Re: Pleased with QtBrowser

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by eds on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @12:18

Disclaimer: I'm not a KHTML developer

I think KHTML devs never see Webkit in KDE as bad, but they still want to develop their very own rendering engine, what's wrong with that? Having alternatives is always good, moreover you can't force people what to do in their free time.

I support Webkit in KDE, but disposing KHTML now is just a plain stupid idea comes from people who does not know how open source works. I'm sorry, but seems you do not really understand how open source works. Saying: dump this because we have better alternative maybe will work in proprietary world. (I also hate when people say that KOffice is a waste of effort because we already have OpenOffice.org)

As long as KHTML still have developers behind them and still have users, it will *not* die. If finally KDE project has decided to ditch KHTML but the developers still exist, KHTML can be continued outside KDE.

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by Iuri Fiedoruk on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @14:49

Well, yes and no.
You see, a lot of users did not wanted the dying of kicker, but it happened for better (at least we hope so). :)
But yes, I'm not saying khtml must die now, but webkit is the future, soon or later it will be one of the dominant engines.
Look at maemo, qt, safari, iPhone, android and you see a bright future for it.

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by Luca Beltrame on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @22:29

"You see, a lot of users did not wanted the dying of kicker, but it happened for better (at least we hope so). :)"

I'm sure you're well intentioned and aren't doing this in bad faith, but why, *every* time you post about Plasma, you take shots at it?

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by eds on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @22:50

He is a well known strong supporter of old good kicker and Webkit. He doesn't really like plasma (KDE 4.0.x version of plasma to be more precise) and really likes to discredit KHTML ;)

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by Iuri Fiedoruk on Thursday 17/Apr/2008, @05:39

Yes and no :)
Plasma 4.0 = trash, crash, poor, less than alfa-quality.
Plasma 4.1+ = gold, awesome, impressive, shiny.

I was not being sarcastic, I've already asked forgiveness to Aaron Seigo (and can ask how many time it is needed, he can ask me to do so as many times he wish, I don't mind), because I think his *vision* of plasma as substitute to the old desktop is right and plasmoids development will be more easy than creating a cake.

The problem is that plasma is far from ready now, and I won't even talk about way back when 4.0 was released.
The main idea of plasma was having a stable base where developers could create widgets without changes in the code each new kde version and that plasma updates could be distributed indepentent of KDE release cycles. I've asked Aaron, and he said this will happen on 4.1 and afterwards.

So, long history short: After KDE 4.1 plasma is the king, if they had released kde 4.0 as kde4-developer-edition I would have nothing to complain.
I just have strong opinions, as Aaron does.

Our last struggle was about removing those crappy mini-icons on plasmoids. He did not liked my (and other opinions) and we kind of crashed, but that does not mean I don't respect and admire him, I just won't help get his ego bigger because a big ego leads to bad decisions ;)

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by eds on Wednesday 16/Apr/2008, @22:39

Well, kicker died because all the developers have agreed that it must die, and porting all those kicker applets would be just waste of time. In the case of KHTML, none of KDE developers say KHTML shall die ;)

Well, we just see, whether KHTML will die as what you wish or it will still strive as an alternative rendering engine. With the introduction of KHTML in Windows, I'm sure KHTML will get more market share.

(And safari in Windows is not as good as Safari on Mac, I prefer Firefox over Safari in Windows, and if Konqueror has been stabilize on Windows, surely I'll use Konqueror)

Alternative is good, do you know even there are more smaller open source rendering engines which have smaller market share - even maybe less than 0.001% market share? Like Netsurf for RiscOS, which is quite capable despite it is still very young and ultra-lightweightness.

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by Jim on Thursday 17/Apr/2008, @03:53

> I support Webkit in KDE, but disposing KHTML now is just a plain stupid idea comes from people who does not know how open source works. I'm sorry, but seems you do not really understand how open source works. Saying: dump this because we have better alternative maybe will work in proprietary world. (I also hate when people say that KOffice is a waste of effort because we already have OpenOffice.org)

This is complete nonsense. There's nothing wrong or anti-open-source about dropping a branch when a fork is a better option. It's exactly what happened with GCC/EGCS. Do you think that the GCC developers don't know how open source works?

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by eds on Thursday 17/Apr/2008, @04:19

Nonsense, they are not the same. For the case of EGCS, the FSF themselves who officially announced that they officially terminated old branch of GCC and made EGCS the new GCC. For KHTML vs WebKit case, the (current) KHTML devs still do not want to drop KHTML until several issues have been addressed. Note that they are not opposed in this idea, they just want some issues to be addressed first. So in this case, there is no agreement yet.

And even in the case of KDE really wants to kick KHTML from official KDE (KDE 5 maybe?), everybody is free to maintain KHTML outside KDE.

Really, nothing wrong with dropping a branch or a fork, but you cannot force your opinion to some people who are willing to maintain it. And why the heck we need to drop a stable and actively developed rendering engine?

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by Jim on Thursday 17/Apr/2008, @05:32

> For the case of EGCS, the FSF themselves who officially announced that they officially terminated old branch of GCC and made EGCS the new GCC. For KHTML vs WebKit case, the (current) KHTML devs still do not want to drop KHTML until several issues have been addressed. Note that they are not opposed in this idea, they just want some issues to be addressed first.

So why are you accusing luri of not understanding how open source works when he says that "webkit is the future"? He didn't demand that they drop it immediately or anything like that.

> And even in the case of KDE really wants to kick KHTML from official KDE (KDE 5 maybe?), everybody is free to maintain KHTML outside KDE.

Yes, just like anybody is free to maintain the old pre-EGCS GCC. What's your point?

> Really, nothing wrong with dropping a branch or a fork, but you cannot force your opinion to some people who are willing to maintain it.

Who is trying to force anything?

And if there's nothing wrong with dropping a branch, then why are you saying that doing so is anti-open source?

> And why the heck we need to drop a stable and actively developed rendering engine?

Josep already posted some good reasons why.

By definition, you can't drop something that isn't actively developed, so using the fact that it is actively developed as a reason to not drop something is circular logic.

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by blauzahl on Thursday 17/Apr/2008, @10:05

> He didn't demand that they drop it immediately or anything like that.

He sure implies they might as well.

> Josep already posted some good reasons why.

He didn't post good reasons. He posted poor reasons, and he didn't even bother trying the most recent version of Konqueror to compare. Instead he implies it is so buggy he couldn't even get it to work. It works just fine for me, so if he's having problems, he should be filing bugs.

> By definition, you can't drop something that isn't actively developed, so using the fact that it is actively developed as a reason to not drop something is circular logic.

I'd like to point out that khtml is still under active development. Look at the changelogs for the 4.0.x releases. It's also pretty stable: in all the time I've played with 4, I've only crashed Konq once, and once I reported it, it was fixed within the day.

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Re: Pleased with QtBrowser
by Jim on Thursday 17/Apr/2008, @11:00

> > He didn't demand that they drop it immediately or anything like that.

> He sure implies they might as well.

No, he didn't. Saying something "is the future" is *explicitly* making a statement not about the present, but the future.

> > Josep already posted some good reasons why.

> He didn't post good reasons.

Fast startup, fast rendering, really simple, very easy to use... they sound like decent reasons to me.

> he didn't even bother trying the most recent version of Konqueror to compare.

Would that be the version of Konqueror tied to the version of KDE that end-users have been told *time and time again* to stay away from because it isn't finished yet? Are you surprised that people are actually taking this advice?

> if he's having problems, he should be filing bugs.

No, if he's having problems, then that justifies his preference for another browser. You can't blame users for choosing a more stable competitor instead of helping you track down bugs.

> I'd like to point out that khtml is still under active development.

I wasn't saying otherwise. I was pointing out that isn't a reason not to drop it.

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