Vivaldi browser and open-source

luetage

@Catweazle I just read the blog again, it’s explained very well. I don’t know why you have to add things to it. It is not open source and it doesn’t share the philosophy at all. But there is nothing wrong with providing or using proprietary software and you don’t have to wish Vivaldi into something it isn’t, to like it.

Catweazle

@luetage 5% of Vivaldi is closed source, 95% is OSS with different licenses.

"While there are arguments pointing in both directions, we are happy with what we can offer now – software that is free, including a large open-source license portion and with only a limited amount of closed, but moddable code.

We’ll stick to this for as long as we feel that protecting both the look and feel of Vivaldi and the identity of our brand is valuable. This is something we will keep reconsidering (we are secretly cheering for this but you didn’t hear us say that)."

Chrome and Edge the same?

Priest72

In the business world,if we create a unique invention for example then we apply for a "patent" for the invention so as to protect it.

Copyright is another example which is most obvious in the film and literature industry for example.

If we transfer these 2 into the software world then i suppose we could call it closed source software.
I am fully aware myself that a small percentage of the vivaldi code is closed source but it seems it is with very good reason.
The interface is the "invention" and if this invention were not protected in some form then there would follow a flurry of copycats and the copycat browsers then would become immediate competitors and vivaldi would die a quick death.

my 2 cents.

Catweazle

@Priest72 , it's exact this the reason of this 5% source "closed" but moddable by the user, but no for other companies. Because of this I think that comparing Vivaldy with other freeware proprietary closed source soft isn't fair and . Free Collaboration Ware, or somthing like this? In addition to greatly slowing down acceptance in many Linux communities, many ardent defenders of FOSS by fire and sword. (Freeware like Chrome? never, no go).
I see it a lot, when I present Vivaldi in some Social Networks in the comments of Linux user.

luetage

@Catweazle said in Vivaldi browser and open-source:

Chrome and Edge the same?

Yes. And you should add Opera to that list. A large portion open source, since Chromium is open source and all browsers use the Blink engine code. Then individual additions, modifications to the used code are open source, since it’s forced by the license. Then a heap of additional third party open source code, work from others again, maybe with open source changes again (forced) and the rest proprietary. It should also be noted that Google, Microsoft and Opera are actively contributing to Blink development.

I’m not sure about the 5% and I have no clue where you are taking this number from, but I think pretty much all code that isn’t based on open source software is proprietary and closed source in Vivaldi, just like in Edge and Chrome and Opera. The well known open source Chromium browsers are Chromium itself and Brave.

And yes, we can mod Vivaldi, that’s the circumstance setting it apart. That’s due to the electron‐like implementation of the UI. But we normally don’t change application files, we are adding custom code to it.

Catweazle

@luetage

Vivaldi also contains third-party code. Licenses for this can be found in the source package and in the installed browser by navigating to vivaldi://credits.

Of the three layers, only the UI layer is closed-source. This means that roughly 92% of the browser’s code is open-source coming from Chromium, 3% is open-source coming from us and only 5% is our UI closed-source code.

https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/

Vivaldi has a lot of more features as Chrome, but Chrome uses a lot of more RAM. Both are build on Chromium and Blink, but apart of this Chrome has a lot of telemetries which track the user and a lot of codes nobody know what. It isn't the same.

luetage

@Catweazle It’s not the same, nothing to add there.

nikkehtine

Is the sync functionality open source? Where can I check the source code?

npro

@nikkehtine Here https://vivaldi.com/source/

Ayespy

@nikkehtine All functionality is present in the source code, which you are free to audit at your leisure, any time.

luetage

@nikkehtine No, it’s not open source. You can take a look at client side code from the browser, but it will likely be obfuscated/minimized. Prettyfying is not a big deal, but you will be presented with 1 letter variables which make it quite hard to decipher. I don’t think the sync server code is accessible at all and why would it be.

Ayespy

@luetage Obviously, no one can see the server-side code. That would be a huge security risk - and it's not anyone's business anyway. No cloud-based service publishes their server-side code. That would be insane.