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Mozilla Project Hurt by Apple's Decision to use KH
Anonymous Coward writes "I Read this article from ZDNet claiming how some of the Mozilla developers were hurt by Apple's decision to use KHTML over Gecko. I can see both their points. Mozilla was made for cross-platform compatibility, and this probably adds to the bloat, however that's not what they were looking for. They wanted small and fast."
I don't think the Mozilla guys should take Apple's decision as anything more than Apple trying to do what's best for Apple. We users may have the luxury of using political motives in determing which software to use, but corporations have to answer to shareholders. If Apple sincerely believes they made the best choice for them, then I hope it works out well for them.
I'll continue to use Mozilla, if it makes the developers happy!
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Would the khtml people be "hurt" if apple had used Gecho? Maybe if the Mozilla people are so injured they should look at why KHTML was chosen over Gecho and take steps to improve. Such is the beauty of competition. Maybe the mozilla people aren't aiming for what the Safari people were looking for... Maybe portablility wasn't important as size and speed to the Safari people. Apple adopting an open source browser is ultimately a very good thing, whether it be Gecho, Khtml, or some other open sourch engine.
...and if Apple had chosen Mozilla's engine, the KHTML developers would have been "hurt." KHTML is a compact code by comparison - far easier for Apple to take and modify. What happened to the idea that choice is good? Apple is helping to turn KHTML into a more viable choice (I used Mozilla exclusively before Safari was release- I had never touched KHTML). Now there are a whole bunch of viable browsers out there. Chris
Competition in the Open Source world? Microsoft gripes about not owning 100% of the market, too, guys. Competing projects are good. They promote diversity, and since we're all Open Source people, and we all use the same open protocols, its all interoperable.
Good to see KHTML in the commercial spotlight, and not just Mozilla. I'm typing this in Mozilla, which I sear by and tell all my friends about, but KHTML is good, too.
I question not so much the free software crowd's love of Mozilla, as the hate for KHTML. Why hate this _other_ free and excellent library for web rendering?
Apple made a perfectly valid choice, and contributed their changes back to the free software community. Yet another great free software project now benefits from Apple, at IE/Microsoft's expense of market share on Mac desktops.
Don't draw any conclusions you don't have to. I love Mozilla, too, but Apple made a decision, and one which even most Mozilla developers feel was a valid technical choice, even if it wasn't the one they themselves would have made.
What exactly did Apple do wrong again?
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Drew Streib, dtype.org
Safari weighs in at 7.2 megs, Mozilla is 38.3 megs.
Safari has a ton of room to grow before it achieves Mozilla's mammoth size.
Regardless of this, Safari is far more than halfway done.
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the strongest word is still the word "free"
They don't care about portability, since they are a single platform. Thus, Gecko's advantages there offered nothing. They explained their choice in terms of speed and the size and structure of the code. Probably part of the issue was whether they felt they could dive in and code away immediately. Mozilla, arguably, is a little large for that.
.. is that you get to choose which product best suits your needs. Unfortunately, that also means that someone doesn't get picked. Get over it, and make a better product. Maybe you'll get picked the next time around.
...you got the title wrong. It should read:
"ZDNet trolls for more page hits yet again - film at 11."
I was a bit surprised Apple developed a browser, and with Open Source code, but when I read it wasn't using Gecko I was even more surprised.
However, seems like the KDE folks have done a great job here, so congrats to them. The Mozilla folks shouldn't feel "hurt", this should motivate them to improve what is already a really good browser.
The competition is not only IE, but more stuff is showing up all the time. That's great, competition in the browser arena is back. For a moment I tought we'd be stuck with IE forever!
- sigs are for wimps.
Much as I admire the Mozilla project, the guys behind Konqueror deserve much more recognition than they seem to recieve (at least on /., where it's all Mozilla,Mozilla,Mozilla). They're a much smaller group of developers who have put together a great browser for KDE, so why the hell shouldn't they have a success story of their own?!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I doubt that I've ever had anything good to say about Apple before, but good for them for this move, and I think in the long run it will be the best thing for Mozilla too. By bringing another browser to the arena, and one that seriously challanges IE even more than Mozilla, it can only help Mozilla by reducing IE's monopoly hold. And giving Mozilla some performance targets to shoot for will not be a bad thing either.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The payoff for pushing for standards is that *everyone* benefits as long as they stick to said standards, and Mozilla's efforts seem to be working in that regard.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
Look at it another way... Apple may benefit simply by virtue of having multiple browsers on the market.
For the longest time, Netscape owned the browser market, and set the standards. That was OK for Apple, except that the Mac version of Navigator lagged behind the Windows version, particularly with Java implementation. Then MS came along, and there was a "standards battle" between IE and Navigator; MS was so determined to win that they even wrote a better version of IE for Mac than for Windows. IE has emerged on top and, true to form, MS is now trying to move the standards to favor IE on Windows with things like ActiveX controls. Netscape/Mozilla has been and continues to be holding their own, without assistance from Apple. Apple's support of KHTML instantly puts a new rendering engine on millions of computers and lessens MS's grip on the web (albeit slightly), because IE for Mac will not be the default browser anymore on Macs (I'm assuming).
The best thing that could happen right now in the browser wars is not for Apple to jump into the IE/Mozilla fray, but to stir a rivalry between two open source browsers, KHTML and Mozilla. Get these to browsers to compete on features, and put MS back into the position of being a follower rather than a leader.
Mozilla supports many more standards/protocols than Safari As Safari reaches this level of functionality it will get bigger and bigger.
Chimera is 20.6MB while Safari is 7.2MB and neither of them provide alternate localizations, afaik. So you're saying it takes 13.4MB of code to properly handle CSS? Believe it or not, but Gecko re-invents the wheel many times over under the hood for the sake of being cross-platform, and pays for it.
4. Chimera (Mozilla based) is still a better browser than Safari on MacOS X.
I've been using Chimera nearly exclusively for months. The Dec. 20 release (vers. 0.6 + a few features) is the nicest so far. What a development curve in the past year compared to the much older Opera and iCab!
I think it's interesting that Chimera is related to NS and Mozilla (Gecko) yet is soooo much cleaner and faster. Unfortunately it gets tarred with the same brush by people who haven't used it much.
Chimera's a lot more Aqua than Safari, too! I think Safari is stunningly ugly for an Apple product.
I agree and don't see why both open source projects can't continue. Competition is not just healthier than bloated monopoly, it's essential when we don't even know precisely what we're after. And our shared mission must be to kill IE, or at least beat it back....
And just how is the community supposed to exclude Apple? Open source software is open for anyone to use, including any company. Besides Apple has contributed code back to the KHTML project. Just what will it take to please you whinny ungrateful open sourcers?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I agree, but I think we can extend that to say "multiple Open Source browsers on the market." I think Apple adopting and improving on KHTML helps the KHTML guys, which makes them a better competitor to Mozilla. The same way a M$ monopoly is harmful to the industry, a monopoly by one Open Source browser, IMHO, is also not a good thing. So at the end, I think this will help everybody, not just Apple.
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Open Source Shirts
Chimera 0.6 (Navigator)
21.4 MB (21,743,324 bytes) Dec 20,2002.
Safari
7.2 MB (6,928,478 bytes) Jan 11, 2003
Chimera is ONLY the browser and bug feedback.
Its worth noting that when Atheos (nifty OS, not a unix clone, dead now) needed a browser the author evaluated KHTML and Mozilla and decided KHTML was far easier to port, then proceeded to do it in a week or so.
The crude abstract of this article implies KHTML is not cross platform. History says otherwise.
<soapbox> - you do not need to agree
Personally, I think Mozilla has set free software back about two years. Alternative browser development came to a standstill when netscape released the code. After all, we were all going to have a fast, lean, free, standards compliant browser as soon as they got it compiled. Then came the slips, the rewrites, the bloat, and the delusions of grandeur.