[mattstir]

I'm not an expert in this stuff, but I did notice that the Ladybird website mentions only accepting unrestricted donations. That doesn't prevent power dynamics from evolving between sponsors and the project, of course, but it at least means that no sponsors get to explicitly demand specific things.

[xmprt]

I think it's a valiant cause but even if that's what they claim right now, eventually they will have to weigh whether it's worth taking the $100k donation from sponsor A who doesn't demand working on feature X but just suggests it or risk the future runway of the project.

[account42]

I think he best protection against that is to have many different sponsors so a single one of them pulling out isn't a death sentence. In that regard, Ladybird already seems to be much better off than Firefox.

Still the concern remains valid and without leadership sticking to strong principles nothing will protect against external influence forever.