Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 14, 2010 23:19 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722)
In reply to: Behind the KOffice split by rvfh
Parent article: Behind the KOffice split

Konqueror drove khtml development to the point where it was a suitable base for Apple to do the last mile to get webkit. I don't think I'd be particularly sad if what is currently KWord ended up as ODT support in Chromium, particularly if it also contributed behavior towards HTML5 contenteditable support. There are worse fates for an open source program than to be supplanted by a program based around a fork of the library that provided most of its functionality.

Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 3:42 UTC (Wed) by mrshiny (guest, #4266) [Link] (4 responses)

Well, Google and Apple get all the credit in the mainstream for WebKit and meanwhile the Konqueror people are still relatively unknown. Not to mention that Safari is proprietary, and Chrome quasi-proprietary.

Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 8:18 UTC (Wed) by ingwa (guest, #71149) [Link] (3 responses)

I think most people are missing the point here. For KHTML, the code was copied from the KDE repository by Apple and then developed away from the community for a long time until it was released as a big code dump with so many changes that it was basically impossible to merge back into the main branch.

In the case with KOffice / Calligra and Nokia, the code is developed inside the main repository and committed one bugfix or feature at a time. For new features and complex bugfixes there is a review process using the KDE review board.

The situations have almost nothing in common.

Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 14:18 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

> The situations have almost nothing in common.

For now?

Since you seem to know the situation well, could you please remind us what are the respective licences of all these?

Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 14:50 UTC (Wed) by ingwa (guest, #71149) [Link]

Well, it's difficult to tell the future, but I have seen no signs of any change in the approach.

Regarding licenses, the majority of Calligra is under LGPL with some small parts under GPL. All code contributions so far have been under LGPL.

Behind the KOffice split

Posted Dec 15, 2010 17:07 UTC (Wed) by ThinkRob (guest, #64513) [Link]

I think most people are missing the point here. For KHTML, the code was copied from the KDE repository by Apple and then developed away from the community for a long time until it was released as a big code dump with so many changes that it was basically impossible to merge back into the main branch.

Indeed. After the community complained, however, Apple opened their repositories, and eventually produced the open-source WebKit engine -- a project which Apple still sponsors (and employs the lead developer(s)) to this day.