Fork without drama: Ladybird and SerenityOS part ways
Ladybird used to be part of SerenityOS, but now the web browser and operating system are parting ways. And there are good reasons for this.
(Image: iX)
Ladybird is now its own project, independent of SerenityOS: developer Andreas Kling announced the official spin-off of the independent and free web browser earlier this month. Unlike most other web browsers, Ladybird is not based on Google's Chromium browser engine; instead, the team is programming it from scratch.
The background: Ladybird previously operated under the umbrella of SerenityOS, a project previously launched by Kling – which also aims to create a completely independent desktop operating system. Ladybird saw the light of day as a simple HTML viewer, but developed into a more comprehensive web browser. Meanwhile, the latter has even managed to attract commercial sponsors.
Development better independent of each other
Kling gives two main reasons for the spin-off in his announcement: On the one hand, Ladybird would increasingly dominate development – and in particular take up his own time in the process, which meant he could no longer devote himself adequately to SerenityOS. In the future, developers should be able to devote themselves entirely to the operating system or web browser again, without being distracted by the other project.
However, there is also a technical reason for the fork, as SerenityOS does not accept any code from third-party projects. Kling now wants to change this restriction for Ladybird. Therefore, Linux and macOS will also be the official target of the web browser in future, while SerenityOS will be dropped. However, Kling emphasizes that the focus in the last two years of development has been on the Linux version anyway.
Fun for the community
SerenityOS, on the other hand, should once again become a motivating project that is fun for the programmers. Accordingly, Kling is handing it over to the community. Ladybird now has its own GitHub repository and its own Discord server. Linux and macOS users can try out the web browser directly, while Windows users have to use WSL 2. However, the project is officially in a pre-alpha phase.
(fo)
