Karsten, Carsten, Jérémy, Sebastian, *I pray and beg that you please include Northstar Browser (Nordstjernen) in Debian, in next stable Forky in 2027.*
*If the Northstar browser is included in Debian Linux, I will do my utmost to make the browser successful and ensure it works well in Debian,* *and I will make sure that the Debian project and Debian contributors like you, and the four of you in particular, will be rewarded* *and forever honoured for your contributions to Debian, open source software and for providing diversity of web browser software on the internet.* We believe the Northstar browser is well suited for Debian Linux, and that including Northstar browser is in philosophical spirit: https://www.debian.org/intro/philosophy - "We want to create a free operating system, freely available for everyone. Now, when we use the word "free", we're not talking about money, instead, we are referring to software freedom." Northstar browser is secure, because the code-base is new, modern C, written by state-of-the-art technology such as Claude, and we are also many contributors who review the generated source code and test the browser continously. The source code is now *245,000 lines of C code*, which is much more maintainable and easier to review and audit, than the source code of Firefox and Chrome where the source code runs into many millions of lines of source code. We have applied for a grant from* NLnet Foundation, the Restack*, with deadline in November 2026: https://nlnet.nl/restack/ Northstar fits the goals on NLNet: "Free and *open source software* and hardware, open standards, open data, open science, and open core internet infrastructure are democratising innovation and learning, and are together driving society and industry forward at an unprecedented pace.". We hope NLnet will fund the Northstar (Nordstjernen) browser because it is an independent, JIT-free, C-based browser engine developed in Europe that directly aligns with their Restack mission to build a secure, open, and sovereign internet stack free from Big Tech monopolies. I suggest we focus on including the Nordstjernen-browser project <https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/nordstjernen-browser>, instead of the two other variants, Southstar <https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/southstar-browser> and Northstar <https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/northstar-browser>. In the future we can also include the Rust version when it becomes mature enough. In Debian I suggest we use the English name Northstar / northstar-browser, while actually including Nordstjernen: https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/nordstjernen-browser We can also have discussions about the dependencies and how to package the application in Debian, and we will make changes according to your specifications. For *QuickJS *and *Lexbor *we recommend that we use our custom versions of these libraries because they are optimized for our use-case and improved for security and preformance. Sincerely, Andreas Røsdal On Sat, Oct 17, 2026 at 10:11 PM Jérémy Lal <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Le sam. 17 oct. 2026 à 20:37, Andreas Røsdal <[email protected]> a > écrit : > >> Hello Karsten, Carsten, Jérémy, Sebastian >> >> I would like to contact you to request that you please include the web >> browser (Northstar) >> we are making into Debian. >> > > First things first, keep the ITP bug in the loop. > > >> >> There are 3 variants: >> >> Nordstjernen browser, main flagship browser, implemented in C: >> https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/nordstjernen-browser >> > > Debian strives when dependencies are not vendored, so this is interesting > to analyze: > https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/nordstjernen-browser#dependencies > > Debian is going to favor ffmpeg, for example. (or even gstreamer, if it > was possible). > > That being said, this browser looks good, considering it is so young. > It is slow, its UI is looking like old browsers, but it can run windy.com > or youtube.com, > which is impressive. > > >> Northstar browser, minimalistic, implemented in C: >> https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/northstar-browser >> >> Southstar browser, implemented in Rust, less mature: >> https://github.com/nordstjernen-web/southstar-browser >> > > I tried that one too, doesn't load anything, as expected for a less mature > browser. > > >> Website: https://nordstjernen.org/ >> >> The browser has GPL 3 license.Have have ca 700 users in Windows store at >> the moment. >> >> I hope we can cooperate on the distribution on this web browser. >> >> The Internet needs more web browser engine alternatives than just Chrome >> and Firefox. >> > >> Northstar (Nordstjernen) browser is an independent, JIT-free, C-based >> browser engine developed in Europe with a mission to build a secure, open, >> and sovereign internet stack free from Big Tech monopolies. >> > > These are strong arguments, however, it might be a good idea to not target > next debian stable, > given the youngness of this browser. > > Jérémy > > > Regards, >> Andreas Røsdal >> >
