I feel like the project just died.

Maybe, or maybe not. But it will certainly kill the community they've built up, and squander a huge amount of goodwill. Why would anybody who's interested in supporting or using an independent browser (read: techies) choose one that nobody can contribute to? Not to mention how the sponsors might feel about this.

> Why would anybody who's interested in supporting or using an independent browser (read: techies) choose one that's only source-available?

It's not source-available, it's open-source.

Sure, edited.

> I feel like the project just died.

Why? This seems to be a strengthening move, not a weakening one.

Moving to a closed development model => opensource is just a gimmick, especially with a BSD licence.

> Moving to a closed development model => opensource is just a gimmick,

How so? Many projects are open source (GPL, MIT, whatever) while closed development, and no one calls those a gimmick.

In any case, most open-source is going to move towards a closed-development model; there simply isn't the resources to review thousands of lines of PRs per hour.

Possibly, but they didn’t have much choice. Large open source endeavours are dead.

Too early to say. Once they enter "we now accept everyone to use Ladybird as daily driver" then there will be the real test phase. And, IMO, only after that phase has started and continued for some months, perhaps even few years, can a final conclusion be made. If ladybird fails then the Google empire has won permanently. Skynet slop will then be under control of Google, just as they stole all the advertisement money.