It is still independent in sense that it doesn't depend on Google Search money and Chrome/Firefox code as most of the alternative browsers. Depending on your definition of dependency, it will always going to be dependent on something.

Also they are not changing the licence or preventing forks.

It is a pragmatic solution to a real problem that can really clog down progress on the project. I hope they (and other open source projects) will figure out how to filter in good, responsible contributors but I guess it will take time.