a fork, since they are shipping a modified version.
Theres a bazillion forks
A bazillion understaffed forks ranging from unusable because they have more tinfoil hats than developers, and unusable because the single developer doesn’t understand why remote debugging shouldn’t be enabled by default.
I tried Florp or whatever and it just kept crashing. Went back to good old FF real fast.
LibreWolf has been really solid for me
How does he not get how contradictory these positions sound. Really a missed opportunity to brand themselves as the browser without AI bullshit and gain users who want to get away from that crap. Sure, they promise it’ll have an off switch, but even if that’s true, they’re still wasting a lot of their very limited budget pursuing it. Really shows where their priorities are.