Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Servo vs. Ladybird: A Battle of New Browser Engines

2025-03-26

This article compares Servo and Ladybird, two projects aiming to revolutionize the browser engine landscape. Servo, initially backed by Mozilla, transitioned to the Linux Foundation due to funding issues and is now developed by Igalia with an undisclosed but significant funding source. Ladybird, started by Andreas Kling, relies on Patreon, GitHub sponsorships, and ad revenue, and has grown into an independent project with 7 full-time engineers, boasting substantial donations. In web standards compliance tests, Ladybird slightly edges out Servo, although Servo excels in CSS tests. Performance-wise, Servo significantly outperforms Ladybird, but both lag behind mainstream browsers. Both are open-source, but target different audiences and development models; Servo emphasizes embeddability, while Ladybird focuses on the browser itself.

Open Source Under Siege: AI Crawlers Unleash Chaos

2025-03-20

A wave of aggressive AI crawlers is crippling open-source projects. Ignoring robots.txt and consuming massive resources, these bots have caused outages at SourceHut, KDE GitLab, and GNOME GitLab. Communities are resorting to desperate measures, from implementing CAPTCHAs like GNOME's Anubis to blocking entire countries. This highlights the disproportionate burden placed on open-source communities and the unsustainable cost of maintaining free software in the age of rampant AI data scraping.

MALIBAL: Linux Hardware Manufacturer's Bizarre Business Practices and 'Zombiegate'

2025-03-03

A Linux hardware manufacturer, MALIBAL, is embroiled in controversy due to its aggressive customer communication and erratic business practices. The author recounts their experience with MALIBAL, detailing how the company insulted customers and partners, referring to them as "zombies." The article exposes MALIBAL's bizarre actions, such as banning entire countries and technologies (like Google and Apple products). Their collaboration with the Coreboot project also ended in acrimony, with mutual accusations and personal attacks. The article humorously reveals serious internal problems within the company, prompting questions about its business model and management.