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Google Forking WebKit to Create New Web Rendering Engine for Chrome
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Yup. This isn't too grand for Safari. Google was responsible for the vast majority of updates and contributions to WebKit. Apple was just along for the ride.
As of right now - according to the post on Engadget - it doesn't seem like much of a fork. Over time - they plan on stripping away "excess" code that has been part of WebKit. In short - they are going to re-architect it. That doesn't necc mean the addition of non-standard components.
Time will tell. If they streamline and enhance "blink" (instead of Webkit) - things could get interesting. And that might be there long range plan. Slowly see WebKit become obsolete and THEN introduce non-standard components. Only then - will they really be non-standard?
Read the post in context. It was a comment on increased integration with Google web-services, that is apparently currently not fulfilled with standard web technologies.
Those thinking this is a good thing obviously don't design web sites or know how hard it is to comply with multiple web standards. This just creates more browser fragmentation.
It doesn't improve anything for the end user as solid web designs program features for the least supporter browser up. If IE, Safari, Firefox all do something Chrome doesn't, it wont be used.
This means more of a headache for web designs, it means less people pulling in one direction which was what was so great about webkit and it means Google going against open source really and fragmenting it for their own gain - probably to serve their customers .the advertisers.
So now we're going to have to IE, Webkit, Blink, Servo, Mozilla and any old browsers to keep multiple differing HTML5 standards for great, this sounds like it'll be fun!
It doesn't improve anything for the end user as solid web designs program features for the least supporter browser up. If IE, Safari, Firefox all do something Chrome doesn't, it wont be used.
This means more of a headache for web designs, it means less people pulling in one direction which was what was so great about webkit and it means Google going against open source really and fragmenting it for their own gain - probably to serve their customers .the advertisers.
So now we're going to have to IE, Webkit, Blink, Servo, Mozilla and any old browsers to keep multiple differing HTML5 standards for great, this sounds like it'll be fun!
I see your point. I figured that was a given. Why wouldn't they want to incorporate at least some of their services as components?
Safari takes advantage of iCloud for storage of bookmarks, etc, no? Or are you taking potential issue with something else?
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I design Web sites - and have since the early 90s. I get where you're coming from. But I'm more a "wait and see" before I say this is good or bad. What I (personally) commented on are the people that say Google going in their own direction is a mistake (for Google) and "good riddance" so to speak. I stated earlier - the problem with THAT line of thinking is that Google has been the major contributor to WebKit for awhile. So without their input - where does that leave WebKit?
I'm just interested in seeing how it all plays out.
Ugh...well I suppose if I was Opera and wanted to go along for the ride (not putting alot of effort in) then Google's choice will be getting alot more updates (and ones relevant to multiple platforms) than Apple's.
Serious bummer since Safari (WebKit) won't be benefitting from that massive update resource it had from Google (and others) previously (guessing most others will move over with Google) - it'll just be Apple again on WebKit for the most part.
I hope Apple doesn't get distracted (with whatever the latest great thing is) and let Safari atrophy.
Just pointing out, this is exactly what Apple thrives on. Airplay, lightning cable, etc.
It's a rendering engine, as such it should use standard web protocols defined in rfcs. Application specific parts such as integration with web services should build on these standards, not invent new ad hoc methods. But listen, this is all conjecture meant as a comment on what japanime said, so don't bother to much about it.
Safari is not webkit.
Yes - sorry - was distracted and wasn't thinking clearly when I posted
Exactly.
Personally - I stopped using Safari a long time ago. Too many issues with it. I went from avid Firefox user (which I still do use) to Chrome. I wouldn't cry over the loss of Safari.
On the flip side - iTunes is still one hot mess.
Most active means nothing. The actual largest committed code impacts on the development process shows Apple with the majority. In short, quality over quantity of actual commits.
This won't impact web standards in any way.
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Your biases in the above comments are glowing red hot, unfortunately. Care to elaborate on exactly what "issues" you had with Safari and why iTunes is a "hot mess"?
On my flip side, Safari has been my favorite and preferred browser since the day it was first released. As a website developer, I've had more success with it than other browsers (that's the truth), but I won't say that it's been perfect at everything. And iTunes 11 is a great rebuild that breathed new life into an aging application.
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Far from true. Apple has remained a large contributor to WebKit and will remain so.
While I'm concerned about how this will initially affect the WebKit project, I think the waters will settle down eventually. If you read the Blink info page, the Blink project will continue to contribute to WebCore and JavaScriptCore, two elements at the heart of WebKit.
So who will be the first to fork Chromium and make a webkit based version for people who still want to use WebKit?
Google's default Do Not Track is that the user is not allowed to know how they are tracked.
Google cannot be trusted. They are an advertising company at heart and they received much of their venture capital funding from big brother.
I refused to build all of my code on their services. I might use them as an optional source as a "sanity" check but I would not use them as the main source anymore. They are way too fickle and focused on "advertising" dollars.
I refused to build all of my code on their services. I might use them as an optional source as a "sanity" check but I would not use them as the main source anymore. They are way too fickle and focused on "advertising" dollars.
That's about as overly simplified as basing it on commits. If you need a ton of code to do something that I can do in 1 line that doesn't mean yours is more valuable.
Can't speak for iTunes, but Safari is useless for anything other than extremely light browsing in a couple of tabs. Tabs in general are the biggest sticking point for me with Safari. When you have large numbers of tabs open, it crashes. When the number of tabs gets too high, they stop showing up in the tab bar and you have to open the pull-down menu, meaning twice as many clicks as there should be. You can't change the minimum size of tabs. When you revisit a tab you haven't seen in a while the page reloads, which is great for preserving memory (but useless when you have 16GB) but terrible when you had a form filled out you hadn't yet submitted. You can't move the close buttons off the tabs (at least last I checked-- maybe there's an extension for that now?). I could go on, but the TL;DR is Safari is useless at tab management and resource management and is therefore useless for any serious browsing.
Don't take him seriously...He's just being a smart ass.
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According to the graph, Apple is the main contributor to webkit. Do you have documentation to the contrary? I know it says Google was more involved in the last few years, but do you not think Apple will take up any slack with Google doing there own thing?
Using Open Source and Standards is the way to go for browsers. Is Google becoming the new Microsoft?