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Comment by csagan5 | Hacker News Reader

Bromite author here (https://www.bromite.org ); I was contacted some time ago about the possibility to maintain a modified version of Bromite with a customised /e/ home page and list of search engines. Nothing particularly murky there, but after some Q/A I did not want to proceed with this type of cross-branding because fundamentally I do not want Bromite to be using or be affiliated with any cloud service and I concluded that /e/ invites users to swap Google for /e/ as a cloud services provider.

Now to the reason why I am commenting here: there is no GPL violation for the patches used in their /e/ browser but I find it a bit disappointing that nowhere it is mentioned that the browser is a complete Bromite build, minus the logo and renamed to '/e/ Browser'.

Most users are assuming that it is a Chromium fork developed by /e/ and will never reach the Bromite open source project, which is basically the way the project is kept alive.

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Genuine question, I have avoided chromium like a plague, why should I choose this over Firefox with equivalent plugins ?

I haven't looked into the compiled code but the source repository still shows the Bromite logo and name: https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/apps/browser

The AUTHORS file also mentions being a fork of Bromite, but doesn't list any authors that aren't part of the project: https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/apps/browser/blob/master/AUTHO...

It looks like your patches have been changed to renamed Bromite to Browser in user-facing code though. Have you already asked them to add a reference to Bromite somewhere in the about screen? Maybe create a pull request to make it easier for them to accept your request if the devs themselves are lazy. They obviously won't rename the browser shortcut, but adding a reference in the "About browser" section shouldn't be too much to ask for.

Unrelated: I understand your position on cloud providers, but I think /e/ is different from MS or Google in that it's possible to swap out most of the integrations with your own servers (it's all a bunch of glued-together open source services, after all).

Without cloud integration, I doubt /e/ would reach any sort of mainstream of non-technical cult status at all. You'd be left with an app store on top of a build of LineageOS. It's the services delivered with the system that a) distinguish the project from LineageOS without GApps and b) provide basic usability many normal users would miss otherwise.

Yes, I am aware of the repository.

> Have you already asked them to add a reference to Bromite somewhere in the about screen?

I have not; I was expecting it, given the amount of modifications from Bromite patches (which is zero, as far as I understood).

> I think /e/ is different from MS or Google in that it's possible to swap out most of the integrations with your own servers (it's all a bunch of glued-together open source services, after all).

It's that "most" that corrupts the intent.

> Without cloud integration, I doubt /e/ would reach any sort of mainstream or non-technical cult status at all.

Sorry, I will avoid discussing this, it has all the clues to become an endless and inconclusive talk :)

In short: yes, I agree with you, and still do not care about "mainstream or non-technical cult status" at all.

> I have not; I was expecting it, given the amount of modifications from Bromite patches (which is zero, as far as I understood).

I won't lie, I would have expected the same if I were in your shoes. Thinking positively though, it's possible that the /e/ people don't care much about the attribution they themselves receive and don't realize what it means to others to be recognized for their personal hard work. Asking nicely might show them that other people in the open source community do care. The worst that can happen is that the people behind the project do indeed not care about you and are rude about it, but in that case nothing really changes anyway. Things can only improve from here, I'd say!

Based on the changes I've seen, they basically replaced all instances of "Bromite" and "Chrome" in the source code with "Browser". I don't see much /e/-specific code in there at all, aside from a project description and some links in the documentation. They did add a reference to the original project to the AUTHORS file, so I'd like to believe in a variation of Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by laziness.

> Sorry, I will avoid discussing this, it has all the clues to become an endless and inconclusive talk :) I completely agree :)

> They did add a reference to the original project to the AUTHORS file, so I'd like to believe in a variation of Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by laziness.

This would be all fine and agreeable if they had not contacted me first, see my first comment :) of course I can still do contact them pointing out the situation, but let me say that given the nice project manifesto (https://e.foundation/wp-content/uploads/e-manifesto.pdf ) and the large amount of open source projects being involved...there must be expectations of this type :)

I do not claim malice - but I feel like the exact bare minimum was done there, which is not that surprising given that I declined creating/maintaining the customised fork that then they created.

By the way, Bromite itself is mostly a curated, maintained and adapted (for Android) list of patches from other projects, plus a good chunk of patches developed by me for Bromite itself.

I keep correct attribution of all patches as much as possible and I would feel more accomplished if also the work of other patches' authors (countless hours) is correctly referenced through Bromite.

I use your browser as my daily driver and I just want to say thank you for your hard work.

You're welcome :)

Is there anything I could do to help support bromite as a project?

See https://github.com/bromite/bromite/blob/master/README.md

I get an error in fdroid trying to add the repo.

Error getting fdroid index file - > No mirrors available.

Yes, there have been some issues reliability with the host; they should be solved now, see also: https://github.com/bromite/bromite/issues/378

Update: Fixed

Note -- HN included the ) and ; in your link, so clicking it doesn't work properly.

I appreciate your cause and it'd help if it was easier to check it out

Thanks, fixed that by adding a space.

Just logged in to say thank you for maintaining my favorite browser bromite. :)

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