I'm forking Ladybird and stepping down as SerenityOS BDFL

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Fork motivations and project split

  • Many commenters view the fork as a pragmatic move: the browser project outgrew the OS and was starting to consume its oxygen.
  • Key reason cited: the OS’s strict “no third‑party code” rule versus Ladybird’s new intent to use external libraries to move faster.
  • The fork is framed as amicable and driven by focus, not drama or conflict.

Dropping SerenityOS as a Ladybird target

  • The new Ladybird focuses on Linux and macOS; SerenityOS support is removed.
  • Rationale given: depending on third‑party libraries that don’t work on SerenityOS conflicts with its “from scratch” philosophy and would make integration impossible.
  • Several people are saddened; some see it as “abandonment,” others as a temporary step, expecting Ladybird to return as a port via SerenityOS’s Ports system.

SerenityOS governance and prospects

  • SerenityOS is now run by an existing group of maintainers; what happens next is explicitly left to them and the community.
  • Opinions split:
    • Pessimistic: this is the “beginning of the end” or will “kill both projects,” especially with less attention and no first‑class browser.
    • Optimistic: many projects thrive after founders step down; SerenityOS already survived partial withdrawal when the browser effort ramped up.
  • Some suggest refocusing SerenityOS on OS experimentation, niche uses (embedded/ARM/RISC‑V), or a simpler web stack rather than a full modern browser.

Ladybird’s ambitions, funding, and technical direction

  • Ladybird is seen as having far more mainstream potential than the OS, with a chance to become a fourth independent engine alongside Chromium, WebKit, and Firefox.
  • It is funded by sponsors/donors (e.g., one large corporate donation), not “investors”; sponsors have no formal control, but there’s a moral obligation to spend funds on Ladybird only.
  • New direction: relaxed NIH, likely reuse of UI toolkits, multimedia, text shaping, etc.
  • Performance goal noted: roughly match JavaScriptCore without JIT, not compete head‑on with V8-level JITs.

Community sentiment and side threads

  • Many express admiration for the clarity and kindness of the announcement and for the educational impact (YouTube dev videos, getting people into OS/browser hacking).
  • Others lament the move to Discord for coordination (closed, hard to search).
  • Questions about related projects: the Jakt language seems to remain under the OS umbrella and is described as largely “an experiment that ran its course” for the browser.