Post by CharmCityCrab » 2016-03-15, 23:59

I'd like to thank MoonChild and Matt A. Tobin for starting this thread and being detailed and forthright about their future plans, and involving the community in the process in advance of making the decisions, which is a pleasant contrast to the way most browsers (Even some of the other Open Source ones [i.e. Firefox, Chrome]), do things.I am probably going to go back and reread the posts they've made and the posts from other users in the days to come, and mull over this some more, and I may come up with one or more additional responses later, but here are a few ideas that I have, all offered in the spirit of trying to be helpful, not demanding (I realize what I type may not always come out the right way, but I actually am very grateful to MC and Matt and everyone else for doing this project for us.). If it works, take it and use it, if it's not feasible or desirable, no problem:If a decision is made to basically scrap what we have and start over to some degree, I think it would be very much worth considering starting with a Webkit/Blink web engine base instead of Gecko/Goanna (Although a fork of Webkit/Blink could be renamed Goanna for branding purposes if desired, obviously).Why Webkit/Blink instead of Gecko/Goanna? To maintain maximum compatibility with the web, both for when the new version of the project gets off the ground, and for the future going beyond that.The fact of the matter is, websites code primarily for Webkit/Blink. On the desktop, Chrome and Safari combined are a huge majority of browsers (Especially if you exclude Trident, which Pale Moon can not legally adopt as it is not open-source), and on mobile it's an even greater one. Even many smaller browsers use that as a base now- Opera included. So, that's what people code for. To try to maintain Gecko or a fork of Gecko and then get website owners and design software and such to support it is a very difficult thing for a relatively small project.We've also had conversations here repeatedly about how Firefox is losing marketshare and may not be there as a major browser, or at all, in five years. And, if Firefox is there and still has significant marketshare, they may not be using Gecko anymore. They are working on Servo and Rust, and ultimately seem to be planning to deprecate Gecko. I wouldn't be shocked if they eventually switch to Webkit/Blink themselves if the Servo/Rust thing fails and they keep declining in marketshare. That's long-term, but it was stated that this potential re-working of things is for the long term, so I wanted to bring that long term perspective into it.Then, when Gecko and Gecko forks are less than 1% of the market, it's going to be 100x harder to get websites to code to standards or to Gecko/Goanna than it is today, and today it's already very hard.So, ultimately, Pale Moon rebranching from a later version of Gecko is a temporary salve.As long as the web engine is anything other than Webkit/Blink or a close fork, we're swimming against the tide.A version of Pale Moon with a close fork of Webkit/Blink is a browser that will be far more likely to render the coming web "correctly" and will require far less developer time and effort working on compatibility shims for various websites that keep redesigning and "breaking" their sites for anyone who isn't using WebKit/Blink.It'll also be easy to fork in new rendering, speed, and stability improvements to the core engine, because the they will be created for webkit/blink by the bigger players versus having to code for Gecko/Goanna from scratch on every single thing if there is no Firefox with a Gecko core anymore (Whether it's because Firefox goes to rust/servo, webkit/blink, or because Firefox is no more in general).Also, as a small aside, this may make us the obvious choice for Linux distributions as their default browser in the long run when Firefox fails or becomes unusable, and there is a desire to have a Webkit/Blink based browser, because Chromium is under Google's thumb and Pale Moon is not (Although, honestly, I don't understand the decision making processes behind a lot of the decisions Linux distros make).I wouldn't suggest this if we were weren't talking about ditching the current version of Goanna and starting fresh, but any essentially new browser in 2016 that doesn't anticipate a huge market share where it can move people to code for it would be wise to consider Webkit/Blink. No new browsers are starting with Gecko today. Even when the ex-Mozilla CEO started his own browser, Brave, it was not using the Gecko engine or a fork thereof, it was using Webkit/Blink.This will also help a ton for Pale Moon for Android, if there is one at that point. It might be the only Webkit Android browser with ad-block. And the Mobile Web is really designed for Webkit.I agree that in the long-term, depending on Mozilla add-ons is not a good route to go. Even apart from the fact that their code base and ours have diverged and will diverge further, and there are compatibility issues, it's bad optics and marketing to tell everyone to go to another browser's website to get stuff for Pale Moon. Pale Moon is not Firefox. Devs keep repeating that, and it's true, but it's a mixed signal to some degree when people hear "This browser is absolutely independent of Firefox" and then "Go to Firefox's website to get add-ons".For me personally, a large part of what drew me to Pale Moon was the ability to make the browser look like I wanted it to look. With themes and options, I've got a File menu, an Edit menu, and so on and so forth. I have big back, forward, stop, refresh, and home buttons, I have a bookmarks bar underneath, I have a status bar, I have full URLs with nothing grayed out or emphasized, etc.. To the extent these are in the browser, I would very much like to see them in a potential new Pale Moon. To the extent that they are part of a theme or options, I would like to see there continue to be a similar theme or options. Something like Past Modern Revisited combined with a hypothetical Webkit/Blink core would be something no one else can offer.I would further suggest, for the market in general, though they may or may not share my specific preferences about the UI, that a big part of Pale Moon's success and potential future success lays in the fact that the UI is very customizable. So, we'd want to keep that in the future- regardless of what the rendering engine is, and what other changes are made. Under the hood, people want the latest and greatest, but on the outside, they may want an old look or UI that is not in vogue, or an alternate UI that "never was" and "never will be" as a mass market thing, but is more suited to them than everyone else. When I suggest adopting Webkit as a rendering engine, I am not suggesting adopting that horrible Chrome UI.Ad-Block is important. Wherever we go, people will want that as a feature or an add-on, ideally maintained by the Pale Moon staff, just as Ad-Block Latitude is today, so it doesn't break with upgrades and such.In general, stability and security, as well as speed and compatibility, are all important to me and I think to many users. I may like an older UI, but I like things modern under the hood. Privacy is another value I think many have.People will not pay for a browser. They just won't. That is not a good road to go down when almost every other browser is free. Donations are good, but fees or prices are not.The original growth of Firefox was largely because it blocked ads via an extension. Part of the decline of Firefox is because they keep trying to jam ads into the browser. Browsers should not have ads, in my view.I'm not a coder, but the impression I get sometimes is that some coders who may want to help are lost as to how they can help.Maybe Pale Moon could put an easy to see "How to volunteer" link on it's website, which leads to a form to submit that lands in MoonChild's email box (Or Matt A. Tobin's email box, or both). The form could include a place where they list what skills they have. Then there could be a checkbox thing that says "Check all that apply" and "I want to work on a specific aspect of Pale Moon", "I would like Pale Moon devs to assign me work to do that they need done that suits my skills", and maybe some other options. There could be a text box underneath where they can specify what specific aspect they want to work on if they want to do a specific aspect.Then, if they select that they want to be assigned something specific, they could get an email box asking them to do a specific task, linking them to the relevant code, and asking them to send back revisions that do whatever it is that the devs want done and then says "Email us back to tell us whether you can/will do it and when you can have it done by, plus any questions you may have, or to decline it if you've changed your mind, so we know to assign it to someone else". Maybe a little more politely than that.I'm not good at diplomacy.When it's done, assign them another task. And so on.I think for a lot of would-be volunteers, they should aren't very self-directed and have no idea what to do or what devs want done and will accept. If PM offered a specific way for them to volunteer through a form, and then emailed them back a specific task with details on how to complete it, and keeps providing tasks until they ask to stop, that might help a lot. Tasks could be assigned based upon need, specific skills the volunteer lists, what the devs think people can handle based on what they've done in the past, etc..Obviously, people could still commit patches, and do self-directed work as well. This way of doing things would not be a replacement for the existing way of doing things, but an additional option that would bring more people into the fold and put them where they are most needed.The volunteer form could even say "We have a special need for x, y, and z skills, so if you have them, be sure to mention them, or refer a friend who does! But we'll try to work with you and give you something to do if you have any skills at all, just list what you have.".What do you guys think?