Pale Moon forum

Hello folks,

As some may have already gathered from other discussion and the recent announcement I made for 2022 regarding Pale Moon, I am stopping the development of Basilisk.
The reasons for this are multiple:

• Basilisk was, first and foremost, released as development software to facilitate development of the (then in its early stages) platform code we build our applications on. Since the platform code has matured significantly, this reason for Basilisk has dropped away.
• Basilisk was also released to provide a differently configured browser than Pale Moon with additional features enabled that by design would not be included in Pale Moon (particularly support for DRM-locked media and WebRTC). Since DRM as well as WebRTC has not been functional for a while⁽¹⁾ and it seems it will never become functional in the future with the information available to me now, this also reduces the value of Basilisk as a second browser.
• Next, Basilisk provides a Firefox replacement for running unmodified Firefox "legacy" extensions. Considering Pale Moon will, with the next milestone, have that same functionality, there won't be a reason for Basilisk to provide duplicate extension running capabilities. While there is still a small potential benefit of using an Australis-based front-end for those extensions that might not have 100% compatibility with Pale Moon's GUI out of the box, it isn't sufficient by itself to justify the overhead for me personally to build, update and publish Basilisk.

Now, I can imagine there would still be a desire for Basilisk to continue, so I'm making this one-time offer:
A genuinely interested developer who wants to "take over the torch" from me regarding Basilisk who wishes to continue the browser's existence in terms of long-term maintenance and publication can contact me to take over the browser. That includes everything: the branding, rights to the logo and trademark, the domain, website, but also browser development and maintenance, and support for users. You will have to be fully self-sufficient in your administration and releases of the browser, and in keeping up with platform development. If necessary I can keep this board hosted here as a support channel in the initial stages, but whomever becomes the new application owner will have to moderate and be responsible. In consultation with me it may also be possible to continue to use our add-on infrastructure for a while but it is the idea that anyone taking over will basically do what I've done and not lean on any other project's resources (at least not without compensation of some sort).

If you fit the bill and are genuinely interested in carrying Basilisk forward, PM me. This is not first come, first served if there are multiple candidates -- I'll select the one I think is the best match.

⁽¹⁾ DRM/EME can't be used because Google refuses to license content decryption modules to us for use, and WebRTC because the implementation on websites that actually use this API only works with specific browser implementations of WebRTC even though we do pass Google's own WebRTC tests...

I wonder how many will actually step forward vs going 'Haha Moonchild can't be trusted to continue to maintain his own projects!' the way it happened with Fossamail.

moonbat wrote: ↑

2021-12-24, 01:50

I wonder how many will actually step forward vs going 'Haha Moonchild can't be trusted to continue to maintain his own projects!' the way it happened with Fossamail.

Pfft. Haters gonna hate, is what that is about.

moonbat wrote: ↑

2021-12-24, 01:50

I wonder how many will actually step forward

I personally don't really expect anyone to step forward, actually, if I go by past experiences, but I do think it is "the right thing to do" to at least give people the option if they want to see Basilisk continue into the future.
But if nobody steps up then so be it -- that, of course, also means people should not complain afterwards that Basilisk is EoL.

Would I be right in guessing that Basilisk’s end of life will come when the UXP gets its next round of security updates (18 I 2022?) unless somebody adopts the project? This is a mere curiosity to me, for I have never used Basilisk, but I am curious all the same.

No. Work on basilisk has stopped and I won't be doing anything more on it.

Hi,

Moonchild , in order to grab the max attention from developer hidden among user , I think that you could show a page on basilik,
In a same way that you have done for user of pale moon for the poll .

I did'nt read at time the forum but when the poll showed itself on pale moon, I give my responses.

Doing the same things for basilisk may help you to discover hidden / young/students/ interested developer in c++ for the take over

Moonchild, my sincere thanks for providing me a "transition browser" after Firefox chose its fork in the road.

To other users out there who will have to find a new home after Basilisk ceases to be, I have been pleased with the Chromium-based browser, Vivaldi, as it is probably the most user-interface friendly of the Chromiums.

Best of luck in your future endeavors!

[dreaming mode]
Maybe this offer during Christmas can be a great opportunity to forget about the past, and people as roytam, Feodor and others can continue with their work in the UXP platform but this time having all permissions and responsibilities over the final product.

dapgo wrote: ↑

2021-12-28, 15:55

[dreaming mode]
Maybe this offer during Christmas can be a great opportunity to forget about the past, and people as roytam, Feodor and others can continue with their work in the UXP platform but this time having all permissions and responsibilities over the final product.

Some things are unforgettable and unforgivable.

It's IMHO a puzzling offer.

At one side the person gets as good as everything of the Basilisk project. At the other side the person gets the urge to be fully independent (untie it from the existing infrastructure). But nonetheless the project would still depend on (the developers of) UXP. ...Unless the new developer does a backstab and start another(?!?) Chromium fork.

I find it puzzling that you equate infrastructure and development.

Untying from existing infrastructure simply means not leaning on the servers and services I/we pay money for. It has nothing to do with the platform code or development. Basilisk, if taken over by someone, will be given the same level of consideration from a platform code development point of view as it has always had when I developed on it.

Moonchild wrote: ↑

2021-12-31, 02:14

Off-topic:

MoonWalker wrote: ↑

2021-12-31, 01:44

You have mentioned Google's block for certain technologies many times. Seems like you have a case for anticompetitive behavior, at least in the EU scope and the US. Do you plan to take measures about it?

I don't have the money, time, patience or desire to get tangled into an antitrust lawsuit with Google as an individual. Especially not when most of the people ruling over those cases won't have the insight necessary without a panel of experts to understand what exactly the anti-competitive problem is. Besides, it's a grey area as Google has the right to deny licensing of their DRM to anyone, no matter publications of intent years back.
Heck, if they can even stall a governmental inquiry for 3 years with no clear reason other than "it was decided that", then I don't see this kind of thing going anywhere for years. I honestly have better things to do with my life.

here is one solution lol.

Good old pistols at dawn.
Choose your weapon dearest moonchild.

Moonchild wrote: ↑

2021-12-28, 16:04

Some things are unforgettable and unforgivable.

The poor people, simple users - many or few as they may be - that were relying on those forks for their daily existence may now think just the same about you. Regardless of your rightful decision based on law - which, unfortunately, is almost never thought and vetted by honest people, but that's another topic.
I do believe a session of honest, humane talks with those people that may have different - even radical - but still beneficial visions of this world could help not only the projects but many many other regular people around the world that none of us may even know about.

Maybe it's too idealistic and naive but at least it's an attempt at peace and understanding in a world going more and more at war. With itself. Please think about it.

If MC had to care about the 'poor' people's whims as you put it, he should've shelved Pale Moon years ago in response to the vitriol and attacks against it. And the project is being offered up for someone else to take over and run, not his fault if there aren't any takers. He's one person with limited time and resources and can't possibly continue to maintain it by himself.

Drugwash wrote: ↑

2021-12-31, 16:50

honest, humane talks

Every fucking thing you mentioned has been done with the entitled, free-loading cunts who now infest the subreddit. Right from asking them nicely to play along with the license, provide their modified source code as required, even help with rebranding under a new name - all of which was ignored while painting him and Tobin as devils for daring to enforce their rights against an unauthorized fork for a dead operating system whose users still keep showing up and bothering us here with their problems instead of contacting the fork authors (mostly because they haven't been explicitly told to not seek help here). And don't even get me started on the extension compatibility thing, something that Moonchild has been warning about for fucking years on end yet had all these slumbering people crawling out of the woodwork to bitch about because how dare he want this browser to evolve beyond being anything other than a vehicle for dead FF extensions.

Drugwash wrote: ↑

2021-12-31, 16:50

Maybe it's too idealistic and naive

Yes, stupendously naive and ignorant when the history of all this interaction is there on the forum for all to see. Go through old posts and announcements to get an idea of how things got to where they are now.

Perhaps dbsoft could take over, assuming you're willing to accept an offer from him. If you are, I will contact him and see if he's still interested.