I’m skeptical. Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web. People have been fiercely debating whether that’s a terrible thing, or whether that’s the least bad practical solution on offer for website owners. I don’t want to make a judgement on that, but I don’t think the observation that CF is pushing us in that direction is very controversial. But an independent open source web browser is obviously against that ethos. So what’s the play here exactly? Just for goodwill?
(Regardless of motivation, they’re lending more support than most other companies, so it’s applaudable nonetheless.)
Cloudflare supporting Ladybird makes sense for the same reasons that Valve invests in Proton. Cloudflare's job is easier if everyone standardizes on a few approved browsers, but right now the three major browser engines are controlled by Google (IIRC most of Mozilla's funding comes from Google) and Apple, just as Valve's Steam is heavily dependent on Microsoft's Windows.
Both companies are basically hedging against future incentive misalignment with other (larger) companies, and reducing their dependencies on platforms they have ~zero influence over.
I don't understand why we always assume bad faith. I wish more companies were like Cloudflare actually - trying to balance the need of revenues while trying to do good for internet and open source as a whole.
As a normal user with a few sites, I'm glad they provide what they provide to block bots, attacks and everything AI.
Responding to a dead comment from a banned account:
> The big new game for them is AI crawler metering. Don’t think browser matters much anymore from their perspective.
Truly open browsers are easy to spoof. Approved browsers with whatever attestation features they champion builtin are hard to spoof. So browsers do matter.
I would think it's like Vercel and Svelte. Investing in something so small is good PR and gives them an image of goodwill but also very unlikely to result in actual market changes.
By your argument, this could still be interpreted as Cloudflare approving Ladybird. I don't see how indie genuine browsers (i.e. not bots) are "against the ethos" of restricting the web to approved browsers only.
> Cloudflare clearly wants to move us to a future where only approved browsers are allowed to access the web
CloudFlare is in the CDN business.
If CloudFlare gatekeeps who can access their CDN, then people will move to a different CDN. Because people want their websites to be accessed by as many people as possible.
Corporations sometimes will do seemingly good things in order to maintain their control, Google is a threat to Cloudflare and their business, what I believe however is that this will have significant pushback from the government seeing how Google seems to be pretty favorable for the current admin, not sure Cloudflare is on the same favorability.
Honestly the post tries to frame it under the banner of the open web, and offers some justifications for Omarchy that I think could all also apply to a project like Bluefin, so it feels a bit flimsy. My guess would be that it's just that someone with access to the purse strings got excited about both projects and decided to fund them, without necessarily a larger play in mind.
It is not an installer script (anymore), so instead you have to download a 7GB ISO file (in the name of 'good UX') that ships with Zoom, Spotify, Hey, Basecamp, Steam, Minecraft (??), etc. but you still end up using the same package mirrors (arch's). If it was an install script, like LARBS or many others (before and after omarchy), I'd (almost) get it. If it was a derivative distro, like endeavour or manjaro, I'd (almost) get it. But this just makes no sense. I'm all for making Linux more accessible, but this ain't it, chief.
It's not just a few libs (anymore), so instead you have to download hundreds of gems (in the game of 'good dev ex') that ships with activsupport, and ORM, ERB and even pushes an app architecture on you but you still end up using ruby. If it was just a few things like sinatra and sequel I'd (almost) get it. If it was a fork of another project like Merb I'd (almost get it) but this just make no sense. I'm all for making web development more accessible but this aint it, chief.
It’s not for me either. I peeked at the script and repo the other day. There were choices I wouldn’t make, but it’s written opinionated in the front. That’s totally fine by me.
It is definitely making Linux more accessible. Yet still new comers to Linux will struggle when they want to do sightly more than what Omarchy offers. In that sense, the current Omarchy may not be _accessible_. But I think with this amount of users coming in, they will be able to find ways for almost anything.
It’s been having a great side effect. Hyprland is having a lot of support. I hope that many other pieces will have supports for better Linux experience. Who knows most of major software applications will have official Linux support in a few years.
I think you are not in the target audience for it.
I am not in it either, I think arch has great defaults and archinstall is enough. On top of that it's incredibly well documented. But some people just want to hop in as quickly as possible and get to something working.
People distro hop all the time for out of the box experience. Very few enjoy configuring their desktop to perfection, because frankly it's a huge PITA with everything being split between a thousand control panels and config files with differing conventions and levels of documentation.
When a distro with a default configuration close to what some group of users is looking for shows up, that's exciting to that group because it's that much less fiddling they need to think about, and perhaps most importantly it's not going to randomly break on them one day because it's represented in the distribution's testing.
The install script is still there, you don't have to use the ISO [0]. I prefer to do my own btrfs subvolumes, partitioning, tweaks, etc and just run the script after a base install. Uninstalling anything is a matter of seconds from the provided menus.
It is strange to me that omarchy took off and not Regolith Desktop [1], which is a very similar project, and has been around a lot longer. I suppose the DHH effect is real. There is definitely a critical mass accumulating around the hyprland ecosystem. They seem to be forming their own culture separate from the wider FOSS community that I find concerning.
I wanted to try Omarchy out on my endeavouros desktop, but got annoyed that there wasn't a simple install script. I don't really want to re-install my whole OS just to try a new DE config.
With Linux you can have a million rices with passionate creators who motivate their family, friends, audience to try something new. I would prefer spliting the money among more projects like this rather than misplacing resources into a hobbiest/poweruser thing. Ideas that would be more appropriate than money: an award, signal boost, pizza, invite to a convention
If I was conspiratorially minded I would say Omarchy exists and get support just so LARBS users have someone to spit at while feeling like the underdog.
Props to the Omarchy creator for being so unabashedly opinionated in their rice despite the years of hate on soy devs. Unused RAM is wasted ram!
It's YouTube-hype, there is a newfound love for TUIs and DHH, as a very influencial person fell for it as well. I don't think anybody really wants an OS with e.g. Rails pre installed, not even people using Rails. People use specific versions for specific apps. I think Omarchy will be soon forgotten.
I am pretty sure all the stuff is optional and the main point is having everything like drivers working right away instead of looking for solutions yourself
I cannot for the life of me understand the Omarchy hype. The Linux community has been theming their distribution installs for decades. What distinguishes this from that?
Arch linux is a great linux distro that's kinda difficult to set up (more so historically but it's got that reputation).
Hyprland is a great WM that has garbage default settings and requires wading through tons of documentation, as well as a lot of effort to set up.
Omarchy is a distribution that ships Arch + Hyprland with sane defaults. The whole thing installs in minutes, and is overall very easy to get going with. This has lead to a lot of people who were previously turned off by all the sharp edges of both Arch and Hyprland to give Arch and Hyprland a shot. Since both of these things are pretty great once you get them going, a lot of people are enthusiastic.
These 2 projects are so different in complexity. Ladybird is a foundational ground-up browser, meanwhile Omarchy is just an opinionated arch setup. I wonder why they were both mentioned in one article.
Why is it that Servo has been around for ages, chugging along, making progress, and then Ladybird comes along and gets, pretty much instantly, anointed as the last great hope against Chrome? What does everyone else know about Servo that I don't?
I really wish the open source projects that actually have meaningful impact on the whole industry were target of sponsorship, not the ones with good marketing, but I know how hard that is to achieve. Taking money from someone is unfortunately complicated in this society. In many cases it's easier not to even ask for sponsorship, unless you are willing to deal with the bureaucracy. Ladybird is at least fighting for diversity, but I don't see the added value of Omarchy.
Great to see CF sponsoring Ladybird! One of the most important projects out there right now.
I run vanilla arch/i3, so not super interested in Omarchy itself - but am curious to know how polished of a distro they can come up with. I may give it a try soon.
Keep in mind that cloudflare is essentially a MITM "totally not created and backed by any spy agency that might come to mind" free service that lives off of few large clients but otherwise offers their services essentially for free because they are just a good company that wants to help people with DDOS and CDN and .... Cloudflare is to online communication what Facebook is to personal identity.
This sponsorship is very important for the project. Not for financial reasons, but because it gathered recognition from the company that creates much of the critical infrastructure and bot protection services.
Without this recognition, the engine could have been blocked by impassable CAPTCHAs, which for the end user would mean the project is dead at its roots.
> Omarchy 3.0 was released just last week with faster installation and increased Macbook compatibility, so if you’ve been Linux-curious for a while now, we encourage you to try it out!
"If you're curious about trying Linux, why not install this obscure mouseless tiling TUI distro to guarantee you'll never attempt to use Linux again!"
The post does not mention how much money they are giving. Maybe I am a pessimist, but unless the number is in tens of millions or hundreds of millions (very unlikely), I don't think it helps the development of an independent browser very much. Google probably has poured over billions of dollars into Chrome development over the years, and if you look at what Chrome supports, it's massive. I seriously doubt anybody else can match their feature set, not to mention involvement in drafting the latest standards.
I'm well into the Linux world and have been for years. I've never heard of Omarchy.
Do they also sponsor the same way projects that are the basis of Arch Linux, for example? I'm thinking about pacman, infra, etc.
Google started out by sponsoring Firefox, then hired many of their key developers to build Chrome. Cloudflare is likely doing the same thing, they know that strategically they depend too much on Google for the browser. This will get their foot in the door without making a large commitment. If the project goes well, it will be absorbed into Cloudflare in a few years.
Maybe a stupid question but: given the massive vulnerability surface area that a browser presents, why would one choose to build it in C++ instead of something memory and concurrency safe like Rust?
I know Rust doesn't automatically make the software safe, but it does rule out a very large % of the exploitable vulnerabilities allowed by unsafe languages like C and C++.
[+] [-] oefrha|6 months ago|reply
(Regardless of motivation, they’re lending more support than most other companies, so it’s applaudable nonetheless.)
[+] [-] vulcan01|6 months ago|reply
Both companies are basically hedging against future incentive misalignment with other (larger) companies, and reducing their dependencies on platforms they have ~zero influence over.
[+] [-] robinhood|6 months ago|reply
As a normal user with a few sites, I'm glad they provide what they provide to block bots, attacks and everything AI.
[+] [-] oefrha|6 months ago|reply
> The big new game for them is AI crawler metering. Don’t think browser matters much anymore from their perspective.
Truly open browsers are easy to spoof. Approved browsers with whatever attestation features they champion builtin are hard to spoof. So browsers do matter.
Edit: authentication => attestation for accuracy.
[+] [-] Exoristos|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] MarsIronPI|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] cbdumas|6 months ago|reply
It seems your confusion stems from this premise. Is it possible this is not a correct assumption?
[+] [-] imcritic|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] pepoluan|6 months ago|reply
CloudFlare is in the CDN business.
If CloudFlare gatekeeps who can access their CDN, then people will move to a different CDN. Because people want their websites to be accessed by as many people as possible.
Your statement does not compute.
[+] [-] dev1ycan|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] blibble|6 months ago|reply
so I doubt they want that
a murky world where you "need" a guardian middle-man is what they want to preserve
[+] [-] Vinnl|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] tonyhart7|6 months ago|reply
there are a alternative on the market like akamai and fastly
people free to use their favorite cdn over CF lol
[+] [-] throwaway1777|6 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] xenelor|6 months ago|reply
It is not an installer script (anymore), so instead you have to download a 7GB ISO file (in the name of 'good UX') that ships with Zoom, Spotify, Hey, Basecamp, Steam, Minecraft (??), etc. but you still end up using the same package mirrors (arch's). If it was an install script, like LARBS or many others (before and after omarchy), I'd (almost) get it. If it was a derivative distro, like endeavour or manjaro, I'd (almost) get it. But this just makes no sense. I'm all for making Linux more accessible, but this ain't it, chief.
[+] [-] throwaway106382|6 months ago|reply
It's not just a few libs (anymore), so instead you have to download hundreds of gems (in the game of 'good dev ex') that ships with activsupport, and ORM, ERB and even pushes an app architecture on you but you still end up using ruby. If it was just a few things like sinatra and sequel I'd (almost) get it. If it was a fork of another project like Merb I'd (almost get it) but this just make no sense. I'm all for making web development more accessible but this aint it, chief.
[+] [-] arunc|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sbinnee|6 months ago|reply
It is definitely making Linux more accessible. Yet still new comers to Linux will struggle when they want to do sightly more than what Omarchy offers. In that sense, the current Omarchy may not be _accessible_. But I think with this amount of users coming in, they will be able to find ways for almost anything.
It’s been having a great side effect. Hyprland is having a lot of support. I hope that many other pieces will have supports for better Linux experience. Who knows most of major software applications will have official Linux support in a few years.
[+] [-] sureglymop|6 months ago|reply
I am not in it either, I think arch has great defaults and archinstall is enough. On top of that it's incredibly well documented. But some people just want to hop in as quickly as possible and get to something working.
[+] [-] cal85|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|6 months ago|reply
If Windows came with all that crap preinstalled we'd call it bloatware.
Very very weird finding choice. There must be hundreds of better strategic investments that could be made. Thousands even.
[+] [-] cosmic_cheese|6 months ago|reply
When a distro with a default configuration close to what some group of users is looking for shows up, that's exciting to that group because it's that much less fiddling they need to think about, and perhaps most importantly it's not going to randomly break on them one day because it's represented in the distribution's testing.
[+] [-] sgloutnikov|6 months ago|reply
[0] https://learn.omacom.io/2/the-omarchy-manual/96/manual-insta...
[+] [-] skgough|6 months ago|reply
[1] https://regolith-desktop.com/
[+] [-] johntash|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] casey2|6 months ago|reply
If I was conspiratorially minded I would say Omarchy exists and get support just so LARBS users have someone to spit at while feeling like the underdog. Props to the Omarchy creator for being so unabashedly opinionated in their rice despite the years of hate on soy devs. Unused RAM is wasted ram!
[+] [-] TiredOfLife|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lukaslalinsky|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] MantisShrimp90|6 months ago|reply
But other people need an ISO and yes all those things are kinda considered standard at this point.
People like you and I aren't the target audience, but for the people who are, this is what they have been asking for.
[+] [-] k4rnaj1k|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] femiagbabiaka|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] marginalia_nu|6 months ago|reply
Hyprland is a great WM that has garbage default settings and requires wading through tons of documentation, as well as a lot of effort to set up.
Omarchy is a distribution that ships Arch + Hyprland with sane defaults. The whole thing installs in minutes, and is overall very easy to get going with. This has lead to a lot of people who were previously turned off by all the sharp edges of both Arch and Hyprland to give Arch and Hyprland a shot. Since both of these things are pretty great once you get them going, a lot of people are enthusiastic.
[+] [-] MitPitt|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] pkulak|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lukaslalinsky|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] SubGenius|6 months ago|reply
I run vanilla arch/i3, so not super interested in Omarchy itself - but am curious to know how polished of a distro they can come up with. I may give it a try soon.
[+] [-] gethly|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] SoKamil|6 months ago|reply
Without this recognition, the engine could have been blocked by impassable CAPTCHAs, which for the end user would mean the project is dead at its roots.
[+] [-] account42|6 months ago|reply
This really is some orwellian language coming from Cloudflare.
[+] [-] ForHackernews|6 months ago|reply
"If you're curious about trying Linux, why not install this obscure mouseless tiling TUI distro to guarantee you'll never attempt to use Linux again!"
[+] [-] breakingcups|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] nerpderp82|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] rs186|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] icar|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] flykespice|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jwhiles|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] iooi|6 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lordofgibbons|6 months ago|reply
I know Rust doesn't automatically make the software safe, but it does rule out a very large % of the exploitable vulnerabilities allowed by unsafe languages like C and C++.
[+] [-] jmclnx|6 months ago|reply
>Ladybird has since grown into a cross-platform browser supporting Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems
Cool, seems it will support BSD, hopefully that sticks with this new funding.