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Apple Releases WebKit
rohanl writes "Apple has responded to recent criticisms from the KHTML developers by providing a live CVS repository (including all history) of WebCore, JavaScriptCore and the newly open sourced WebKit, public mailing list, irc channel and bug database. Details at the new webkit.opendarwin.org"
Hey Taco, better change the Apple section's "G5" logo to the Intel logo.
Trolling is a art,
But wait... what is KHTML going to complain about now!
Would Apple have done this had they not complained?
#!/
...good stuff, good stuff. It seems they actually do care about how the open source community perceives them. And it can only do them good to remain on good terms with the Konqueror/KHTML team.
:)
That said, some of the criticisms of the Konqueror team may have had some validity - specifically, there is little room in the cutthroat commercial arena for the unwavering dogmatism, devotion to absolute technical superiority over immediate user needs, etc. Hopefully the two can forge a way forward together now that Apple has made this (much needed) gesture.
iqu
Despite liking OS X and the now-defunct power-PC platform (though still preferring GNU/Linux on both PPC and AMD64), and having switched a number of people from Windoze to OS X, I have not been shy about being critical, even scathingly so, of Apple when they deserve it.
The deserved it in no small degree when they made it difficult for KHTML developers to reintegrate their changes into the mainline tree.
However, I am glad to see they responded to the community's criticisms in such a constructive manner. This is good for everybody. It's good for KHTML, as Apple's improvements can now be integrated cleanly into the mainline tree, and it is good for Apple, both on the PR/Community Relations front, and on the technical front, as they can continue to benefit from developments in KTHML and their porting burden should, at least theortecially, be lessened as their changes make it back into the main development tree.
Good show, Apple. Few flesh-and-blood people would have the character to admit a mae culpa and change their ways. For corporations, this is even more rare. This doesn't change my skepticism WRT the move to Intel (though if it is a move to AMD64 said skepticism is alleviated, and if the move is a result of supply issues with IBM, said move is understandable despite my skepticism, but I digress), but it is reassuring to see positive movements on other fronts.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
- Previously, Apple was following the LETTER of the LGPL license, and giving back all changes
- The KHTML developers were not pleased about the monolithic tarballs, but accepted that it was a valid option
- They were, however, annoyed about all the fanboys who complained that KHTML wasn't merging Apple's changes
- Apple is now following the SPIRIT of LGPL
- Yes, we are in fact through the looking glass, but that was yesterday's article
Any questions?I guess after switching to x86, Apple felt it needed to do something not-evil to balance things out.
a) Apple released the source before
b) they've just added additional ways of accessing the source instead of a giant tarball
They're going to complain about the code being PPC-centric... no, wait... damn...
perl -e'print$_{$_} for sort%_=`lynx -dump svanstrom.com/t`'
Sorry, but that's just bs... the "KHTML developers" picked the license, and Apple gave back as much as they had to according to that license.
That's it, that's the whole thing; Apple never were the bad guys, because they did what they have to.
Now Apple is doing even more than they have to, and now you are waiting for the "KHTML developers" to say if they like it or not before figuring out if Apple are they good guys or not???
Wake up and realize that Apple's doing more than they have to, now it's up to the "KHTML developers" to figure out if they 1) want to use to code or 2) can use the code.
If they can't use the code, then what would Apple have to do to make them the good guys in your book??? Hire people to teach them and/or do the programming for them?
perl -e'print$_{$_} for sort%_=`lynx -dump svanstrom.com/t`'
Bitching about the "SPIRIT" of the GPL, LGPL, whatever, are retarded. Seriously. Look, if the developers wanted to be dicks about it they could have (and should have) released their KHTML shit under a license that explicitly stated their desires.
SPIRIT schmirit.
Their behavior boils down to "Wah, I offered my friend a lollipop and he took it."
What are you talking about? Wasn't it only in the last month that KHTML was successfully able to integrate half the changes/patches provided from Apple into their trunk?
Getting half the patches in sounds like an advantage, especially compared to none, which is what would be the case if Apple had not adopted KHTML, right? So in the end, prior to this advance, KHTML gained lots of work, and Apple gained lots of work, and thus both had already benefited.
GPL Deconstructed
They had contributed back
They did release all their changes as one giant tarball, which, while complying with the license, is not a good basis for merging back changes. They did not get actively involved in hacking KHTML, instead they did a classic fork. This is not bashing Apple, just trying to bust some myths.OSS people got upset as they wanted more.
KHTML developers never complained about Apple's way of doing things. They were annoyed about users saying "This is fixed in Safari, why isn't it fixed in KHTML? They are the same thing!", so they pointed out that no, it wasn't, and merging with Apple is no easy task, because (a) the codebases have diverged so much and (b) the format in which Apple publishes its changes is, while legally sufficient, not an good one for merging changes back. Somehow, that was interpreted as complaining about Apple, while all they were really doing was trying to bust the myth that KHTML and Webkit are still the same thing.The SCO Group, Inc. (SCO) is a provider of software solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and replicated branch offices. SCO solutions include UNIX platforms; messaging, authentication, and e-business tools; and services that include technical support, education, consulting, and solution provider support programs.
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I think this problem highlights the fact that Corporate America doesn't seem to understand that if they treat relationships with open source developers as a non-zero-sum game, both parties can benefit. There is definitely a synergy that is created (or should be created) when open source teams up with corporate entities and this relationship needs to be nurtured further for the most bang for the buck.
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Apple always did what they were supposed to do under the KHTML license...
What more or less happened:
- Apple was doing what they were supposed to do, but not anything more
- KHTML devs asked for some more, mainly access to Apple/Safari's internal repository and bug tracker in order to have a better understanding of webcore and ease the porting of the patches to the main KHTML trunk
- There were no answers from Apple
- KHTML devs dropped the issue and just decided to forget about it and keep working as they always had
- Acid 2 is released, Dave Hyatt does a wonderful job on Safari and soon gets the first fully Acid2 compliant browser (dev version)
- Everyone is overjoyed... and people start saying how wonderful apple is and how it'll benefit to KHTML core (I've been guilty of it, too)
- Main KHTML dev blogs saying that there is no way for the K devs to easily patch the tree from Webcore patches, that there is no real communication/backfeed between KHTML and Safari teams, and that people who don't have a clue about how it works should shut the fuck up (note that what he was ranting about was people not having a clue, not the relationship between Apple and the K team)
The of GP is fucking nonsense and cluelessness, which is why his post isn't informative in any way"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
The "relatively small group of people" you're talking about are the ones who created the base core of Safari's rendering engine (KHTML) for fuck's sake. And if you had at least checked what happened, you'd have seen that the K guys had indeed asked (privately, not in public channels) for limited access to Apple's Safari repository and bug tracker before...
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Because there is no "-1 factually incorrect" moderation. The previous poster apparently had no idea what they were talking about. The KDE team made no agreement with Apple, Apple just took the code and used it in compliance with its license. Then they released the changes when they released WebCore, much to the surprise and delight of the KDE team. They have been giving back all the changes, but since the Konqueror project decided a lot of them were not the way the wanted the project to go and since both groups are using different versioning systems the KDE folks were having some difficulty extracting the changes they wanted from all the Webcore code.
After some time of this one of the KDE guys got sick of everyone telling him how easy his job was now that Apple was doing all his work for him and wrote a very reasonable and clear statement about how Apple's changes were really hard to incorporate and why and how they wished Apple would give the team access to a CVS repository. This got posted to Slashdot and horribly misinterpreted by the vast majority of the readers into some sort of "Apple is stealing open source code" thread.
Immediately thereafter one of the Safari guys fixed Safari so it would pass the acid compliance test and made sure to put in special notes just for the KDE guys. Again, Slashdot picked this up and there was a huge rehashing of the previous argument, despite Apple trying hard to be nice. Now Apple has gone to great lengths and released exactly what the KDE team asked for despite the fact that it is extra work and expense (which they might have done earlier had they actually been asked).
The previous poster of course only read a few idiot's comments on Slashdot, never read any of the articles and thus was spreading his ignorance on Slashdot even more by restating factually incorrect third-hand interpretations of opinionated and poorly informed comments from Slashdot. Hence the modding down (or so I guess since I did not mod him).
Apple wants to make some use of OSS code in their software, but they don't want to contribute back, which is not cool.
I think you're way off base. What makes you think they don't want to contribute back? Did you read the article about KDE passing the ACID compliance test? That was due to an Apple engineer patching WebCore so Safari would pass then specifically writing a bunch of comments and micro patches for the KDE guys. For which, I might add, he was thouroughly ridiculed here on Slashdot for not providing a CVS repository (Apple does not use CVS) which one of the KDE guys had asked for a few days previously.
Now Apple is providing a CVS repository at extra work and expense to themselves and you have the gall to say that they don't want to contribute back? Are you actively trying to make the OpenSource movement look like a bunch of pricks or is it unintentional? How about when a commercial company bends over backwards, spends money and time to do exactly what is asked of them even when they have no legal obligation, and basically do everything they can to be the good guy, use and support open code and standards and give back very useful improvements you don't attribute it to them being forced to by all the bad press you've previously generated about them in a forum that they don't care about anyway?
Apple is being nice because the engineers working there are good guys and want to be nice and help out. They aren't doing it to avoid bad press. Give credit where it is due already.
You mean there is nothing to complain about now? Wait, what about that Intel thing? They can't get off the hook that easy!
Sorry, but that's just bs... the "KHTML developers" picked the license, and Apple gave back as much as they had to according to that license. That's it, that's the whole thing; Apple never were the bad guys, because they did what they have to.
Bullshit. The fact that they weren't legally required to be good citizens does not mean no one should ever be able to criticize their actions. They took a piece of software from an open-source group, acted like they wanted to cooperate with them, then forked it too far and acted like asses when the KHTML guys asked them to try to work back toward one codebase. They went so far as to tell the KHTML guys to just drop their project and use Apple's version.
None of this was illegal. It was just a dickhead move.
Of course, now Apple has done something in the hopes of correcting that, which indicates they also feel they haven't done right by KHTML. Hopefully this will help the situation...overall, I have seen Apple as a halfway decent OSS player. But in this case, I think time will have to tell...the real issue is whether this will help the two codebases codevelop more or not. If it doesn't, Apple will have been the "bad guy" because they will have unnecessarily split development resources and time for a project that could have been cooperatively handled. That's a Bad Thing, regardless of whether it's legally permissible.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Actually, they simply also clicked the "release as OpenSource" checkbox, and stayed up all night partying.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Doesn't it seem logical that the tarball they released was the best they could do at the time? I bet if you look through the CVS repository they just released, you'll see some Intel specific stuff, maybe even just a check-in comment. That would have blown their big secret. Which, incidentally, is amazing they managed to keep that secret for 5 YEARS!
It's been said before but I think it's insightful enough to say it here:
If they weren't happy with Apple following the license to the letter, they were using the wrong license.
There's also the fact that Safari's intelligent about naming tabs. If you have five tabs open whose names all start with "Amazon.com," for example, and there's not enough room to display the whole title, Safari gets rid of the redundant part of the name. Meanwhile, in Firefox you'll probably be seeing "Amazon.com" five times--not particularly helpful.