Some concerns about Ladybird's bylaws(tuananh.net)
tuananh.net
Some concerns about Ladybird's bylaws
https://tuananh.net/2026/06/06/ladybird-bylaws/
4 comments
The BDFL model is pretty well known and successful, especially for early-stage projects. I don't see any problem here. If anything, I think the public has been kind of brainwashed to expect multi-stakeholder style governance in spite of the poor results of such foundations.
Early projects need centralized governance. Even Firefox operated this way early on.
> But the flip side is the anti-capture mechanism isn’t “the community decides.” It’s “Chris and Andreas decide, forever.”
You mention earlier that Chris and Andreas can sign off on any bylaws change. Since they can amend the bylaws, they can decentralize governance as the project matures. "Forever" is a stretch.
> But the flip side is the anti-capture mechanism isn’t “the community decides.” It’s “Chris and Andreas decide, forever.”
You mention earlier that Chris and Andreas can sign off on any bylaws change. Since they can amend the bylaws, they can decentralize governance as the project matures. "Forever" is a stretch.
Even if it was forever is run by community really that great? The code is open source so a fork can happen at any time if it goes down the wrong path. Once you get a wide community involved I feel like decision making slows down. And the product gets worse.
I’m a big open source fan but I’m starting to lean to projects that limit contributions/have a strong leader since they tend to be higher quality in my experience.
I’m a big open source fan but I’m starting to lean to projects that limit contributions/have a strong leader since they tend to be higher quality in my experience.
I'm happier with the founders making the decisions than I would be with whoever can buy the most sentiment (Google, Mozilla)