The WebKit team is currently busy, integrating the patches made for Google Chrome into the main WebKit repository. This includes the new V8 JavaScript engine and the Skia graphics library. Most integration work is done by Google employee and WebKit reviewer Eric Seidel. V8 is a fast, BSD licensed JavaScript engine that runs on 32bit x86 and ARM CPUs. Due that platform restriction, V8 probably won't replace WebKit's new SquirrelFish engine anytime soon as default, because SquirrelFish has broader CPU architecture support. Epiphany developer and WebKit reviewer Alp Toker gives an overview about Skia. Unlike V8, Skia is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. Some of Skia's main features are optional OpenGL-based acceleration, thread-safety, 10,000 less lines of code compared to Cairo, and high portability.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Do you mean "app" as in Chrome or "app" as in WebKit? Cairo might be available on Linux or *BSD, but on other platforms frankly it's a huge pain in the backside to port and maintain, and I'd rather do without it.
Thankfully WebKit is nicely abstracted so it's not something I have to worry about: I won't have to use Cairo or Skia if I don't want too.
Member since:2006-08-29
I meant Chrome, because Webkit isn't an app.
Cairo has been 'ported' to Windows too, it has a solid Windows GDI back-end, and there are semi-official binaries for Windows on GNOME.org and at a few other sites.
And yes, Webkit is 'nicely abstracted' alright, except Cairo and Skia are already abstractions on other libraries such as various X libs/capabilities, GDI, SDL, OpenGL etc. Skia is being pulled into the WebKit tree, WebKit is being pulled into the Qt 4.4(?) tree as well into the GNOME desktop codebase for use in Epiphany's Webkit back-end. Both the GNOME and Qt/KDE platforms already have their own designated drawing libraries, Arthur and Cairo.
Just what is going on here? Why another drawing library?
It looks like Skia SGL was an acquisition: http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2007/03/the_real_goo...
It seems to me that Skia SGL has little to do with 'competing' with Cairo on the desktop and more to with maybe getting Google's foot stuck further in the door with Opera on mobile devices.
Edited 2008-09-06 21:42 UTC
Member since:
2006-08-29
It'll be interesting to see if Skia shows any advantages over Cairo.
It has been shown that 2D drawing using current OpenGL implementations, although fast, create results which generally aren't very high quality or even consistent across OpenGL capable drivers and/or hardware.
Also, although I haven't checked, I thought Cairo was already thread-safe to the degree that two threads can operate on two different surfaces simultaneously?
As for code size, I don't see the point of comparing it. Cairo is a *mature* API and ABI stable *library* and shouldn't be imported into the Chrome tree anyway. The app should be using the system Cairo library, which will certainly be present on most modern Linux/Free desktops or installed automatically by your package manager.
Edited 2008-09-06 20:38 UTC