Google Forking WebKit to Create New Web Rendering Engine for Chrome

[Renzatic]

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?

Look at the graph again. From April '08 on, Google has contributed over twice as much as Apple to Webkit.

While I seriously doubt Apple will just let Webkit slide without doing anything themselves, losing Google's support will probably sting a bit.

 

[subsonix]

Look at the graph again. From April '08 on, Google has contributed over twice as much as Apple to Webkit.

Confusingly, the graph layers the commits on top of each other. April 08 Apple had 387 commits and Google 17.

 

[Renzatic]

Confusingly, the graph layers the commits on top of each other. April 08 Apple had 387 commits and Google 17.

It's a pretty damn confusing graph. I'm going by the thickness of the colors (and basing that on what little I've read elsewhere) to determine who's contributed more. It's towards the end of April 08 (which by the way it's set up looks to be...I dunno...December...I think) when Google releases Chrome that they start contributing more and more to Webkit. By the end of the graph, they're regularly adding twice the amount of commits as Apple.

 

[Tankmaze]

just when opera moving to webkit leaving their own engine presto.
and now google want to fork webkit to create their own engine.

great, just great.








/s

 

[Rocketman]

People seem to be focusing on everything but the fork itself. Why? The detailed answer will be interesting.

 

[coder12]

Great... right after Opera switches over to WebKit we're going to have to start straying from the standards...

 

[Silvereel]

Apple is a much bigger company than Google. I'm sure they've got more than enough resources to handle WebKit on their own, if it came down to it. Hopefully, though, it'll still be able to maintain a vibrant developer community. I have a feeling that this bodes ill for the net.

On the bright side, it will make it easier for Google to integrate their privacy violations into the browser on a much deeper level.

 

[bozzykid]

Perfect, this allows Google to implement their own codecs and create their own IE disaster.

Whether they use webkit or blink doesn't affect what codecs they support. Webkit is just a rendering engine.

----------

Far from true. Apple has remained a large contributor to WebKit and will remain so.

Google currently has 95 webkit reviewers versus Apple's 59. And Google currently responsible for the majority of commits (49% vs Apple's 25%).

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Using Open Source and Standards is the way to go for browsers. Is Google becoming the new Microsoft?

Webkit is not a standard. And their fork is open source. If anything having more than one rendering engine other than IE is beneficial to the consumer.

 

[j33pd0g]

As a developer/designer I was greatly enjoying how Chrome and Safari rendered the same. It's enough hassle to have to deal with IE, Firefox, and Opera. I really hope Blink plays nice. I'm about sick and tired of compromising so that cross-browser compatibility can happen.

 

[tylernol]

I always thought WebM was an honest but ultimately vain attempt to get away from MPEG LA.

'

honest? No. Thievery plain and simple.

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It's a pretty damn confusing graph. I'm going by the thickness of the colors (and basing that on what little I've read elsewhere) to determine who's contributed more. It's towards the end of April 08 (which by the way it's set up looks to be...I dunno...December...I think) when Google releases Chrome that they start contributing more and more to Webkit. By the end of the graph, they're regularly adding twice the amount of commits as Apple.

'

judging by the amount of commits can be misleading.

 

[Renzatic]

'

honest? No. Thievery plain and simple.

What were they stealing?

 

[DisMyMac]

Sounds like another attempt by Google to control the keys to the Internet using open source as a veil to their true intentions.

Google cannot be trusted. They are an advertising company at heart and they received much of their venture capital funding from big brother.

I think both Apple and Google are blatantly 'guided' companies. By whom and for what purpose... let's just hope they're friendly.

 

[TheJae]

May be bad news for web developers. We currently develop web apps using Chrome and we can easily assume it will work fine in iOS and Android, with a new fork, means more testing time....

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

With Google forking, will Apple need a new dongle after it's all over?

 

[Renzatic]

With Google forking, will Apple need a new dongle after it's all over?

...where's that report button...

 

[Moshe1010]

Safari already feels snappier

 

[SvenSvenson]

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.

Indeed - because we all know that more lines of code = better quality.

 

[nger]

This is a good move on Google's part. It will bring enhanced, richer results to all. The mentality at Google is improve, improve, improve. While certainly not perfect, I give them credit for a positive attitude and willingness to take risks.

When this was Microsoft, you were saying: "The mentality at Microsoft is to embrace and extend and break standards". This is all that will come of this. Just because its google, doesn't mean they aren't evil.

What they are doing is dropping support for architectures that aren't theirs, and diluting the community control of webkit and eventually the web.

it seems that to these fanboi's that fragmentation, bad security and breaking standards is ok when google is doing it.

 

[retroneo]

Using Open Source and Standards is the way to go for browsers. Is Google becoming the new Microsoft?

Chrome (and thus Blink) supports the HTML5 standards better than Safari.

Just look at http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html

Chrome 26: 468/500
Safari 6.0.3: 378/500

Maxthon (the winning browser 476/500) is likely to switch to Blink as well - it's based on Chromium.

 

[ikir]

Sounds like another attempt by Google to control the keys to the Internet using open source as a veil to their true intentions. It reminds me of when they tried to hijack the video standard with WebM.

True, they love to show themself as the good guys but sadly this is another proof they just using others resources until they have an advantage.

 

[Vizin]

.

 

[tech4all]

...where's that report button...

It's to your left...

 

[Renzatic]

It's to your left...

I think you missed the joke, man.

 

[gto55]

Opera will also use Blink:
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/...-blink-as-part-of-its-commitment-to-chromium/

And Mozilla teamed with Samsung to propose their own rendering engine for Android devices:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/mozilla-and-samsung-collaborating-on-new-servo-web-browser-engin/

 

[ConCat]

Sounds like another attempt by Google to control the keys to the Internet using open source as a veil to their true intentions. It reminds me of when they tried to hijack the video standard with WebM.

Actually, it probably is as they say it is. Chrome's multiprocess model is vastly superior to WebKit2's model in terms of stability (while also being much more resource-hungry). Apple has jumped on-board with the pointless WebKit2 multiprocess model. I believe most of the code Google will be removing is the code support for this. That will be a much better engine for google. I suspect this fork will follow WebKit closely where it can though. Besides for the multiprocess model, WebKit is still an amazing engine.