Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 13th Feb 2013 13:21 UTC
De kogel is door de kerk: as we already talked about earlier, Opera is going to switch to the WebKit engine, leaving its own Presto rendering engine behind. We didn't yet know if they would the switch only on mobile or on the desktop as well, and they cleared that up too: both mobile and desktop Opera Browsers will switch to the WebKit rendering engine.
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RE[8]: Comment by ssokolow
by Tony Swash on Thu 14th Feb 2013 10:59
in reply to "RE[7]: Comment by ssokolow"
Member since:2009-08-22
The standard is moot if everyone treats webkit as the de-facto standard. The Standard becomes webkit ... the same complaints are made about Microsoft Office not supporting ODF.
I don't really understand what you are complaining about or indeed what you want to happen instead.
You seem to be saying that having a single open source non-proprietry standard engine for the web upon which anybody can build different types of browsers is in itself a bad idea.
Why?
Isn't that exactly the best way to do things. Don't you think it is worse for the web, for users, for developers and for web site authors to be faced with multiple render engines, some of which only exist so that a single company can claim a stake in the web.
Compared to all other models of how one might go about ensuring a standards based and open web I cannot see what is wrong with the Webkit model.
Personally I hope all the alternatives to webkit die and die soon.
RE[9]: Comment by ssokolow
by lucas_maximus on Thu 14th Feb 2013 11:17
in reply to "RE[8]: Comment by ssokolow"
Member since:2009-08-18
I don't really understand what you are complaining about or indeed what you want to happen instead.
No obviously you don't.
You don't seem to care about there are thousands of incompatible forks of webkit that all implement the standards incorrectly.
Also this says nothing about the JavaScript interpreters which there are more than 6 or 7 different interpreter in the wild, which aren't tied to the Webkit engine.
Let alone all the application frameworks that are using (incompatible) versions of Webkit (SmartTV SDK versions on its own is different enough).
Then we have even in the same browser version on different operating systems.
Safari (last time I checked) works differently on Windows than it does on MacOSX and probably works differently on iOS ... that is fragmentation in the same bloody code base.
Then we have projects that want to start using HTML 5 and JS in their desktop frameworks (QML, Metro, GTK), which won't be webkit.
So instead of having a nice set of reusable tools that I could use on any project that is HTML and JS, I have to a slight hack for each platform.
Webkit isn't a browser, it is just one component of. Much like Linux is one component of a Linux distro.
History is repeating itself again, but it okay this time because Microsoft doesn't come out on top.
Edited 2013-02-14 11:27 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:38 UTC
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:30 UTC, submitted by JRepin
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.More News »
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Member since:
2009-08-18
1) it was not developed anymore, meaning no progress
2) only available on a single platform
IE6 was all about locked-in, locking users on windows, and locking users on microsoft technologies. All of that is not possible with Webkit. Since it is LGPL, it cannot become proprietary, and, if Apple cannot prevent others to use Webkit on different platform, also Apple cannot stop progress, if Apple decides to stop development of Webkit, no problem, Google and Opera will carry on the work, and it will give them a competitive advantage over Apple. This is the major difference between IE6 and Webkit, one was blocking progress, the other one cannot.
You are still missing the point. It is a mono-culture of Webkit and there are loads of incompatible forks.
Incompatible forks means lots of fragmentation. Fragmentation is a nightmare for developers.
Also if your browser isn't webkit based on mobile, well your browser won't work with a huge number of mobile sites.
That said, there is still the need for a good specification to make sure that rendering does not get broken across version of webkit. And that is an area where Opera is a very welcomed addition to the webkit world, they have always been the best at respecting the specification.
The standard is moot if everyone treats webkit as the de-facto standard. The Standard becomes webkit ... the same complaints are made about Microsoft Office not supporting ODF.
Edited 2013-02-14 09:18 UTC