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Data storage is not a new concept; it's part of the HTML5 specification (a.k.a. Web Apps 1.0) [Note: that URL seems to have some script issues...] and it is already implemented in the recent WebKit nightly builds.

Yeah, you could "remove" Safari but the libraries that provide all of Safari's functionality would remain. You could also remove IE from Windows, but most of it's functionality would remain as IE most just calls external dlls - dlls that other parts of the system share.

If you really wanted to remove Safari from OSX, you would have to remove the entire webkit framework that it and many other OSX applications rely on, and I really don't think you would want to do that.

After some of these iPhone articles, Apple misinformation is at some all-time high here at slashdot. There's lots of valid complaints to be had about the company - let's not muck that up with retarded ones, okay?

Let me just point out that WebKit, the Apple HTML rendering engine, which is based upon KHTML, the origional KDE HTML rendering engine, has a Subversion repository from which you can download code, that you can submit patches just like you can for Firefox, and that the code is now used by KDE, AtheOS, Apple, and ... wait for it ...

NOKIA.

WebKit
Ars Technical article about unforking of KHTML and WebKit
Aplications Using WebKit
Nokia S60 website page for WebKit based web browser (yeah, the registrant for that website is Nokia).

So, you see, things are a lot more complicated than some folks seem to think.

Let me just point out that WebKit, the Apple HTML rendering engine, which is based upon KHTML, the origional KDE HTML rendering engine, has a Subversion repository from which you can download code, that you can submit patches just like you can for Firefox, and that the code is now used by KDE, AtheOS, Apple, and ... wait for it ...

NOKIA.

WebKit
Ars Technical article about unforking of KHTML and WebKit
Aplications Using WebKit
Nokia S60 website page for WebKit based web browser (yeah, the registrant for that website is Nokia).

So, you see, things are a lot more complicated than some folks seem to think.

I have never seen a list, but all the changes I have heard about have been insignificant or integration to OSX. If you know of a list, fine, otherwise I'll stick to the neutral "some changes".

A fork with a repository *is* better than a fork where only source snapshots are published is an improvement, but forking is not playing nice by any sensible meaning of the word. It is also nice to see that they have carved in and now openly admit that the code is "based open" KHTML, though "a fork of" would have been more honest.

And I doubt it will happen. I think that in time, Webkit will stagnate as KTHML moves on.

With some changes is an understatement.

They are playing more nice these days, just see:

http://www.webkit.org/

Although I believe the KDE/khtml folks and webkit/safari/s60 folks haven't completely re-merged there code.

I think the spidermonkey code is a mess... Try taking a look at kjs/WebKit JavaScriptCore. It's much cleaner and (imo) easier to add new native functions/classes.

"even the browser kicks ass" ... you do realize that the browser they use is built from WebKit which is what Safari on the phone is built from? (as is Safari on Mac OS X and Windows)

When I worked on WebKit, the source that was publicly available was the source that went into Safari after it's had been adequately tested. They don't have a super-secret version that they are adding their improvements to. The version they improve is the LGPL version.

In fact, you can go and download the nightly build of WebKit and use it with Safari (Safari is just a wrapper that provides the gui).

http://nightly.webkit.org/

Probably, but since this desktop runs on xulrunner/firefox it will likely eat up 1GB+ ram by itself, ignore the system themes, render ugly fonts, render ugly buttons (there is a workaround), freeze often when trying to open new windows/apps/etc, and make Win95 seem like a rock solid desktop.

This does sound like an interesting idea, though. Hopefully someone will implement an alternative with Webkit (there is a GTK+ port in progress).

The canvas tag (originally from Mozilla, I believe, but now in WebKit and Opera)

my favourite is client-side storage.

this is from today (and more reliable than slashdot).

" For example, integrating colorsync or letting the gui die from benign neglect as Apple adds code that breaks the gui."

Apple will correct colours whatever opportunity they will have. Even their Windows Safari comes with colour correction. Colorsync is all XML based format and Apple is not Pantone, never said they can't use/implement Colorsync. In fact in early days of Mozilla while nobody cares about it except few remaining Netscape fans, they offered Colorsync free to it. It took 5-6 years for the current Firefox finally implement it. Dozens of DTP professionals, credible graphics artists and even companies like IBM feedback didn't help to take it serious.

"I'd like to hear from some people who work on Konqueror how much Apple is contributing. "

I was on webkit channel for a while, all I saw is Apple Inc. coders giving up everything they have in hand and helping free /opensource OS developers to implement/manage webkit compile process on other operating systems. Forget that, the Konqueror 4 in KDE 4 will have very very similar rendering engine with Safari.

Another thing. Webkit reviewers http://webkit.org/blog/95/lots-of-new-reviewers/

"Lars Knoll - Lars is the original creator of KHTML, and has been doing a lot of work in the WebKit tree to port it back to Qt, and has also submitted some general refactoring patches and bug fixes. "

"Nikolas Zimmermann - Niko is the co-creator of KSVG2, with Rob Buis. In addition to all his original work on KSVG2 (and KDOM), Niko has been working in the WebKit tree for a while now, mostly on SVG fixes and improvements but also in other areas."

"George Staikos - New port reviewer for Qt port. George started the effort to port WebKit back to Qt, in the form of the Unity project."

As ordinary user, not a developer, I see Apple offers the core of Tiger operating system, launchd open source (really open) completely free and nobody implementing it to their distros.

I begun to suspect that "Apple never gives back to open source" is something similar to "one button mouse" never ending story.

> So, Apple, where is the source code to the version of KHTML that runs on the iPhone, how do I compile it, and how do I install the modified version on the iPhone?

It's not KHTML, it's WebKit, and that is the rendering engine, not the browser, and the source is "hidden" here:

http://webkit.org/

Cheers.

The problem that the FSF is trying to bring attention to is that with iPhone those users' freedoms aren't preserved. There is code covered by GPL or LGPL version 2 or previous inside the iPhone. One well known exemple is WebKit/KHTML.

You could say the same thing to Apple; if you don't agree with what free software "stands for", then DON'T USE IT IN YOUR PRODUCTS!

Actually, Apple does publish all the source it is required to:
  - With Darwin (the base OS) there is no requirement (it is a BSD license), but they do so: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
  - With WebKit (a fork of KHTML), and engine used by Safari, they do so: http://webkit.org/

and there is also more: http://developer.apple.com/opensource/

Sure in some cases the source is not always in an easy to compile form, but they are publishing it. As for the rest of the OS, since it is running in user space then as long as it is not based on an GPL type open source license, then there too there is no need to publish the source code.

1. It is already forked it is called webkit http://webkit.org/
2. If KHTML moved to LGPL3 then it would loose the benefits of the developers working on webkit. It is a sword that cuts both ways.
3. As many FOSS project have proven a small team can do a lot of good work. Apple could carry webkit all on it's own for a good long while.

And you are forgetting that developers can shoose to upgrade the LGPL to the GPL - which is what I believe Apple did with KHTML when creating "WebKit". Since the "Linking creates a derivative work" language is only in the LGPL the clause may not apply at all.

And you are forgetting that developers can shoose to upgrade the LGPL to the GPL - which is what I believe Apple did with KHTML when creating "WebKit". Since the "Linking creates a derivative work" language is only in the LGPL the clause may not apply at all.

There is no proof that there is any GPL software in the iPhone

No, but there is proof that there is LGPL code on it: WebKit. And the aspects this discussion is about (being able to upgrade the components under the (L)GPL) apply equally to the GPL and LGPL.

More likely they will simply continue making and using proprietary code. That's what I would do. Aside from really large projects like the Linux kernel, it is not that much more difficult to rewrite than it is to reuse.

/blockquote>

Yeah, it's really fairly easy to write a standards-compliant html rendering engine (not to mention one which at the same time also works with the large amount of badly written html out there).

Many comments seem to imply that Safari is fighting against open source.

Although Apple doesn't necessarily update the source code more often than they release software, people forget that Safari is mostly open-source itself...

If I had mod points, I'd mod you funny.

That's the first time I've heard someone say a closed source app is more secure in years. About the only thing that is better closed is a password.

You do realize that Safari's basis, WebKit, is open source, right? http://webkit.org/

I do agree more choice is good, if it means developers focus more on standards than implementations.

It may be a fork, but it's still pretty open. You can grab the source, or browse it online at http://webkit.org/, and often see features a long time before they make it into Safari.

Take a look at the following and make sure to file defects...

Safari Beta 3.0.1 for Windows

Several of the issues appear to be in the foundational libraries which Apple ported from Mac OS X and not in Safari or WebKit themselves. The beta is testing more then just WebKit or Safari on Windows.

You probably already know this, but Safari has some pretty cool JavaScript debugging options: Drosera, Web Inspector.

You probably already know this, but Safari has some pretty cool JavaScript debugging options: Drosera, Web Inspector.

Safari also has plenty of hidden settings and tools that you can configure by opening up its property list file. (Or the registry in Windows, I guess?) If you want to go even further, it's not like there's a shortage of extensions. Progressive disclosure at its finest.

Among Safari's unique tools is the Web Element Inspector, which is to fucking die for. Nothing I've seen for any other browser even comes close.

These statistics make me wonder if Konqueror 4 will become another large competitor on Windows. Konqueror and Safari both share a very common core (KHTML/WebKit), so the renderring and page handling should be relatively the same. Web designers can get another speedy and a more native web browsers that tests their sites for the same purpose, and general users can get a lightweight, standards-compliant, open source web browser (without the OSS requirements, you can already get this with Opera, of course) that won't try to enforce another platform's "look'n'feel" like Apple's apps all do.

For the interested, you can grab an alpha copy of KDE 4 (download qt-copy, kdelibs, and kdebase at the very least; you can use either GCC/Cygwin or MS Visual Studio to compile it). On OS X, there are precompiled universal binaries for everything, and Kubuntu and openSUSE users can get packages for it from their respective websites.

Not sure about the Safari application, but Webkit has been releasing nightlies for some time. At least on MacOS, they come in the form of an app that uses the local WebKit engine on the installed Safari UI.

Safari 3/WebKit's CSS support is excellent, probably the best now, or at the very least on par with Gecko. I don't know how many of the fixes that Apple has made to their rendering engine have worked their way back into KHTML, though. Konqueror 3.5.2 still had some issues when I last tried it, but most of them seemed related to a weak JavaScript implementation and not so much CSS, though there were a couple CSS bugs I saw (relative units were sized incorrectly and text-indent did not work correctly). According to bug reports filed in KDE's bug tracker, though, it has been improved muchly since then (it's up to 3.5.7 now), so chances are any issues you had before don't exist in the current version.

What a retarded statement. The effin nightly builds have been freely downloadable for months, so any "nagging" feeling could have been easily dissuaded.

You remember too soon, then. Why this got an 'Informative" I don't know, as it's essentially wrong. While that was what they first released, they shortly thereafter set up a CVS site of their webkit code (which you can still tap- http://webkit.org/)

They're commercial developers y'know, and those sorts don't always keep the code base all neat and tidy until after the push.

You can always go grab the latest webkit over at http://webkit.org/

It's the same as Safari, but without the installer... Nightly builds are made from the current source code repositary.

Today's build (r22084) is the same as the 3.0 public beta (Version 3.0 (522.11))

1. If you hit command-q instead of command-w, it now tells you that you are being a numpty (not as neat as Opera's solution, but it will do).
2. You can now re-order tags.

The WebKit team is always looking for feedback and help. If you notice a site that doesn't render correctly in Safari, be sure to let them know:

http://webkit.org/
http://webkit.org/projects/compat/index.html

The WebKit team is always looking for feedback and help. If you notice a site that doesn't render correctly in Safari, be sure to let them know:

http://webkit.org/
http://webkit.org/projects/compat/index.html

...RLY?

Safari has always been based on KDE's KHTML, and they do contribute back to the community via the WebKit project.

See also:

KDE adds Safari feel to desktop Linux - The KDE Project has released a significant update to its K Desktop Environment software that includes refinements to the Konqueror Web browser derived from collaboration with Apple's Safari browser team.

KDE's Konqueror Browser Reaps Safari Benefits - In a perfect example of how open source and proprietary software can benefit each other, Apple got a significant headstart by basing Safari on established technologies like KHTML & Konqueror. And in return, Apple's contributions back to the open source community have benefitted Konqueror.

Apple do publish the modified kernel source code, though. And they have contributed a few interesting things as open source, such as launchd and the upcoming Darwin Calendar Server.

They have also, of course, released their modified version of KDE's KHTML as open source (WebKit), as well as their changes to GCC and other GPL licensed projects.

So they do release source even when they're not forced by the license. Presumably to gain goodwill. Just freeloading would probably hurt their chances of appealing to the Linux/BSD using market.

Apple's WebKit team needs to fix several bugs (particularly 6627) before the Google apps (or any other rich-text web application) can work on Safari.

Flash does show signs of horrible quality control which you can see at my Versiontracker post:
http://www.versiontracker.com/php/feedback/article .php?story=20070416075853952

The issue is, Internet Plugin arch is archaic on Apple too as told very nicely and openly by Webkit developers
http://webkit.org/blog/96/background-music/

It was designed in a time while a plugin designed to do vector graphic based UIs and Apps wasn't abused as a media plugin. That is my observation of course and sorry, I might be old fashioned but I still miss the times when Realplayer plugin opened its own UDP ports, switched bandwidth based on user latency and Quicktime extends itself with new codecs.

I am not very sure about the CPU optimisation since even Photoshop Elements V 3.0 comes with its own Altivec support plugin. Yes, the cheap Photoshop and horribly outdated.

For me it's as stable as the current Safari, and *much much* faster at rendering pages. The only thing you'll have to do is disable any plug-ins such as Saft. Other than that it's just like using Safari. I'm using it for this post.

updates/patch's/fix's

I think the fact that it's a work-in-progress is the relevant factor to consider when wondering why people aren't using it.

That's not a relevant factor for the Safari developers to say "the HTML standards process has been moribund; the W3C's HTML Working Group has focused almost exclusively on XHTML2, a new standard that was highly incompatible with existing practice" and "We declined to participate in the XHTML2 Working Group because we think XHTML2 is not an appropriate technology for the web". As far as I am aware, Mozilla, Opera and Microsoft are all not planning to ever implement XHTML2, whereas they are already working on HTML5 – HTML5 also has many features that are work-in-progress and which nobody is using yet, but which the browser vendors are already implementing, because they are valuable changes and don't break compatibility with the current hundred billion documents on the web.

Yeah, well, it's also never actually worth it.

Where are the sources?

From the Developer FAQ:

Will Apollo's use of WebKit result in a new HTML engine that developers have to account for?

No. Our goal is to maintain complete compatibility with existing WebKit implementations. This will help ensure that content that runs in WebKit based browsers, such as Apple's Safari, will also run within Apollo applications.

Which means that any changes that Adobe makes to WebKit go back to the WebKit project. There is no need to distribute separate source, you can get it at http://www.webkit.org./

Safari incorrectly renders lots of sites. Firefox seems to be better about most sites.

Yup, Safari definetly has its share of problems in this regards. If you get the lates WebKit
nightly (WebKit being the engine used by Safari and Opera on the Mac), you will see much in
the way of improvements: http://www.webkit.org/

Where do you get the idea Safari changes are released in "large dumps"? You can get nightly builds of Webkit.

Apples intent is to leverage open source but they have given back, and a lot. They have helped with GCC changes. They have (as noted) helped build Webkit from KHTML. They released launchd as open source, along with a lot of other stuff.

They also don't demand that you use their platform to run their media - "thier media" is really AACs, an open standard. The stores songs run on Windows as well as Macs, but using the Apple iTunes tool to rip music you can rip to either MP3 or AAC.

They are doing better supporting open source, and open formats than many give them credit for.

I'm not really that worried about Google myself unless people started storing everything on the Google servers. But I think a few accidental deletions (as we have already seen happen with email accounts) teach a lesson very quickly about the primary place to start user data.

PithHelmet is much more powerful than Adblock, well worth the $10, and if you're a cheap bastard you can always just neglect to pay. The web inspector in WebKit nightlies beats the pants off Firefox's ugly and inconvenient DOM Element Inspector. And I'll proudly admit I'm not familiar with Firebug, but for debugging JavaScript, have a look at Drosera.