Patch Architecture Documentation #2761

I am curious on why librewolf is a repository of patches applied to the firefox repository versus a direct fork of the repo itself. I looked through the docs, issues, and FAQ for the past hour. Maybe I missed it, so I apologize if this is written somewhere, but I have found no explanation to the pros of the patch architecture versus a direct fork.

My familiarity with the manual patches is only with the history of Linux, git, email lists, and gnu diff; please forgive my ignorance on this design choice. I think it might help incoming devs if the answer to this question was documented somewhere. I'd be happy to even make a markdown in the docs directory, too.

So with that out of the way: Why is librewolf mainly a collection of patches and settings instead of a git fork which could stay in sync with firefox (and revert, cherry-pick or make commits that removes anti-privacy code when pulling from firefox)? We could see the resulting source code upfront.

I want to study the code, and maybe become a contributor. I'm sure there is a valid reason to why this is the architecture chosen ^_^

Firefox's steady decline is pushing me to abandon ship.

At least from a users perspective I think this makes it way more approachable.

If you look into the repo, you see directly what makes LibreWolf different from Firefox. You don't need to dig through the whole source-code of a browser, and try to figure out what is Firefox, what is LibreWolf or what is missing because it never was merged to LibreWolf.

Otherwise one could not resonably ensure that librewolf does not have more vulnerabilities than firefox.

I appreciate your help!

I'm curious, how will the patches be organized as librewolf begins to diverge more away from firefox? Or what will librewolf do in the event of a "rouge Mozilla" event where the original firefox halts development or switches licenses? Maybe I'm just speculating for uncertain futures. Or perhaps yall are seeking a more conservative approach to leverage Firefox's development resources since its still not too hostile towards modding for privacy?

Finally, would y'all like for me add what y'all have said to the documentation? (The top level docs folder only has one md file, where would I add it?) It's the least I could do for y'alls time ^_^

I think that, at the moment, it is too early to think about a "rogue Mozilla" case.

In general, LibreWolf aims to be Firefox with sensible and privacy focused defaults, so it is also not really planned to massively diverge from Firefox itself. If this were to change in the future, I am sure things would be re evaluated.

Regarding the documentation. It depends a bit on what you would like to add, but most of it is on the website. You may want to submit any changes related to that here: https://codeberg.org/librewolf/website