Update: They just open-sourced it https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp-private-components
cross-posted from: https://kbin.melroy.org/m/foss@beehaw.org/t/170330
See also https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/floorp-going-closed-source/52783
If y’all are mad about this, look into Midori. It’s a fork of florp and I think it’s better, too.
From the website:
With Midori Browser you can browse the web with complete confidence and an advanced tracking blocker.
Then the next paragraph states:
Cryptotoken: To reward our users, we are organizing an initiative a Token to give users to use our products and services without tracking.
So it blocks tracking but adds more tracking, so users can buy some shitcoin to remove the tracking?
I’m glad that their forks of simple mobile tools didn’t gain traction, then
The creator of Floorp posted a reponse to this: https://blog.ablaze.one/4125/2024-03-11/
TLDR posted by the creator: creator:
To put it simply, the current Floorp, including forks, will end the moment I stop maintaining it, so to prevent that from happening, I have prohibited forks. The idea is to solve the user’s concern about code transparency by tightening the license when returning to open source, and to create a sustainable Floorp by giving them the choice of paying money or helping with the coding.
Unfortunately a lot of this seems in reponse to Midori, a seemingly hostile fork with a pretty suspcious website.
Unfortunately a lot of this seems in reponse to Midori, a seemingly hostile fork with a pretty suspcious website.
To some people all forks are hostile. This appears to be such a case. He just seems to be sour over people exercising the same freedoms he got from Mozilla upstream. Rules for thee but not for me. The free software community doesn’t need his obscure fork.
I disagree in this case. The majority of Firefox forks make it clear they’re a fork, giving credit to Mozilla. Midori seems to hide that they’re a fork while adding very little to the browser. Their website also takes donations while having a fake phone number and broken contact button. Hard not to see that as suspicious.
Edit: the dev was also completely ok with Firedragon switching to their codebase because they did so resepectfully.
I still disagree with what the dev did, but I get the struggle.
