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WebKit rising
Once upon a time, there were no usable free web browsers for the Linux
environment; the binary-only Netscape releases were all that was available
to us.
For many, the solution to the problem was to be found in the release of the
Netscape source code; some years later, we got the Mozilla and Firefox
browsers (based on the Gecko rendering engine) from this work. The KDE
project, though, took a different route in the late 1990's, developing the
KHTML renderer to use with the Konqueror application.
A few years later, Apple surprised the world by selecting KHTML as the base for its Safari browser, despite the fact that Gecko was more widely deployed. What followed was essentially a fork of KHTML and some bad blood between Apple and the KDE project. Over time, the two sides have come to a better understanding, but KHTML and Apple's version (WebKit) have remained separate. The existence of two KHTML forks may not last that much longer, though, and some interesting things appear to be happening. One of those things is that Konqueror is slowly being moved over to WebKit as its rendering engine. The decision to go in this direction was made at the 2007 Akademy gathering, and work has been proceeding ever since. Current Ubuntu development releases include a preview version of Konqueror on WebKit. Work can be expected to continue in this direction, with the result that KHTML will slowly lose its prominence in the KDE project. The fork, in other words, is beginning to join, with the resulting software being called "WebKit." [Update: as can be seen in the comments, this paragraph overstated the case somewhat. Things might end up as described here, but that is not the case now.] Meanwhile, it seems that people are actually starting to use Safari, to the point that web designers are thinking that they should actually test their sites with it. For what it's worth, Safari currently accounts for just over 3% of visits to LWN.net - relatively small compared to Firefox (over 60%), but, when added to Konqueror's 4.5%, it makes half of Internet Explorer's 15% share. One can argue that the mix of browsers used by LWN readers is not typical of the net as a whole, but, even so, it looks like WebKit-based browsers just might become a significant part of the Internet's software base. [PULL QUOTE: When a GNOME project announces, on April 1, that it is moving over to a major component which came from the KDE camp, one can be forgiven for not taking it seriously. END QUOTE] The story does not stop there, though. When a GNOME project announces, on April 1, that it is moving over to a major component which came from the KDE camp, one can be forgiven for not taking it seriously. But it would appear that this announcement from the Epiphany developers, saying that they are moving to WebKit as their sole rendering engine, is the real thing. Epiphany, remember, is the closest thing that GNOME has to an official web browser; it has users who swear by its better integration with the GNOME desktop. But Epiphany has always been based on the Gecko engine, and it seems that not a whole lot of users have seen reasons to stick with it over Firefox, which provides rather more functionality on the same engine. Epiphany is not a big force in the browser arena currently. Last year, the Epiphany developers added an abstraction layer which allowed the browser to operate over multiple rendering engines, including WebKit. Now they have decided to take that layer back out and to support just one rendering engine: WebKit. The development team cites a number of reasons for moving away from Gecko, including release-cycle mismatches, a feature set which is driven by a competing project, and a lack of attention being paid to the Gecko/GTK embedding API. Gecko, they have decided, is not the best fit for Epiphany. WebKit, instead, was designed for embedding - the WebKit project's goals explicitly rule out building a browser themselves - and the GNOME API is said to work very nicely. WebKit in GNOME uses technologies like Cairo and Pango, like many other GNOME applications. Overall, the Epiphany team feels like WebKit is a better match for what they are trying to do - and they suggest that a number of other GNOME projects move in that direction as well. The initial response from other GNOME participants appears to be positive, with the exception of some concerns about accessibility support in WebKit - concerns which, presumably, can be addressed. The GNOME/KDE flame wars, happily, are some years behind us. Developers from both projects are more interested in cooperation these days, but, so far, much of that cooperation has been around relatively small, low-level components. An HTML rendering engine is not a small, low-level component, though. If both projects seriously work toward the improvement of WebKit, they will have started an era of rather higher cooperation than has been seen in the past. If this cooperation holds together, it can only be to the benefit of both projects, and to all other users of WebKit as well. The Gecko engine is good code and a highly successful project. But it is also controlled by a company (Mozilla Corporation) whose agenda, beneficial though it may be, does not include the creation of successful competing browsers. So it's not entirely surprising that Gecko has not proved to be entirely suitable for groups trying to create those competing browsers. WebKit, at the outset, looks like it is better suited to this task. The WebKit project has expressed interest in working with GNOME; there might just be a productive partnership in the making here. But it's worth remembering that WebKit, too, is a project developed by a company with its own objectives, few of which make any mention of turning 2009 into the real year of the Linux desktop. For now, though, WebKit has the look of a project with all the right attributes: real independence, merit-based access to the source repository, no requirement for copyright assignments, reasonable licensing, and the right goals. It may well be positioned to become a core component in the Linux desktop. (Log in to post comments)
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 16:51 UTC (Wed) by adj (subscriber, #7401) [Link] Once upon a time, there were no usable free web browsers for the Linux environment Well, once upon a time, there was no Linux. I distinctly remember using lynx in the 1995-1996 timeframe. It was certainly usable. Some quick research indicates it was released under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2. I believe most would say this makes it free software. There's something in the back of my brain saying emacs has had a web browser built in for eons, though I haven't yet found a reference stating when it was added. Viola/ViolaWWW seems to date to 1991 or so, but I haven't been able to find a license for it. NCSA Mosaic was "free" by some definitions of that term, but few would categorize it as "free software." (I find myself wondering what the point of this comment is. It's probably nothing more than "I'm an old fart and have been browsing the web for way too long.")
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 16:58 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Whether a text-only browser counts as "usable" is clearly a matter of opinion. Certainly a lot of people didn't see it that way. And "free" clearly meant "free as in free software."Perhaps the sentence should have said "free graphical web browsers".
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:52 UTC (Wed) by adj (subscriber, #7401) [Link] Whether a text-only browser counts as "usable" is clearly a matter of opinion. Certainly a lot of people didn't see it that way. Different people will certainly give different answers to the usability question. (Interesting line of inquiry springs to mind: "How does one objectively measure 'usability'?") To the best of my recollection, about the only common content of the day that lynx couldn't cope with was server-side imagemaps. Oh, and those obnoxious <frame> things that Netscape had just inflicted on us. It obviously wasn't the best tool for viewing picture galleries, but most of the actual content out there on the web was rendered acceptably. That great directory of things on the web, yahoo, was easily browsed with lynx. What more could one want? Perhaps the sentence should have said "free graphical web browsers". Well, it does run in an xterm. *ducks*
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:50 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] w3m is a textual browser with inline image support (in xterms) :)
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 20:13 UTC (Wed) by adj (subscriber, #7401) [Link] w3m is a textual browser with inline image support (in xterms) :) w3m dates to 2001 (based on the ChangeLog file in the w3m 0.5.1 source distribution). This is, I think, well after "once upon a time." That said, I do quite like w3m. I generally prefer it to lynx when browsing from the machine at home while at the office. links works quite well, too. And it does have a very lightweight graphical mode if that's your thing.
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 20:53 UTC (Wed) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link] lynx has imagemap support, it just lists the links and you can choose where to go from there. Just not serverside image maps (as you can't click on the image).
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted May 8, 2008 20:33 UTC (Thu) by JohnNilsson (guest, #41242) [Link] "How does one objectively measure 'usability'?" Usability: "the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use" (ISO 9241-11) So a first stop should probably be to specify the users, goals and context.
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 3, 2008 1:31 UTC (Thu) by bajw (guest, #11712) [Link] You mean "usable" as in Shockwave Flash, animated GIFs, and other such user-hostile commercial advertising delivery mechanisms that the <blink>graphical</blink> web is used for? These modern usability features are what I need to turn off to make the web usable for me. Maybe I'm just old... </rant>
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 3, 2008 1:54 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] No, I didn't mean that at all. Where did that all come from?Like many people, I didn't make much use of the web before Mosaic came out. It just didn't seem worth the trouble of moving past gopher, which is where all the really cool stuff was. I hope you'll agree that LWN understands the value of text, but there is a lot to be said for moving beyond curses for the user interface too. So, for many (probably most) people, Netscape was the only usable web browser on Linux for quite a few years. It seems a little weird that this point of view requires defending.
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 3, 2008 6:21 UTC (Thu) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link] Mosaic has been mentioned, but there was also mMosaic. Sun had a great GUI browser for Linux in which all windows existed inside the main browser panel. It even came with its own webserver. It resembled early Opera alarmingly. Gopher was great, but never WAIS time on just one technology available for the Archie-tecture. Probably the most creative GUI brwsers to be found operated via LambdaMOO - the Emacs of the gaming world at the time.
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 18:40 UTC (Wed) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] I think that time was not 1995-1996, but 1998-1999. This was when graphical web browsers were the norm and fewer and fewer sites were designed with text in mind. Communicator wasn't free, Mozilla wasn't usable yet, chimera and amaya were buggy and incomplete. I stuck with lynx while I searched far and wide for a graphical browser that didn't suck, but that doesn't mean lynx was usable in that year's web. Actually I'm still looking :) Suckiness may be inherent in the task. Whenever you're almost done supporting the current mess of pages, some new trend shows up that demands elevated levels of suck to support it.
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:35 UTC (Wed) by jmm (subscriber, #34596) [Link] If you're still looking, look into elinks. I use it for 90% of my private web browser usage and in comparison to lynx it's not crippled wrt to modern web standards (it supports frames, tabbed browsing, SSL) has all the required usability features (download manager, powerful bookmark manager) and is very efficiently controlled by keyboard.
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 20:09 UTC (Wed) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] I used to read LWN with the KDE 1.0 file manager! Was it kfile? I can't remember the name, but it was late 1998. It was ugly, but it worked (some of the time).
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 23:27 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] And isn't that the code that eventually became WebKit?
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 2, 2008 23:48 UTC (Wed) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] I guess it would be a direct ancestor, even if little of the original code remains. I wish I would have taken a screenshot for posterity. LWN's use of #ffcc99 is one of the minor constants of the universe. :-)
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 3, 2008 5:24 UTC (Thu) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link] #ffcc99 is new! (sorta) Here's early 2002 LWN: http://web.archive.org/web/20020124080304/http://www.lwn.... I still roll old school #ffffcc thanks to Display Preferences ("Left column background")at http://lwn.net/MyAccount/ . -Brock
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 3, 2008 15:14 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] The weekly news page used to be yellow, but IIRC the daily updates page has always been orange. I kind of miss those yellow weekly news pages...
No free web browsers for Linux? Posted Apr 10, 2008 20:33 UTC (Thu) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link] NCSA Mosaic was "free" by some definitions of that term, but few would categorize it as "free software."Why not? It's a long time, but it looked like free software to me the last time I built it. The only problem was that it used Motif (proprietary), but I got it to work with LessTiff. I used it for a long time, so it was obviously usable; IIRC I never installed Netscape on my home machine, but used Mosaic until Mozilla was ready. I also used Emacs w3 now and then (whereas the Lynx user interface was counterintuitive for me and therefore unusable).
Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 2, 2008 16:52 UTC (Wed) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link] It is interesting how many people express outrage over Mono, which is a largely independent open source implementation of a Microsoft technology, but hardly anyone seems concerned about the increasing dependency on Apple for key Linux technologies (I can think of 3 off the top of my head: CUPS, WebKit and Rendezvous/Bonjour).
Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:02 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Two of those were free software before they were Apple, and would plausibly continue independently of Apple if Apple were to vanish: we know that both could evolve independently if Apple were to take them in undesirable directions, because they already did.
Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 2, 2008 22:21 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Plus, Apple is playing ball with free software (at least with these packages). Your typical Linux desktop has even more dependencies with other big companies (think Sun or Red Hat) and few people are really concerned.Actually, I don't see the problem at all. Mono is a reimplementation of a patent-encumbered framework which could cause trouble. What is your concern about Apple and CUPS or WebKit?
Re: Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 3, 2008 1:26 UTC (Thu) by midg3t (subscriber, #30998) [Link] I'm not convinced that Rendezvous/Bonjour in Linux is dependent on Apple. Linux distros use Avahi for that, which is not owned by Apple in any way — Apple just published the protocol spec.
Re: Another dependency on Apple Posted Apr 3, 2008 3:39 UTC (Thu) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link] http://zeroconf.sourceforge.net/?selected=patents It's not clear to me that the problem has been resolved since then. I'd appreciate an update from anyone who knows more about it.
Patent expired Posted Apr 3, 2008 3:55 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] #1 That says the patent in question expired. Might there be other relevant patents? Yes, and the same is true for any modern software. However major corporations like Apple would be barred from even RAND licensing if they'd been involved in creation of the relevant standard at IETF, W3C (for most areas of competence) or certain other bodies. So there's no reason to be more worried about this than about say, GCC, or Linux itself, which are both complicated enough that they undoubtedly infringe on some outstanding bogus patent somewhere in the world. #2 That's about LLv4 and I think everyone else was discussing mDNS. LLv4 eventually became an RFC while mDNS stalled, but the Avahi code is an implementation of mDNS, not LLv4, and indeed Linux support for LLv4 remains rather poor though mostly usable.
Patent expired Posted Apr 3, 2008 10:34 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] Avahi also includes an IPv4LL implementation under the name 'avahi-autoipd'.
WebKit rising Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:06 UTC (Wed) by jwb (guest, #15467) [Link] I've been building Epiphany with the WebKit backend for a few months. It's a nice browser, and it allows me to test sites "in Safari" without having to actually use Safari. I find it interesting that WebKit and Gecko have diverged somewhat. Gecko has concentrated on performance and is now far faster and more efficient on real-world sites than is WebKit. WebKit, on the other hand, has concentrated on standards and features, and now surpasses Gecko in standards compliance. A few years ago the situation was the opposite. The competition has clearly been healthy for both projects.
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:10 UTC (Wed) by TxtEdMacs (guest, #5983) [Link] Admission of bias: I prefer Gnome over KDE (by appearance alone), however, I am bothered by the presence of Mono at Gnome's base code. Moreover, the recent propensity of some of those associated with Gnome to adhere too closely to the questionable assertions of MS on standards worries me. Hence, despite my bias, I will leave Gnome if this trend turns into their true future course. But where do I go? Another problem I have with Gnome, was their email application used to pop up in preference to my choice, Thunderbird (that has stopped). Nonetheless, I would like the option to remove entire default applications from Gnome, e.g. the email program and browser. My preference is Firefox, that I download myself and keep current (or nearly so ...) rather than allowing the distribution to rule (Ubuntu in my case). Finally, I happen to test for Safari. Moreover, I am on the webkit mail list, no argument inappropriately so, since I reported a flaw in Safari version 2.x handling of percentages in padding*. It was already fixed by the time of my report in the beta version of 3.0. Hence, while I am not an adversary of webkit <i>per se</i> I would appreciate the ability to remove applications I have no intention of putting to use. Could that be viewed as a rant? It was not meant to be. When Gnome was started, I thought the argument was it was meant to be fully object oriented and modular. So why is it a problem to cut the clutter? * Only integer values worked. If decimal values were used it was rounded down to the lower integer.
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:32 UTC (Wed) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link] Are you sure Mono is in GNOMEs "base code"? I'm mainly on XFCE, but use GNOME occasionally, and I definitely do not have Mono installed.
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:46 UTC (Wed) by TxtEdMacs (guest, #5983) [Link] Certain, no. However, I thought I read that assertion recently here in comments or content relating to the danger of Mono being accepted by free software. That is, it might be implicitly encumbered by existing MS patents.
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 4, 2008 3:57 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] I think people are easily confused by the .NET vs C# vs Winforms vs etc etc. Microsoft doesn't make it easy, seeing how they are monolythic about everything, but Mono as it's used in Gnome is the language that is used to make .NET. As long as Gnome avoids the parts of Mono that is not covered by the ECMA language standard (334 and 335 I believe) then I do not believe that Mono posses any more threat in terms of software patents (at least not any more scary then non-Sun patents that may cover Java or any patents that may cover techniques used by QT libs or python or anything else software-related) Now the stuff that Mono does to extend support to cover things like .NET extensions, Silverlight, or Winforms then I think that is worth avoiding. Those are the things that are questionable and I would be scared of if I was developing a application. I don't think that should be a problem for Gnome since I doubt very much that GTK# resemble Microsoft's application frameworks in any significant manner. http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/guidance.htm > General Declaration: > The General Assembly of Ecma shall not approve recommendations of Standards which are covered by patents when such patents will not be licensed by their owners on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. If anybody has anything concrete on any sort of software patents that are a danger for Gnome (beyond any hand waving) that Microsoft may have on the ECMA language standard then they should get together with some of those free software lawyers and try to get ECMA to renigh on their standard unless Microsoft comes clean. I am serious about this. If this is really a problem for Gnome or for any of the dozens and dozens of Linux distributions that ship Mono or anything else then it needs to come to light. I am sure that if there is _evidence_ in the form of patents documents or Microsoft's own docs that mention patents that are not licensed as part of the ECMA standard. Or if there is a problem with ECMA's definition of 'non-discriminatory' then I would be very surprised if Gnome devs didn't pull out of using Mono and replace it with something more safer. I don't think that anybody has anything even remotely strong though. I think it's all just pure guesswork and hand waving.
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 4, 2008 19:29 UTC (Fri) by TxtEdMacs (guest, #5983) [Link] I am not certain, however, it is my impression it is hard to get a copy of a submitted patent application where no office action has been taken. [Where do you think the term submarine patent arises?] Next to show how hard the program you suggest is to implement, consider this threat: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/14/microsoft-linux-and-ot... I remember it as 258 patents. Have any of these been even identified? I think they hide in the mist just about as completely as when this attempt at intimidation was made. It should have been easy to document with just a bit of cooperation. OK, let's get back to Mono. The real issue is we have no certainty, so why take unnecessary risks, particularly when the major use is implementing the preferred MS model for web development. If they are prone to make threats and snarl without provocation, why do them the favor that supports their strategic goals? In addition, what reason is there to opening a project to what might be, under current statutes, valid claims of infringement? There is another flaw in some Gnome project actions, why support OOXML as an official standard when, by market clout alone, it could have existed as a de facto implementation? Having done research on technological topics, I can attest that facts are very difficult to ascertain without either close set of knowledgeable contacts or the desire of an involved participant to disseminate information. If it is the latter, what you might be fed could be pure fantasy either due to their self delusion or it could be a simple marketing ploy. Disinformation can arise under other situations* too. When you are lucky and/or well connected you get facts. Much of the information I gathered was patently false. [You decide if I am punning, that way you get a taste of market research.] * In one case, I was speaking to someone high up in an organization of some repute, that simply rejected my inquiries and further berated my efforts. Several years later that organization came under attack for their lax treatment afforded the hazard. As a result, reputations lost luster, positions were lost and the problem even then was not remedied in a timely fashion. That is, self interest can be delusional and contagious.
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 30, 2008 8:08 UTC (Wed) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link] "There is another flaw in some Gnome project actions, why support OOXML as an official standard when, by market clout alone, it could have existed as a de facto implementation?" What are you talking about? Gnome does not support MSOOXML.
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 30, 2008 8:10 UTC (Wed) by jonasj (guest, #44344) [Link] (I mean support as in supporting its standardization, not as in supporting the file formats in the software)
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 12, 2008 17:24 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] Re: your ECMA quote. You are aware that "Reasonable and non-discriminatory" (RAND) licensing, as traditionally formulated, is not anything of the sort when it comes to Free Software, right? The problem is that RAND allows per-copy royalties, as long as they are offered at a standard "reasonable" rate to everyone. Of course, per-copy royalties do a number on Free Software, since that means it's not freely redistributable without by definition making the distributor liable for infinite royalties! So while the term /sounds/ good, those concerned about their Free Software rights have learned that RAND, by itself, ensures nothing. In fact, it's a negative, since it's likely to effectively ban Free Software use /at/ /all/, unless there are additional clauses that specifically nail down those royalties to zero or at minimum, a one-time fee that covers all use downstream and is specifically /not/ purpose restricted, for some form of Free Software license. (If the licencer wishes to maintain some restriction, they may limit it to copy-left licenses or to say the GPL specifically, if not, they may include MIT/BSD as well.) Or, a legally binding pledge to the same effect can also be acceptable. Other than that, I've nothing specific to point to; I'm simply pointing out that your quote of the RAND licensing conditions doesn't mean what it might intuitively look like it does, because in fact, RAND *IS* discriminatory, as the term was developed in a commercial context without reference to Free Software and due to terms, discriminates against it. As such, it's a favorite of MS, since they can claim to be non-discriminatory while in fact being nothing of the sort. Duncan
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:32 UTC (Wed) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] Not in the base GNOME libraries, but some programs that are released as part of the GNOME Desktop are written using C#/Mono (e.g. Tomboy, F-Spot. Not sure if Beagle is officially part of GNOME or not)
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 2, 2008 21:37 UTC (Wed) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link] Beagle isn't, neither is rhythmbox. Same stuff rhythmbox (in c) being the older project.
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 13, 2008 2:40 UTC (Sun) by shirish (guest, #35547) [Link] Hi all, I'm on Ubuntu Hardy and these following packages use mono on my system namely autopano-sift,f-spot,gbrainy,tomboy,hugin
WebKit rising - Perhaps I tend to worry to much ... Posted Apr 7, 2008 12:01 UTC (Mon) by ceplm (guest, #41334) [Link] > I am bothered by the presence of Mono at Gnome's base code. ... But where > do I go? yum erase \*mono\* \*sharp\* works pretty well for me :-) Matěj
WebKit rising Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:21 UTC (Wed) by jdub (subscriber, #27) [Link] Do keep in mind that GNOME and KDE hackers have been working together for a long time on projects such as those in the freedesktop.org family, and most notably, core technologies such as D-Bus. Plus, there's a bunch of ex-GNOME hackers working at Apple on WebKit and Safari. We are not such distant cousins. :-)
WebKit rising Posted Apr 2, 2008 17:39 UTC (Wed) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] > One of those things is that Konqueror is slowly being moved over to > WebKit as its rendering engine. The decision to go in this direction > was made at the 2007 Akademy gathering, and work has been proceeding > ever since. Where did you get this from ? As far as I know, no decision has been made on this. KHTML is still the official KDE html rendering engine and still actively developed. It is part of KDE 4.0, and as such I think has to stay supported for the whole lifetime of KDE 4.x. Since Qt 4.4 will come with QWebKit, and this will be used too in KDE, but I'm not aware of any decision. Alex
WebKit rising Posted Apr 2, 2008 18:50 UTC (Wed) by yokem_55 (subscriber, #10498) [Link] Yeah basically, the current status of KHTML vs. Webkit in Konqueror is that "the market will decide". Webkit is seeing a lot of use in plasma (see MacOSX widget loading) but KHTML is still getting a lot of active development and likely will for the near future. The webkit kpart for konqueror is still being slowly developed on, and the last time I tried it, it was quite rough (history navigation with front/back arrows didn't work, didn't load plugins, etc.), so it will likely still be quite a while before "the market" can push for it to become the default.
WebKit rising Posted Apr 2, 2008 18:32 UTC (Wed) by Sho (subscriber, #8956) [Link] > One of those things is that Konqueror is slowly being moved > over to WebKit as its rendering engine. The decision to go > in this direction was made at the 2007 Akademy gathering, > and work has been proceeding ever since. That's incorrect; no such decision has been settled upon. The source for this statement is likely a poorly-researched Ars Technica article from July '07 that Ars unfortunately didn't issue a retraction for, although its author didn't even bother to check in with the KHTML developers before publishing it. As of right now, KHTML is under active development, and remains the de-facto HTML rendering engine in the KDE application platform and its web browser, Konqueror. It's the only option that properly integrates with KDE infrastructure like password handling and cookie management, and the only option that's built on KDE's stack of platform technologies, such as KIO for HTTP. Given that KDE commits to API/ABI stability within a major release series for a variety of public interfaces offered by KHTML, it's also unlikely to go anywhere any time soon. What is true is that the up-coming major release of the Qt toolkit that KDE is built upon will include a Qt (back-)port of the WebKit codebase, and that there are those who are interested in providing WebKit as an alternative in Konqueror via that copy of the engine. To that end, a KPart component has been written to allow KDE applications to load WebKit via KDEs component model. However, that KPart is presently in a rather rough state. Also, WebKit in Qt 4.4 will still have a number of deficiencies that make it unsuitable for use in a web browser for a significant audience, such as the lack of support for Netscape plugins. Not to mention the present lack of all the KDE platform integration that KHTML does enjoy. In time, these issues may well be resolved (a Qt release cycle is about 9 months), and WebKit may be a strong alternative to KHTML in Konqueror. Given the compatibility advantage enjoyed by WebKit as a function of its market share, distributions may indeed also default to WebKit once it becomes viable, and it's fair game to speculate to that end. Claiming that KDE has made a decision to switch from KHTML to WebKit already is not, however. Jon, you're usually better at fact-checking ;).
Some browser stats Posted Apr 2, 2008 18:50 UTC (Wed) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] > One can argue that the mix of browsers used by LWN readers is not typical of the net as a wholeFWIW, March 2008 stats for a light (200K hits/month) LAMP web site with subject matter unrelated to Linux:
Windows 95.5% (75.1% Vista, 16.7% XP, 2.0% W2K, 1.7% other)
MS/IE 79.9%
Some browser stats Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:04 UTC (Wed) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] Unrelated to linux? What does the L in LAMP stand for then?
Some browser stats Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:15 UTC (Wed) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] The site uses a LAMP stack, where L stands for Linux. However, unlike LWN, the subject matter of the site is unrelated to Linux.
Some browser stats Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:36 UTC (Wed) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] 75% Vista. So even though it's not Linux-related, I bet it is tech-related.
Some browser stats Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:55 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Masochism-related, perhaps. (I don't know *anyone* who's voluntarily 'upgraded' to Vista yet. Actually, that's a lie, I know two early adopters, but they downgraded again.)
Some browser stats Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:43 UTC (Wed) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550) [Link] For that website's traffic anyway, it would seem that in Windows-land, Vista adoption has already reached 78%. Hmm, I had no idea that it was so high.
Some browser stats Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:56 UTC (Wed) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] That vista percentage is suspiciously high, the rest suspiciously low. Is this some sort of microsoft geek site?
Some browser stats Posted Apr 2, 2008 19:57 UTC (Wed) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link] ERRATUM: The Vista and XP figures above are transposed. XP should read 75.1%. Vista should read 16.7%. Apologies. Thanks to everyone who pointed out my mistake.
Some browser stats Posted Apr 3, 2008 9:28 UTC (Thu) by vmlinuz (guest, #24) [Link] Mr. Jon, purely out of interest, and unless it's considered commercially useful, any chance of getting more of the LWN stats? Yes, I'm a geek, why do you ask?
State of WebKit integration into KDE Posted Apr 2, 2008 18:50 UTC (Wed) by jmayer (subscriber, #595) [Link] The following article seems to describe the current situation of KDE and KHTML vs. WebKit quite well: http://blue-gnu.biz/content/khtml_vs_webkit_merge_or_not_...
WebKit rising Posted Apr 2, 2008 20:01 UTC (Wed) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link] KHTML seems to be alive and well too, just take a look at the just released KDE 4.0.3: http://dot.kde.org/1207154042/ Personally, I would like to see Webkit in KDE4 because having a sizeable markedshare is important and it will most likely also have quite a few more developers than KHTML.
Pidgin && webkit Posted Apr 3, 2008 1:32 UTC (Thu) by darwish07 (subscriber, #49520) [Link] Not mentioned in the article, so I think it worth noting as pidgin is a core Linux desktop application: http://www.pidgin.im/~seanegan/blog/ Search for webkit in the blog, as there's no link for each article
Pidgin && webkit Posted Apr 3, 2008 15:49 UTC (Thu) by gek (subscriber, #18143) [Link] Webkit is mentioned at the article at http://www.pidgin.im/~seanegan/blog/htmlwidget.html
WebKit rising Posted Apr 4, 2008 21:58 UTC (Fri) by matp75 (subscriber, #45699) [Link] I don't really understand the real reason for Epiphany removing Gecko as a rendering choice. Gecko 1.9(ie Firefox 3) uses a lot external librairies already used in a linux/gnome desktop (cairo, tango) (and the coming video support has a gstreamer backend). Latest Firefox 3 beta have made a lot of progress to use native gtk looking (I understand this part is not used by Epiphany) and have been very stable for a while. Concerning the dev cycle, the release cycle is easily explained by the fact that mozilla is concerned by security and has to maintain old versions for a while given the number of users and the cost of maintening multiple versions. I hope they can revert to promote choice. I like the idea of having choice of the rendering engine by a simple switch and let users choice. Concerning the global webkit rising, I think this is good thing as long as it helps having a web based on standards.
WebKit rising Posted Apr 10, 2008 8:00 UTC (Thu) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link] Did you read the announcement made by the Epiphany developers? If so, what part is not clear?
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