Could you perhaps write up how this came to be? Did you know anyone there already, or did the contact come through some previous network? Did you put together a pitch deck or did they reach out to you first?
The reason I am asking is that I was some years ago I was working on an open source payment gateway for crypto which I was sure would be something interesting for companies like Shopify, and I even posted an "Ask HN" how I could approach companies to ask for sponsorships [0]. I'm not working on it anymore, but I'm pretty sure that I'd be if I were any better at establishing these connections.
One question that might have already popped up: with more and more attention going to Ladybird (in contrast to SerenityOS), how will these sponsorships direct what you do in both projects?
Congratulations and thank you Andreas for inspiring and encouraging developers like me to contribute to open source through your content. I began my open source journey by adding a snipping tool in screenshot utility to Serenity OS.
Congrats my friend, well deserved brother, well deserved!
My question is: can we get a Yak Shavers playlist on YouTube, where all SerenityOS development is gathered in one place? We have so much to learn from you people.
Late to the party, but I didn't see anyone mentioning this: Shopify seems to be curiously extremely involved in sponsoring WebAssembly-related projects. It's a gold sponsor on AssemblyScript[1], it used to develop javy[2] which compiles JavaScript to WebAssembly, a member of the BytecodeAlliance[3].
I wouldn't think they sponsor LadyBird just for LibWasm[4], as that doesn't make any sense, but technically, they add that to their wasm sponsorships now.
Honestly, it looks like a really nice place to work if you like WebAssembly, I wouldn't mind a collaboration or to work with them.
- Could be "just" goodwill, paying this out of the marketing budget to strengthen brand recognition amongst developers.
- Goodwill amongst developers is not just a feelgood benefit btw. Being known for supporting open source projects might help with the hiring pipeline for example. Making current employees feel better about Shopify would presumably also reduce employees turnover rate, leading to lower recruiting costs.
- Shopify as a company is extremely dependent on "the web" for its business, and would benefit from it being built on open standards. Supporting a variety of browsers leads to more competition in the browser space, which would support Shopify in the long run (see also the classic "commoditize your complement" article: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ )
> The web is one of the most amazing and unlikely products of humanity. Free and deeply egalitarian. No app store would allow the web to launch today.
> But it's a gargantuan task to build a new browser from scratch, and there are few people with the range of skills to pull it off. Andreas is one of the few and we are lucky that he can focus on such a task.
> I think of Shopify as one of the 'killer apps' of the open web. Not unlike office to windows, visicalc to the apple2 or half-life to steam. As such, we love to support open source that makes the web better. This is why we support Rails, Remix, and now Ladybird. (and many many others)
Shopify is also sponsoring an eSports team, Shopify Rebellion <https://shopifyrebellion.gg>, and partnering with ESL to help sponsor StarCraft II events. I think it's a much nicer way of getting publicity than dumping cash on adwords.
Along with the other suggestions, if Shopify were looking to build a POS (point of sale) device - a "Shopify terminal" - on low cost low power hardware then Labybird could be a good fit for the UI.
There are other browser engines targeted at this sort of embedded product, and ladybird obviously isn't specifically targeting it. But it may be a good play due to licensing and royalties if they expect to build millions of them.
Another could be to build a WYSIWYG rich text editor. Obviously a lot of Shopifys front end is about point and click building a store visually. "contenteditable" based editors are a nightmare of browser inconsistencies and bugs. If you could compile Ladybird to WASM and render to a html canvas, you could side step all that with your existing editor, only having to target one "browser".
I've not seen anyone do that yet, but I think it's a really compelling use case.
(Accessibility of canvas based UIs is still an unsolved problem though)
We use shopify for selling a few products and it sure is nice to keep that extra 10% on every sale (vs. eBay and Amazon).
Now looking into their fulfillment options as the price is pretty good ($5.70 shipped to customer for our product in the USA and around $10.00 international).
Why do some rich guys hand out big tips everywhere they go? It makes them feel big and good, but it's also a good long term strategy to make people like you.
I don't know... I'm probably a Firefox fanboy, but all this fragmentation in the market of browsers that are not named Chrome isn't doing us much good in beating Chrome. I'm interested in Chrome being beaten, and it still seems Firefox has the best cards (though I don't know _how_). Once there's healthy competition in browser land, let's reconsider fragmenting it ;-)
I feel like I'm on the ground level of when Firefox was first being built. It's a very exciting project that is 100% for a free, open web. What a great achievement!
Crazy to think that about one month ago there were some haters on twitter were claiming that the project would never amount to anything. Way to go, Kling!
I think the money is probably better directed at building out browser features than rewriting anything. Building a browser on top of a language that is still in heavy development is a recipe for a failed browser.
It currently runs on SerenityOS, Linux and macOS. And Windows with WSL (I know, I know..)
We’ve also seen screenshots of Ladybird on FreeBSD, Haiku, and even Android at one point. Those are not maintained though, but we’ll come back to them eventually I’m sure :)
akling|2 years ago
If you’d like a quick intro to the Ladybird project, I presented it at a conference earlier this month: https://youtu.be/De8N1zrQwRs
Huge thanks to Mike, Tobi and the other folks at Shopify who hooked this up. <3
rglullis|2 years ago
The reason I am asking is that I was some years ago I was working on an open source payment gateway for crypto which I was sure would be something interesting for companies like Shopify, and I even posted an "Ask HN" how I could approach companies to ask for sponsorships [0]. I'm not working on it anymore, but I'm pretty sure that I'd be if I were any better at establishing these connections.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23907711
slekker|2 years ago
One question that might have already popped up: with more and more attention going to Ladybird (in contrast to SerenityOS), how will these sponsorships direct what you do in both projects?
jamesbfb|2 years ago
You’ve definitely inspired me out of a few burnout humps over the years.
abyesilyurt|2 years ago
defrost|2 years ago
I look forward to your future.
( and I'll see who I can poke on the native windows port front (no promises) )
pkphilip|2 years ago
mysterydip|2 years ago
bvm|2 years ago
stefanos82|2 years ago
My question is: can we get a Yak Shavers playlist on YouTube, where all SerenityOS development is gathered in one place? We have so much to learn from you people.
keyle|2 years ago
tambourine_man|2 years ago
riffraff|2 years ago
Is it literally just goodwill, or does Shopify stand to have other potential advantages out of this?
Either way, cool.
TachyonicBytes|2 years ago
I wouldn't think they sponsor LadyBird just for LibWasm[4], as that doesn't make any sense, but technically, they add that to their wasm sponsorships now.
Honestly, it looks like a really nice place to work if you like WebAssembly, I wouldn't mind a collaboration or to work with them.
[1] https://www.assemblyscript.org/
[2] https://github.com/Shopify/javy
[3] https://bytecodealliance.org/
[4] https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/tree/master/Userland/...
WJW|2 years ago
- Could be "just" goodwill, paying this out of the marketing budget to strengthen brand recognition amongst developers.
- Goodwill amongst developers is not just a feelgood benefit btw. Being known for supporting open source projects might help with the hiring pipeline for example. Making current employees feel better about Shopify would presumably also reduce employees turnover rate, leading to lower recruiting costs.
- Shopify as a company is extremely dependent on "the web" for its business, and would benefit from it being built on open standards. Supporting a variety of browsers leads to more competition in the browser space, which would support Shopify in the long run (see also the classic "commoditize your complement" article: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ )
xal|2 years ago
> The web is one of the most amazing and unlikely products of humanity. Free and deeply egalitarian. No app store would allow the web to launch today.
> But it's a gargantuan task to build a new browser from scratch, and there are few people with the range of skills to pull it off. Andreas is one of the few and we are lucky that he can focus on such a task.
> I think of Shopify as one of the 'killer apps' of the open web. Not unlike office to windows, visicalc to the apple2 or half-life to steam. As such, we love to support open source that makes the web better. This is why we support Rails, Remix, and now Ladybird. (and many many others)
rollcat|2 years ago
Shopify is also sponsoring an eSports team, Shopify Rebellion <https://shopifyrebellion.gg>, and partnering with ESL to help sponsor StarCraft II events. I think it's a much nicer way of getting publicity than dumping cash on adwords.
thunderbong|2 years ago
samwillis|2 years ago
There are other browser engines targeted at this sort of embedded product, and ladybird obviously isn't specifically targeting it. But it may be a good play due to licensing and royalties if they expect to build millions of them.
Another could be to build a WYSIWYG rich text editor. Obviously a lot of Shopifys front end is about point and click building a store visually. "contenteditable" based editors are a nightmare of browser inconsistencies and bugs. If you could compile Ladybird to WASM and render to a html canvas, you could side step all that with your existing editor, only having to target one "browser".
I've not seen anyone do that yet, but I think it's a really compelling use case.
(Accessibility of canvas based UIs is still an unsolved problem though)
pcdoodle|2 years ago
Now looking into their fulfillment options as the price is pretty good ($5.70 shipped to customer for our product in the USA and around $10.00 international).
I like this company.
squokko|2 years ago
npn|2 years ago
Maybe this is one of the reason?
It will be awesome if Ladybird can render Shopify perfectly, not to mention all the free exposure.
thunderbong|2 years ago
I would love to see a browser built for developers with new paradigms for Dev Tools.
Of course, the challenge will be parity in terms of rendering and performance with the current incumbents.
sverhagen|2 years ago
easton|2 years ago
olivierestsage|2 years ago
asicsp|2 years ago
"I have received a $100k sponsorship for Ladybird browser" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36377805 (540 points | 10 days ago | 166 comments)
akling|2 years ago
sergiotapia|2 years ago
tibbydudeza|2 years ago
chrismsimpson|2 years ago
frozenlettuce|2 years ago
bilekas|2 years ago
tibbydudeza|2 years ago
kramerger|2 years ago
Jakt needs a posterchild project to receive the required attention. Besides, it would send not one but two strong messages to Mozilla
lolinder|2 years ago
akling|2 years ago
gigel82|2 years ago
akling|2 years ago
We’ve also seen screenshots of Ladybird on FreeBSD, Haiku, and even Android at one point. Those are not maintained though, but we’ll come back to them eventually I’m sure :)
ementally|2 years ago
Would be great if it is being built with security in mind.
unknown|2 years ago
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