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Safari vs. KHTML

Posted by Zonk on from the sibling-rivalry dept.

Johnny Mnemonic writes "CNET has a story that describes the divergence between the code base of Safari and KHTML. Although there were high hopes that Apple would contribute significantly to the OSS project, that optimism has all but disappeared. Is an unrealized danger of OSS that others may take your project in a direction you didn't intend? Can OSS code and goals harmonize with the goals and needs of corporation designed code? Is it that Apple mismanaged the relationship, or that the KHTML guys expected too much? Interesting warning for other OSS-corporate marriages." We've previously reported on the frustration in the OSS community on this issue.

6 of 553 comments (clear)

  1. Another question by daveschroeder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As long as they're abiding by the terms of the license, does Apple, any corporation, or any entity for that matter, have any obligation to contribute anything back to the project? Who gets to decide when someone is contributing "enough"?

    Additionally Apple posts all of its open source code; here's the page for WebCore, which states:

    WebCore is a framework for Mac OS X that takes the cross-platform KHTML library (part of the KDE project) and combines it with an adapter library specific to WebCore called KWQ that makes it work with Mac OS X technologies. KHTML is written in C++ and KWQ is written in Objective C++, but WebCore presents an Objective C programming interface. WebCore requires the JavaScriptCore framework.

    The current version of WebCore is based on the KHTML library from KDE 3.0.2. Changes that are specific to WebCore are marked with #ifAPPLE_CHANGES. Other changes to improve performance and web page compatibility are intended for integration into future versions of the KHTML library.

    Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me. I'm sure the level of cooperation and collaboration that the KDE/KHTML/Konqueror folks had hoped for wasn't there, if only because Apple keeps everything secret before its release (including everything related to Safari 2.0 in Tiger). Another example of a corporate need butting heads with a contrary OSS philosophy. And I'm sure Apple's main priority is not developing an infrastructure to cohesively and voluminously contribute changes back to projects. It's more like, "Ok, here's our stuff..."...it's all there for anyone to see.

  2. Safari on Windows? by promantek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the article, Apple engineer Maciej Stachowiak said,
    "One thing you may want to consider eventually is back-porting (WebCore) to work on top of (KDE)... We'd be open to making our tree multi-platform."

    I wonder if that means they are looking to port Safari to Windows. It would give Windows users another taste of the Mac, and I for one would use it.

  3. Here's a quote from Zack Rusin by Lars+T. · · Score: 4, Interesting
    he made after his rant.
    Did KHTML become better as a result of Apple using it? Yes of course. KHTML became a lot, lot better as a result of patches we merged from Apple folks.
    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  4. new here, but... by greystreets · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is an unrealized danger of OSS that others may take your project in a direction you didn't intend?

    Isn't that point of OSS, hoping that someone will take interest in your project and do something with it you couldn't do yourself?

    And what's dangerous about that?

  5. Re:Its only the bad things we head about? by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Right, and I've already merged those that applied. Now if only we got all patches divided up like that, rather than as the once a year code bomb.

  6. Re:Its only the bad things we head about? by molnarcs · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You miss the point. The main complain of khtml developers is that clueless users think that once a feature is present in Safari, it would be easyt ot port it to konqi. Quote:
    And you know what? Thats their right. They made a conscious decision about not working with KDE developers. All Im asking for is that all the clueless people stop talking about the cooperation between Safari/Konqueror developers and how great it is. Theres absolutely nothing great about it. In fact it doesnt exist. Maybe for Apple - at the very least for their marketing people. Clear?
    Also, this is not just "a problem for KDE." One reason for the difficulties is that Apple has different sets of priorities than khtml devs. Apple wants feature X present by a deadline. KHTML devs place equal importance on keeping the code clean and optimized. As a result, the Safari code is not up to KDE's coding standards:
    Actually the biggest problem right now is that Apple are not keeping up with code-cleanup. We constantly try to develop more elegant easier to maintain code, where as Apple wants the right features - right now. Safari is basically still KHTML from KDE 3.1 with a ton of bug fixes and features. Many of the features takes time to port because they do not live up to our coding standards.
    I think this situation could have been avoided if Apple tried to cooperate with KDE from the very beginning - and kde guys did quite a lot (creating specific mailing lists, giving cvs access, etc) to help apple devs. What KDE guys were asking for would have benefitted everyone: code cleanup could have been easily integrated into safari (some kde devs even offered to sign an NDA's to help!) while features might have been integrated into khtml. This is clearly a win-win situation that Apple missed.

    A note on zealotry (not directed to parent post ... it is a general complaint). 1) It is quite funny that when I was discussing this on osnews, a bunch of people jumped on my posts calling kde devs names (whiners, zealots, whatevers) and praising apple for their huge contribution to OSS. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get them understand that the main problem of khtml developers is not that Apple didn't contribute back enough (although that is part of the problem). Their problem was that - the result of Apple's marketing campaign about being first class citizens of the OSS community - users thought that they don't implement features present in Safari because they are lazy or they just don't want to or whatever. In other words, their gripe was with clueless users.
    2) Check the asnwers to Carewolf's post. Apology, apology, apology... like "users DO NOT CARE if your code is 'elegant' and 'easier to mantain', users WANT THINGS TO WORK whether or not they are 'elegant' or 'adequate'." (why is he shouting? - and most importantly, why is he modded insightful?). IMHO, this kind of APPLE can't do wrong does disservice to APPLE - one of the keys to do successful business is to recognize the mistakes one makes in order to avoid them in the future. You can love APPLE and be critical at the same time!