How long will Pale Moon last?

[PrivacyExplorer]

As far as I know, there are not so many people working on the Pale Moon project. Manpower is not nearly as good as Firefox or other well-known browsers (although I believe Pale Moon has something unique to offer than other browsers). So sometimes the question; "How long will Pale Moon last?" comes to my mind.

Can anyone give more information about this? Maybe someone who works/maintains Pale Moon.

[satrow]

Stand to attention everyone, get your crystal balls out for inspection.

[billmcct]

Stand to attention everyone, get your crystal balls out for inspection.

Mine broke last week.

FOREVER, I hope.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

How predictable. Try doing some basic research about Pale Moon, Basilisk, the Unified XUL Platform and the rest of us.

[Moonchild]

I don't think anyone wants to waste our time on making guesses and predictions that nobody can make.
Also, if your intention was to somehow get a repeat debate about what has already been discussed a few times with the same kind of result, then I'll have to disappoint you.

The answer to your question is: it depends on many factors, including the age old one "when will Moonchild get hit by a bus?" (although even in that case there are fallback plans and the source is still open ), and calamities or unpredictable massive shifts in the internet aside, Pale Moon will be here to stay.

[Moonraker]

Silly question really and is it relevant to anything.?

It is a question for which there is no possible reply.

[hujan86]

At least until the great apocalypse arrives, at which all of humanity is doomed to oblivion.

[van p]

PrivacyExplorer, this might be of some value to you: viewtopic.php?f=65&t=22270.

[Sajadi]

Well, as Pale Moon is an Open Source browser, everyone would be able to fork and continue to develop it - even if the original would come to a full stop.

The beautiful benefit of Open Source So, even in death - it would be possible to keep it alive

[van p]

Well, as Pale Moon is an Open Source browser, everyone would be able to fork and continue to develop it - even if the original would come to a full stop.

The beautiful benefit of Open Source So, even in death - it would be possible to keep it alive

This didn't happen with Cyberfox.

[Isengrim]

This didn't happen with Cyberfox.

IIRC Cyberfox's only defining feature was that it was a rebuild of Firefox optimized at build time for different processors. It didn't take a hard stance a for customization and privacy as Pale Moon and Waterfox have and didn't stray as far from the Mozilla codebase.

[Sajadi]

This didn't happen with Cyberfox.

Of course it requires someone to take over. This is logical or not? How else should it work without someone filling the gap - magic?

[van p]

This didn't happen with Cyberfox.

Of course it requires someone to take over. This is logical or not? How else should it work without someone filling the gap - magic?

Uhhhh, yeah. That's what I'm saying didn't happen, Captain Obvious. Thanks.

[athenian200]

Ultimately, it comes down to money, planning, and manpower in the long-term. In the short term, we need to hope that web standards evolve slowly and that the main developers continue to be able/willing to work on it. The best way to ensure the project's long-term prospects would be to reach a point where we can have some kind of organization full of like-minded people supporting it that can attract people and money, and that's also capable of keeping the project on track regardless of any one person's circumstances. But the project would need to become a lot more popular for that to be feasible.

I would say that Pale Moon will probably keep going as-is for a couple more years, assuming all things are equal and nothing unexpected happens. There are a lot of directions it could go in after that... while I don't think the project itself will stop, Pale Moon as it exists may get more difficult to maintain over time, and it may eventually become more focused on the UXP project, may end up focusing on backwards compatibility with older websites, etc. I don't think what happened with Pale Moon 28 will be able to happen again, so hopefully money and development resources are forthcoming.

In the end, how long Pale Moon lasts depends on its donors and its community working to promote its use and make it more popular. I suspect that the more money it makes and the more popular it is, the longer it can last.

[Falna]

Pale Moon as it exists may get more difficult to maintain over time, and it may eventually become more focused on the UXP project, may end up focusing on backwards compatibility with older websites, etc.

That seems unlikely - see viewtopic.php?f=65&t=22270&p=168679#p168679 and the roadmap at https://www.palemoon.org/roadmap.shtml

[Tharthan]

including the age old one "when will Moonchild get hit by a bus?" (although even in that case there are fallback plans and the source is still open )

I would be concerned in such an instance that there wouldn't be anyone willing to take the time and effort to maintain it with the consistency and dedication that you do, mynheer. There is a very good reason, I think, that there isn't anything that I (at the very least) have found that really compares to Pale Moon in terms of what at the very least a fair number of people here are looking for.

Even if there was someone who had the dedication, would they have a vision for the project that was similar to yours? I fear that they wouldn't.

Plus, what about infighting in terms of developers if the project's skipper were to no longer be there?

...

Of course, this is not that much of a concern at the moment. But since someone brought the subject up, I thought that I would note this.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

I would. Though I am not strong in C++ whatsoever. But the vision and dedication is already covered, trust me

[Moonchild]

In the end, how long Pale Moon lasts depends on its donors and its community working to promote its use and make it more popular.

That is far from all of what's involved. The whole business/organization structure will happen when/if it happens but isn't a requirement for Pale Moon to continue.
The biggest lack of "development resources" is neither a larger user base nor more money; it is involvement of knowledgeable developers who are willing to genuinely improve the platform and the browser. Involvement of people who may not be educated coders but aren't afraid to learn and get their feet wet even just a little.

Also, as long as people keep spreading their "old and insecure" mantra, they are harming the project and its image both for our usership and preventing us from growing normally and getting more people involved in what is supposed to be a community effort. It's been said before: I may lead it (because someone has to stand at the helm to prevent lack of direction) but it is not "just me" who decides direction or development processes. many more people are involved and I delegate where prudent/needed. My position is also not unique -- I may have exceptional dedication to the project but that doesn't mean nobody else can lead if needed (or maybe a few people in my stead).

[New Tobin Paradigm]

As for the longevity.. The Pale Moon project has been around for 10 years now and has evolved exponentially in the past five years. It isn't even just Pale Moon or even just Moonchild Productions anymore. There is a vaguely declared alliance now and none of us have any intention of stopping any time soon because there just wouldn't be anything left if we did.

It is abundantly clear that for everyone else total destruction in the name of progress is the name of the game so now more than ever we have to work together to preserve our past and build our future based upon the foundation we inherited.

Put simply, it comes down to the fact that we are the agents of our own salvation. Not Mozilla and certainly not GoogleMicrosoftAppleOperaVivaldiBrave.

[athenian200]

That is far from all of what's involved. The whole business/organization structure will happen when/if it happens but isn't a requirement for Pale Moon to continue.
The biggest lack of "development resources" is neither a larger user base nor more money; it is involvement of knowledgeable developers who are willing to genuinely improve the platform and the browser. Involvement of people who may not be educated coders but aren't afraid to learn and get their feet wet even just a little.

Hmm, I was thinking primarily in terms of money to employ developers. So yeah, we agree that lack of developers would be the problem... either more money to hire developers or more volunteer developers would solve the problem, doesn't matter which as long as the work gets done.

Also, as long as people keep spreading their "old and insecure" mantra, they are harming the project and its image both for our usership and preventing us from growing normally and getting more people involved in what is supposed to be a community effort. It's been said before: I may lead it (because someone has to stand at the helm to prevent lack of direction) but it is not "just me" who decides direction or development processes. many more people are involved and I delegate where prudent/needed. My position is also not unique -- I may have exceptional dedication to the project but that doesn't mean nobody else can lead if needed (or maybe a few people in my stead).

I can see how it sounded that way, but I wasn't coming it at it from the angle of Pale Moon being old and insecure. There's nothing wrong with Pale Moon itself, the problem is the way the web developers and even the people writing web standards tend to think these days, along with the patterns of user behavior that drive this way of thinking.

Off-topic:
What I meant by "web standards evolving over time" was that the web and most major sites are likely to become more and more focused on Chrome. Especially now that most of Chrome's competitors are Chromium-based. The problem is that whatever Google decides on tends to get declared a web standard and used by developers very rapidly these days. After watching Microsoft get forced to bend the knee, I'm losing confidence that even an old giant like Mozilla can hang in there much longer.