Apple Announces New "Safari" Browser

Wednesday, 8 January 2003 | Dre

In kicking off the <a href"http://www.macworldexpo.com/">Macworld Expo keynote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a new Macintosh web browser named Safari. Jobs said the browser was "based on standards", "works with any Web site", has much-improved performance over IE (page-loading speed is "three times faster", JavaScript performs twice as fast and it launches "40% faster" - comparisons to Netscape 7.0 shows similar performance gains on the Macintosh platform). The KDE connection: "[f]or its Web page rendering engine, Safari draws on software from the Konqueror open source project. Weighing in at less than one tenth the size of another open source renderer, Konqueror helps Safari stay lean and responsive." The good news for Konqueror: Apple, which said that it will be "a good open source citizen [and] share[] its enhancements with the Konqueror open source community", has today sent all changes, along with a detailed changelog, to the KHTML developers. Congratulations to the KHTML developers for this recognition of their outstanding efforts. Update @22:34: Dirk Mueller has posted an interesting mail from the Safari engineering manager as well as his response. Hats off to collaboration!

Comments:

Correct me if I'm wrong... - Jon - 2003-01-07

Konqueror just got a massive update from some apple developers?

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - RJ - 2003-01-07

... and what's more this browser ROCKS big time !!!!!

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-08

And here i thought Apple Sucked, just when they do something that makes me mad they turn around and use my favorite browser code in Safari, never thought i would say this but kudos to Apple. KDE guys bust out the champagne you guys deserve this recognition, your product was always superior to GNOME and I have been saying it for years.

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - re - 2003-01-09

>> your product was always superior to GNOME and I have been saying it for years. And many KDE users are still the same trolls as they used to be.. Does it ever stop? (heck, this article doesn't even have _anything_ to do with desktop wars?)

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - ac - 2003-01-09

The original troll is Miguel de Icaza on the KDE lists! You reap what you sow...

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-09

We can be trolls on our own lists, the only trolls are GNOME users who come in here and try to bring down the achievements of the KDE group. I wonder how many flame letters Apple has got tho from the Mozilla developers for choosing Konqueror as its standard for its new browser, I can see it now. In retaliation for Apple choosing KHTML and KJS Mozilla will no longer be developing a port of its browser for OS X. As for the desktop wars, KDE hyas already beaten GNOME on ease of use, GNOME 2 still has some quirks i dont like but hey keep trying maybe you guys will eventually get it right.

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - re - 2003-01-09

>> the only trolls are GNOME users who come in here and try to bring down the achievements of the KDE group Have you ever heard of the word 'generalization'? I sad 'many KDE users are still the same trolls as they used to be' while you're saying that _all_ Gnome users are trolls... That's quite a difference. And I'm definitely not browsing this site to bring down the achievements of the KDE group, I've got better things to do. Unfortunately the trolls (both the Gnome/KDE ones) don't seem to. :| I wonder why they're doing it actually. Do they expect that Gnome users will use KDE instead because they're saying it's better? (I'm not going to argue about which DE is better btw, everyone has their own choice)

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - Brad - 2003-01-10

Get a life both of you!

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - Paul Crowley - 2003-01-13

Hey, is there any reason KHTML couldn't be made to work for Gnome, the way Galeon brings Mozilla to Gnome? I don't know who would work on such a politically loaded project, but if the engine is better, why not use it? If it can be ported to Aqua and OS X it can surely be ported to Gnome...

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - Biswa - 2003-01-16

I actually proposed something like this a few months back and there was some discussion over it. We did this before for gtkhtml (it was a port of the original khtml code used in KDE 1.x). But in the end, it was felt that it did not offer compelling advantages over Gecko, which is improving in terms of speed and footprint all the time. You can read the discussion here: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-devel-list/2002-September/msg00059.html Rgds, Biswa. ------------------------------- Hey, is there any reason KHTML couldn't be made to work for Gnome, the way Galeon brings Mozilla to Gnome? I don't know who would work on such a politically loaded project, but if the engine is better, why not use it? If it can be ported to Aqua and OS X it can surely be ported to Gnome... ----------------------------------

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong... - glenalec - 2003-01-14

Yes, Apple has moved a notch or two back up from the bottom of my opinion today.

Congratulations!! - Fredrik C - 2003-01-07

Just one more evidence of KDE programmers extraordinary skill, enjoy your fame you deserved it! Who said anything about KDE code being slow?

Revolutionary - Bart - 2003-01-07

This is so revolutionary! Khtml on Macs! Does anyone have any idea how long it'll take before Linux people can see these changes in Konqueror at least in alpha or beta form?

Re: Revolutionary - Datschge - 2003-01-08

I'm expecting the merger of both sources to take not too much of time. I guess KDE 3.1 will be delayed again a little though. ;)

Re: Revolutionary - thefrog - 2003-01-08

Argg!! Don't make such funny expections. Some developers might here them ):- No, I think 3.2 is more reasonable, or may be 3.1.x.

Re: Revolutionary - Gunter Ohrner - 2003-01-10

Hey, KDE 3.1 is feature frozen since quite a few weeks (moths?) and currently at RC level. These changes will go into 3.2. (3.1.x is for translation, serious bug and security fixes only, as 3.0.x was.) Greetings, Gunter Ohrner

Re: Revolutionary - Sheldon - 2003-01-08

Probably KDE 3.2 at the earliest.

Re: Revolutionary - Rob Kaper - 2003-01-08

Some changes have already been committed to HEAD (what will be 3.2) and bugfixes are being backported to KDE_3_1_BRANCH to appear in 3.1.1. Since few of these improvements are grave bugs, I doubt 3.1 will be delayed, only showstoppers can do so now. No indication of a delay on the lists either.

Re: Revolutionary - Dawnrider - 2003-01-08

Did you say: This is so revolutionary! Khtml on *E*Macs! ::grins:: (ref to all the many Emacs is large enough to be it's own OS jokes)

Re: Revolutionary - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-08

What they need to do is seperate the konqueror code from the base packages so we as developers can have a better structure, one of the problems I have now is that if i make any changes to theKonqueror code and recompile, something in KDE crashes It takes me forever to debug and find the problem., who knows maybe Apple will release Safari for Linux. I know im pushing the limits and probably a little bit of wishful thinking.

Re: Revolutionary - Michael Collette - 2003-01-10

> who knows maybe Apple will release Safari for Linux. Or not. Apple, as much as I don't care for their stuff personally, does understand one vital concept that seems to get lost in the world of Linux. People flock to apps, not OS's. I've been hearing from just too many sources a very similar theme keep coming up. What can you run under Linux that you can't run under Windows? More specifically, what desktop style app would drive me away from Windows to Linux? Ask a Mac user a similar question, and they'll come back with a stack of responses concerning a number of fairly recent Apple software offerings. They might even point out a few 3rd party apps that are Mac only. These are far more compelling reasons to use a Mac than anything that OSX itself brings to the table. What seems to be happening far too often is that the really cool stuff developed for Linux gets itself a Windows port going. Yes, that app now enjoys a wider audience, but in so doing actually hurts the long term acceptance of a Unix desktop. As closed up as it sounds, I believe that some of the cooler applications out there need to code so specifically for a Unix environment that porting to Windows is made far more difficult. Personally, the KDE desktop itself is a compelling reason to stay right where I'm at with FreeBSD. KMail jumps way up there as a killer app for me, as it's arguably the best mail client I've used to date. As compelling as these are for me, they aren't going to force a shift by themselves. These things are what keeps the user that has moved over. Over this next year, the entirety of the Free software community needs to be able to answer the question of what you can do here that you can't do elsewhere. Arguments over price, security, and even stability just don't play with the desktop user like they do with the server administrator. On the plus side though, I truly believe that this is the year where Microsoft will begin to feel the impact of KDE coming strong into their desktop market space. You think they're paranoid about the data center? Just wait until the end users start shifting! I can hardly wait for the priceless over-the-top reactions to come.

Re: Revolutionary - Gunnar Liljas - 2003-01-15

In the absence of /. ratings, I'd like to say: Score:5, Insightful

Konqi is pretty fast already - Terry - 2003-01-07

But anything that incorporates Apple improvements is most welcome. The mention of sharing a backend common codebase is the real key to this budding relationship. Good work Apple and KDE developers !!!

Re: Konqi is pretty fast already - Jel - 2003-01-10

> The mention of sharing a backend common codebase > is the real key to this budding relationship Yes.. I hope Apple's reply to that question will be as openly published and reported as this has been so far. HINT, HINT. :)

Re: Konqi is pretty fast already - rob shaw - 2003-09-16

try it on a dial up connection, then talk about how fast it renders. it's pathetic. stop fixing 3.1.x and release 3.2.

Re: Konqi is pretty fast already - ac - 2003-09-16

I use it on dialup, it's great. Mozilla on the other hand is slow as molasses.

Safari - rick - 2003-01-07

Safari ist a great application and runs very fast under mac os x. congratulations for both developer groups, for KDe and apple! mac os x makes realy fun!!!

Safari - a.c. - 2003-01-07

Navigator Explorer Konquoror Safari is only natural for exploring a conquerored land They do have a sense of humour.

Re: Safari - anon - 2003-01-07

ROTFLOL

Re: Safari - Jochen P. - 2003-01-08

You forgot the Exploiter (IE5&6) between Konqueror and Safari :-)

Re: Safari - Jos - 2003-01-08

Is Safari still so fast when you go in a Jaguar?

Re: Safari - Jesper - 2003-01-09

Safari rocks so much in Jaguar that you get your rocks off!

Re: Safari - mac.zooks - 2003-01-15

Safari is so fast on Jaguar, I may never get broadband! (Except that it's absolutely necessary for quality streaming A/V stuff)... I live in an apartment in South Dakota, and there are not many broadband options here I would want to consider. So pending further developments, it's nice to have Safari on my iMac - at least for loading web pages at nearly breakneck speed.

Re: Safari - vascodagama - 2003-01-15

Safari means "journey" or "travel" in Kiswahili. For political incorrectness it isn't even in the same league as "Konqueror." --Vasco da Gama

Re: Safari - gord - 2003-01-17

So that would make Tourist the next browser :)

Re: Safari - Nicholas Shanks - 2004-08-20

Tourist - that be iCab then...

Konqueror did it! - Roland - 2003-01-07

With Apple's support, Konqueror/KHTML will make the step from unknown marginalized browser to established browser web designers check against. Apple's changes, while not revolutionary will also make Konqueror better. Great news. Now if only KDE 3.1 would be out :-)

Re: Konqueror did it! - Asdex - 2003-01-07

> Now if only KDE 3.1 would be out :-) Give them a few days so they can make Konqueror faster then Safari ;-)

Re: Konqueror did it! - Justin Donnelly - 2003-01-08

I don't think the importance of this can be underestimated. There was a point a year or two ago where it really looked like we were entering an era where web design was based on IE and IE only. From there it's only a hop, skip and a jump away from Microsoft eliminating the viability of Linux desktop. Only the most fanatical of the Linux faithful could stick with a platorm whose browsers can longer render the latest pages. But with the recent success of Mozilla and now millions of Mac heads about to switch to a non-IE browser, the balance will shift back to standards-based web design. This is really great!

Underestimated? - Paul McGarry - 2003-01-08

I presume you mean "overestimated".

Re: Underestimated? - Anonymous - 2003-01-08

No, "Understated". Perhaps.

Re: Underestimated? - Justin Donnelly - 2003-01-08

Oh... yeah. I meant "overestimated". Well, that really took the punch out of my post. =)

Re: Underestimated? - kodiac - 2003-01-08

actually overstated would work nicely. I hope you are right about this ending the era of ie centric web page design.

Re: Konqueror did it! - Mario - 2003-01-09

I think what you've said is very insightful!

Re: Konqueror did it! - Sabin Densmore - 2003-01-09

Web developers in my office are already downloading and testing, finding out what bugs to look out for (not many, so far) and getting ready for including Safari in the QA process. Well, okay, so at least *I* am ;). But seriously, we're moving out of the DOM1 world into DOM2, and khtml/Safari are great. And I have to say, that the ChangeLog from Apple was very helpful in getting insight into how the browser has been put together. Kudos to KDE and Apple. sd

Terrific news - germain - 2003-01-07

Champagne ! This is extraordinary exciting... Kudos to KDE and Apple, for both their past and future shines !

Great! - Moritz Moeller-Herrmann - 2003-01-07

Too bad that these efforts were not coordinated from the beginning, because right now, the changes in safari-khtml look very massive (and impressive!), so basically this is a fork. I hope that the fork will be closed soon, though, maybe in time for KDE-3.2? Congratulations to the great KDE developers, who beat Mozilla. We KDE users knew it all the time :-)

Re: Great! - Henry H - 2003-01-08

well they wanted it to be secret and openly working together with the KHTML-team would've forced them to reveal themselves and open up a wormcan of whining for it to be released before they even got started. This is the way companies has to work on Opensource implementations when they start out..

Re: Great! - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-08

Maybe this will change all that and other commercial contributors won't have to hide out in the woods and sneak code in.

Re: Great! - moor - 2003-01-08

> Too bad that these efforts were not coordinated from the beginning, because right now, This was because Safari was a secret* project. Jobs announces these "secret" projects every year at Macworld. * secret as in rumors had been flooding the mac news sites that apple was working on a browser.. everyone expected it to be a Chimera-like browser, especially after Apple hired it's creator. > Congratulations to the great KDE developers, who beat Mozilla. It hasn't exactly "beaten" Mozilla, as khtml still has a long ways in the CSS department and other technologies (XHTML) to go to be on the level of Gecko. Of course, Apple's development efforts should go a long way to briding the gap (especially in CSS).

Re: Great! - Reza - 2003-01-08

Agree, including lack of support for xml files containing tag like this: <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="blah.xsl"?> which on IE and Moz causes them to transform xml using the xsl file.

Re: Great! - Wandering the Web - 2003-01-08

Konqueror will likely not support this for years ... One thing Safari will have that is better than Konqueror and 7 gazillion times better than mozilla is a usable UI for bookmarks history and searching. MOZILLA'S BOOKMARK UI IS SO BAD I NEVER BOOKMARK THINGS AT ALL ...and konqueror's is barely better. I just use google and hope forthe best.

Re: Great! - tv-c - 2003-01-08

press F9 in mozilla

Re: Great! - Marc Mutz - 2003-01-10

> Too bad that these efforts were not coordinated from the beginning, > because right now, the changes in safari-khtml look very massive > (and impressive!), so basically this is a fork. I hope that the fork > will be closed soon, though, maybe in time for KDE-3.2? Perhaps now people see how seminal the Aegypten and Kroupware Projects were/are in this regard.

Great - gunnar - 2003-01-07

Congratulations! KDE really rocks. i love it! gunnar

What Else Are They Experimenting With? - nowWhat - 2003-01-08

Apple started by borrowing KDE's JavaScript implementation (KJS) Now, they've moved onto KHTML to help replace M$'s "Internet Exploder" Methinks perhaps Apple might be getting tired of being tied down with crappy old versions of M$Office as well, so can we expect AppleOffice soon, based on KOffice of course :-) Why don't they just buy Trolltech and free the code for all platforms; that way the community can port all KDE apps and frameworks to the Mac easier than currently being done by the good guys at the Fink project, and at the same time they can be ported over to windoze so we can destroy M$ in their own back yard! Jingle Bells, Bill Gates Smells, Ballmer's Run Away, Oh What Fun To See KDE Ride Into One, Micro Soft Way... Hey!! ;-)

Re: What Else Are They Experimenting With? - Jussi - 2003-01-08

> so can we expect AppleOffice soon, based on KOffice of course :-) Well, Appleworks already exists. Whether it's future versions will be based on KOffice or OpenOffice is a good question :)

Re: What Else Are They Experimenting With? - Michael Collette - 2003-01-10

> Whether it's future versions will be based on > KOffice or OpenOffice is a good question Tough call to be sure. KOffice is probably tons simpler to tweak into an Apple looking application. By default it simply looks nicer, and KWord offers a distinctly different approach from MS Word. It's also far more inline with a publishing application, which is certainly smack dab in the middle of Apple's core market. Just try getting a Quark user to bring up MS Word some time. It makes for some darn entertaining and colorful language. For all that's going for KOffice, OpenOffice still has significant advantages. It's codebase and stability are quite obviously more mature. The file importing and exporting from MS products is about as good as can be found in any competing application. There is also the usability advantage that OO mimicks MS Office so closely that training needs are reduced. What may just toss the whole decision over to OO is that it is being actively worked on right now for OSX, where KOffice isn't. Depends on how fast they would want to come to market with an MS Office replacement. If there's no hurry, they may tweak away at KOffice through 2003 for a big announcement in 2004. Whatever happens, it'll make for one heck of a show if they do push MS products off their product line.

Re: What Else Are They Experimenting With? - zippy - 2003-01-20

I actually thought about attempting to take a look at doing the port of Koffice.... How hard can it actually be? There is a native version of QT for the Mac so the widgets are handled out the box with a recompile... the tough part is finding out what are the absolute minimum KDE libs that are needed for Koffice to work. The Fink project has all of them native to Darwin X11... So at the worst you have to run them thru Qmake and compile for Mac. Relink where the apps look for the libraries so they look within the .app bundle instead of the system if needed.... I know I am probably smoking crack... Since I can not remember how to do half that stuff! But I think somebody more skilled then I could knock out a nasty version of it in a couple of weeks tops with the eval release of MacQT 3.1.1. Might be an interesting thing for someone on the KDE side of the house to do to take advantage of some of the momentum of the safari release.

Re: What Else Are They Experimenting With? - Metrol - 2003-01-21

Looks like The Fink Project already has a KOffice package done up. http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/package.php/koffice BTW, thanks for the "Fink" reference. This is the first that I've heard about it. Looks like they've already managed to get quite a bit done over there. Personally, I won't be doing much playing with OSX until Quark supports it. When it does, I'll have at least two machines in my marketing department moving on over to it. Most likely I'll keep one box around for myself to play with. It would be just too weird seeing KOffice up in Aqua.

Re: What Else Are They Experimenting With? - xSmurf - 2003-01-09

If not though about this seams an ideal solution, but think a little bit more and you will easly find why apple would never do this... it would be their death... who would buy apple's hardware (even if better built) when they can have a cheap PC that will run their software for free? Trust me, this WILL not happen, all that would possibly be left would be Pro software (Final Cut, DVD Studio Pro and Cie).

Re: What Else Are They Experimenting With? - frogstomp - 2003-01-21

OpenOffice sounds like the obvious choice. Many rumours are about that Apple is prepping for an Office like suite to take over M$ in the advent that M$ pulls support for Mac. >"who would buy apple's hardware (even if better built) when they can have a cheap PC that will run their software for free?"< Well, for the most part Apples 'Final' versions tend to be pretty rock solid. I totally respect the KDE/GNOME/LINUX crowds, keeping software 'real', but for peoples such as myself who seem to be able to run an file browser amuck, we have come to heavily rely on the overly propietorized MacOS to help us forget about what our computer is doing and just use the software we need to get a job done. I just want to plug in my computer and use my software. Anything else is just Time lots and lots of time!!!!!! Thank goodness for OSX and its 'unix' underpinnings! The clueless such as myself are starting to realise the amazing works of the OpenSource community. My hat is off to you all!

Crappy old versions of M$Office? - The Smile Man - 2003-01-24

Not in an effort to be rude, nor pro Microsoft, but the Microsoft Mac Buisness Unit (MBU) has done a great job with Office v.X. It is the best version of the Office on any platform. It's stability, speed, look, and feel are superb. I have hatted M$Office since version 6 which was the spawn of Satan. Despite this the new MBU has produced and maintained some great products: MSOffice v.X, Remote Desktop Connection, and MSN Messenger. Sure Windows Media Player on the Mac sucks a fat one but ever since version 6.4 on the PC is has becoming nothing but pure trash. Just thought I would toss in my ideas. An office-like Apple product, if done correctly (AppleWorks 6.2, OSX port is NOT an example to follow), would be a terriffic thing. Oh, and buy the way, Ballmer is weiredest guy on the face of the planet.

Excellent news! - cesman - 2003-01-08

This is a GREAT example for how Open Source works! Now if only others would realize the potential power in adopting OSS! cesman

Next Step for Apple/KDE collaboration: scripting - Suggester Engine - 2003-01-08

"Next Step" ... hmm a pun! :-) ... why not some ways to make migrating AppleScript to KScripts (coming soon!)

Even More interesting ... - no reply - 2003-01-08

... implications of this for GNUstep and a GNUstep based browser. C++ and ObjC can suposedly be mixed in the same file in futre versions of gcc ...

Re: Even More interesting ... - Sceptic - 2003-01-08

Thanks for using open code Apple and contributing bug fixes to CUPS Konqui etc. Now: RELEASE A VERSION OF QUICKTIME THAT WORKS ON UNIX Sorry for the all caps ... Apple has almost 8 years to do this and they SIMPLY WILL NOT DO IT. If you do it I will help whn it comes tine to convert/port Quartz to something the Adobe doesn't OWN (hmm fresco and SVG ... heheh).

Re: Even More interesting ... - cyberczar@mac.com - 2003-01-08

Considering that Mac OS X is FreeBSD 4.4 with a pseudo Mach/BSD Kernel (Darwin), with Coccoa and Carbon APIs derived from Next, and a Quartz/ PDF rendering engine ... I'd say that Apple *does* have a version of Quicktime that works on UNIX. ;-) <<< Darwin Michaels-Mac.local. 6.3 Darwin Kernel Version 6.3: Sat Dec 14 03:11:25 PST 2002; root:xnu/xnu-344.23.obj~4/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc >>>

Re: Even More interesting ... - moor - 2003-01-08

> Now: RELEASE A VERSION OF QUICKTIME THAT WORKS ON UNIX > Sorry for the all caps ... Apple has almost 8 years to do this and they SIMPLY WILL NOT DO IT. But I thought Quicktime worked in OSX?

Re: Even More interesting ... - Thomas - 2003-01-08

but quicktime works on unix!! http://www.mplayerhq.hu apple cannot release quicktime opensource due to the licensing agreement with sorensen, also in the new quicktime, Mpeg4 is used and that works on all platforms...

Re: Even More interesting ... - Ian Monroe - 2003-01-08

Who said they need to make it open source? Real Player 8 is closed source and works fine (albeit not supported, I think I remembering seeing a Real One for Linux, but Real Player 8 works fine for me without much fluff). I've tried using Mplayer to play Quicktime, and I've gotten audio but no video. Granted, I might have been doing something wrong. Mplayer is great though, its better at playing DivX then Windows Media Player in my experience. At first when I read about this at OS News I could barely believe it. I don't know if being on Apple puts KHTML in the "mainstream" but it certainly puts it out there.

Re: Even More interesting ... - AC - 2003-01-08

When did you try MPlayer for Quicktime? I believe it's a recent development that MPlayer caught up to the most recent Quicktime codec. If you haven't tried it in the past month or so, give the latest version a shot.

Re: Even More interesting ... - Schpyder - 2003-01-08

I built mplayer with QT6 support on debian a couple of weeks ago, and it worked just fine for everything I threw at it. It's worth noting, however, that it uses the Win32 QT libraries for decoding, just like it does with the other Win32 libs that mplayer can use. Yeah, it works, but it'd be nice to see an official, supported version of QT on a *nix platform. (and please, make some .debs available? ;) )

Re: Even More interesting ... - Anonymous Coward - 2003-01-09

"...it'd be nice to see an official, supported version of QT on a *nix platform. Mac OS X is a "*nix platform".

Re: Even More interesting ... - tryptamin - 2003-01-08

> Now: RELEASE A VERSION OF QUICKTIME THAT WORKS ON UNIX well, not exactly from Apple, but you may want to check this: http://www.openquicktime.org/

Re: Even More interesting ... - xSmurf - 2003-01-09

I suggest one would hop on this great OS X site and look at this neet little CLI QT player ;D http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20021021055603766

Someone... - Darkstar - 2003-01-08

...call the guys at Slashdot!! Quick!! ;-) --Darkstar

Re: Someone... - germain - 2003-01-08

eheh they buried the news as deep as they could inside an insipid review of MacWorld. Insanely biased they are ;)

Re: Someone... - Goat - 2003-01-08

Not only that, but a whole bunch of them are griping that Apple didn't use Gecko. Slashdot grows tiresome. Some of them don't really want choice in software; they just want a different monopoly.

Bikerider - youknowwho - 2003-01-15

Stumbled across you on the Web. Gimmie a holler and tell Glenn I said hi!

Not really a fork - null - 2003-01-08

Shallom. Apple did quite a bit of work coding a layer that sits between KHTML and Apple's own Cocoa framework for Mac OS X. This is not what Apple is contributing. The Changelog clearly shows a multitude of bugfixes, improvements and additions specifically to KHTML in areas including: ECMA (Javascript), CSS handling, HTML rendering, XML, Document Object Model and core services. Clearly this will result in a direct improvement to KHTML (and ultimately Konquorer) and, judging by the reaction of the KHTML developers, is much appreciated. I agree that a more open appoach where communication could have started earlier would have been adventageous to both groups. However, Apple is not required to do so and was likely trying to keep this project as secret as possible. Now that the wraps are off Safari, I'm sure Apple's developers will be in contact a great deal. Now if only the Eazel folks could explain what happened to all that investor RCF...

Re: Not really a fork - Richard Dale - 2003-01-08

"Apple did quite a bit of work coding a layer that sits between KHTML and Apple's own Cocoa framework for Mac OS X. This is not what Apple is contributing." I have done Objective-C wrappers for the KHTML classes (via C bindings, not calling C++ directly as you could with Apple Objective-C++). They in the cvs under kdebindings/kdeobjc. I haven't had time to generate the Objective-C bindings for a while, but I should have some time to do it soon. Maybe extracting the KHTML Objective-C classes into a separate cocoa compatible framework could be a useful project? -- Richard

Re: Not really a fork - ac - 2003-01-08

The layer being talked about is called kwq (apparently pronounced "quack"), and is in fact part of the open-sourced webcore project. It seems to implement the APIs that KHTML wants in terms of Apple's native frameworks (though I don't know much about KHTML, so I could be wrong).

mouse gestures - ac - 2003-01-08

This is great news. By the way, now that konq has tabs, any chance it'll get "mouse gestures" too? At least that nifty right-left "back" click sequence from a certain Norweigan browser would be nice...

Re: mouse gestures - AC - 2003-01-08

I never liked Mouse Gestures. Saw that feature in Galeon and hated it. Often whenever I move my Mouse some action takes place and then I think 'wow something broken now ?'. Please no Gestures they are stupid.

Re: mouse gestures - Janne - 2003-01-08

I use gestures in Opera, and I love them! Of course, if Konqueror gets gestures, they would be an optional feature. If you don't like them, switch them off. No problems there.

Re: mouse gestures - bagpuss_thecat - 2003-01-08

No, that's the wrong attitude. Yes include gesture support, and make it disabled by default so as not to scare the newbies who don't have a clue what's happening, and for those that just don't like it. It's all about options, not straight-line decisions ;-)

Re: mouse gestures - Pupeno - 2003-01-08

Mouse gestures don't have to be a browser feature, but a whole KDE feature (disbled by default) becaue they're very important in other enviroments and everywhere for handicapped people.

Re: mouse gestures - hal - 2003-01-08

Not sure about konqueror but this is from the kde 3.2 feature page: KHotKeys Update to version 2.0 (http://dforce.sh.cvut.cz/~seli/en/khotkeys), which includes more features like mouse gestures. Lubos Lunak have fun Felix

Re: mouse gestures - Seven - 2003-01-08

khotkeys2.0pre2 works even with KDE3.1 And it is nice. It needs a tweak for using the right button, though. good luck. SoN

Re: mouse gestures - Anonymous - 2003-01-08

Mouse gesture to go back? Why? Just activate the "Right click goes back in history" option (and use kind of gesture to pop up right mouse button menu in future).

Re: mouse gestures - anonymous coward - 2003-09-21

Mouse gestures are the only missing feature that keeps me from using Konqueror as my primary browser. Once you learn to use gestures, they are such an incredible time-saving feature, that you can't ever go back. I don't need to go to a menu or take my hand off the mouse to open a new window, close a window, go back or forward in the history, etc. It is really a great feature, and I wonder why GUI environments like KDE and GNOME don't make this a feature, for the same reason that it is great in a browser: if your hand is already on the mouse, and the pointer is in the middle of the page, why would you want to have to go all the way up to a menu to do what you want to do?

Re: mouse gestures - Anonymous - 2003-09-21

KHotKeys2 in KDE 3.2 supports generic mouse gestures. Not sure how good the integration with Konqueror is though.

Re: mouse gestures - sara - 2003-12-19

I agree. I use mouse gestures in opera and theyre great! Once you use them, you can never be without them. They save a great deal of time and energy and since there is no need for ugly navigation buttons cluttering your browser, you have more space for page content. =)

Re: mouse gestures - blabla - 2004-05-10

I'm all in favour of having them, too. Not only backwards and forwards, but also open a new tab, go home, increase/decrease font size etc. Are there no plug-ins (mozilla style) available? Cheers

Posted from Safari - Mark - 2003-01-08

This message is posted from safari. I thought Chimera was a fast browser. This is blazing fast. I can't explain it. Super duper duper fast. Wow! This is so exciting! :-)

Questions, and AtheOS note - Ken Arnold - 2003-01-08

I look forward to trying this out tomorrow on the OS X box I have access to. Just a small note that I didn't see here yet: AtheOS also used a modified KHTML, again with its own wrappers around KDE/Qt things. I wonder how Apple handled KIO, KParts, etc. that make Konqueror more than just a plain old web browser (not that I particularly like all the default semantics in either Konqi or IE (the other browser that claims that title)). Ken

Re: Questions, and AtheOS note - Chakie - 2003-01-08

I don't think they used Konqueror, just KHTML and KJS.

Source ! - germain - 2003-01-08

Safari source code is now available at http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/webcore/ WebCore : http://a1408.g.akamai.net/7/1408/1388/010303/www.opensource.apple.com/projects/webcore/WebCore-48.tar.gz JavaScriptCore : http://a1408.g.akamai.net/7/1408/1388/010303/www.opensource.apple.com/projects/webcore/JavaScriptCore-48.tar.gz

Thanks to the Open Source commnunity - Enrique García - 2003-01-08

I have long been a Mac user, but had never felt so happy about it. Today I realized that Apple is truly supporting Open Source and viceversa. Thanks to all of you for making it possible for us OS X users to have the privilege of such a quick browser in our platform. emxgarcia

Congrats, KHTML Team! - crichards - 2003-01-08

I used to be a GNOME-head, and didn't realize the power of KDE until I was "forced" to use it after installing SuSE 8 again so I could use Linux while I waited for time to install another distro. I found that KDE was incredibly well designed, but that Konqueror was no Mozilla. When I got a new distro installed, I installed KDE 3.1RC3, and Konqueror became my favorite browser. Its progressed so much, and these Apple enhancements will make KDE even better!

Congratulations!!! - Raul - 2003-01-08

Congratulations to all the KDE developers. I am really proud to be a member of KDE community as a KDE user on Solaris. Time for SUN to switch to KDE! I am really happy to see Konqui being appreciated and elevated to the status it deserves. Raul

Thanks for a great new browser.. - Sam Phillips - 2003-01-08

I'm a longtime Mac user just popping in to say thanks to all you KDE folks who have just given me a present via Apple. Thanks for your time and effort. It's amazing to see Open Source software working to enhance two seperate (and previously unconnected) strands of computing. And to the benefit of both. I hope Apple send you guys a crate of Champagne..

KApple - AC - 2003-01-08

While the naysayers keep claiming that open source isn't ready for "The Desktop", Apple goes ahead and writes a KDE compatibility layer for the Mac... I think that speaks for itself.

Re: KApple - Tim Jansen - 2003-01-08

Usually people say that because there is a) a lack of integrated guis for many things, especially administration, and b) a lack of mature mainstream applications in many areas. Apple using a component from KDE doesn't change this.

Many Thanks - Mark Bennett - 2003-01-08

I'm another long-time Mac user who just wanted to say thanks to all you open source programmers that have made Safari a reality. I have always wanted to surf the net with an "Apple" browser but after CyberDog I never thought it could happen. I always had this pipe dream that Apple could build a great browser, I even thought it would be neat if it had a way to notify Apple of incompatable sites so they could try to fix the problems. Now here I sit, typing this using an Apple browser that has a small button which sends bug reports right back to the mothership. Many thanks to all of you who worked on the KHTML open source project.

Safari is EXTREMELY FAST, although a bit buggy - undotwa - 2003-01-08

I just downloaded safari and checked it out. boy is it fast. it's the fastest browser i've ever seen. Thanks K!!!

apple has done more than ibm or hp for linux - vm - 2003-01-08

even tho' ibm spent $1b on an ad campaign and admitted to already recovering their 'investment' ( by selling over-priced products & services), apple's actual use of a well known O.S. product has given more visibility to KDE and Linux than anything ibm or hp claim to have done.

Re: apple has done more than ibm or hp for linux - Tim Jansen - 2003-01-08

Be careful, IBM does contributes a lot of work, for example by employing many kernel hackers.

Re: apple has done more than ibm or hp for linux - vm - 2003-01-08

the ones who port the kernel to run under a labotomized version of VM ? how's that helping linux ? its the other way around. they are selling a lot of crap by stamping open source on it while in reality they seed the market with their propreitary h/w and middleware.

Re: apple has done more than ibm or hp for linux - guest - 2003-01-10

You missed those great big tv adverts with Linux on 'em, along with great production and sometimes, (relatively) well-known actors and then, I guess.

Re: apple has done more than ibm or hp for linux - Sad Eagle - 2003-01-08

IBM has also donated many of the servers that take part of the KDE inftrastructure -- the CVS server, the servers running many of the .kde.org sites, the mailing lists, etc.

Has anybody else scoped out Webcore? - Randall Helzerman - 2003-01-08

I downloaded the Webcore package and nosed around in it--is it really what it seems like it is? Did Apple do a QT-ectomy-runaround? It looks like nothing less than a full-scale replacement for QT written in objective C......

Re: Has anybody else scoped out Webcore? - not me - 2003-01-08

It is probably more like a compatibility layer: implementing only the bare minimum of things from QT necessary to get KHTML to run, and possibly slightly changing the way KHTML works in some areas to make it easier to write the compatibility layer instead of maintaining full QT compatibility. Kurt Skauen did exactly the same thing when he used KHTML as a base for a browser for Atheos.

Congratulations and thank to KDE! - JF Paradis - 2003-01-08

I am glad to see KDE emerging as another reference platform! Written in Safari... PS: But there is something else about OSS... I maintain a few OS X desktops in our Creative Services department at work (and two OS X laptops at home). I also support an implementation of LTSP in a primary school. My main job is sysadmin of a large WinNT network where we are piloting Linux and FreeBSD for desktop and server replacements. OSS has completely changed my work over the recent years and made it a much more interesting environment! Skills are portable from LTSP desktops to OS X to BSD and Linux file server... Great!

Better browsing with Konqueror - Jos - 2003-01-08

If Safari becomes more popular, it means websites will have to make sure pages are rendered correctly. So even more websites will become useable for Konqueror!

Report bugs to Apple is the key.... - Federico Caboni - 2003-01-08

Safari is just sweet...amazingly fast and pretty reliable. The best thing is that little "Report bugs to Apple" button... A lot of Apple users will report to apple developers about not-so-compatible websites... so that they'll be able to fix issues AND this will affect konqui too.... Both worlds are gaining users and testers... Way to go, Apple and KDE :) (posted w/Safari Public Beta v48 ;) )

Konqueror for Windows? - bobbob - 2003-01-08

Any guesses?

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Michael Collette - 2003-01-10

NOOOOO!!! Some of the really good stuff MUST stay in Unix land. Especially the key applications, like Konqueror. The Unix desktop acceptance is moving beyond the point of needing to ease the transition from Windows by porting our best stuff over. Compelling reasons, like having the fastest, bestest, coolest browser on the planet are going to be crucial in the coming months. If you want a better browser, come on in... the water is fine, and FREE! For those still feeling trapped in a Windows world... too bad. That's what companies like Adobe, Macromedia, and Autodesk have been telling us Unix users for the last couple of years. Now is the time to shine without Windows!

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - bobbob - 2003-01-10

Windows is mandated at work - I can't develop for Konqueror compliance unless there is a version for Windows

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - atp - 2003-01-10

It's easy to code for Konqueror/Safari or compliance with any browser really. Have a look at www.w3c.org and adhere to the standards.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Kicken - 2003-05-21

http://sourceforge.net/projects/khtml-win32/ They are working on it.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - AtR - 2007-02-19

Are they still working on it ??

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Brian - 2003-11-05

That doesn't account for bugs, peculiarities, and general oddities. We all know that the W3C standard is the goal, but no one's there...yet.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Jason - 2004-02-26

This couldn't be further from the truth. My site is www.w3c.org certified yet doesn't render correctly in Konqueror or Safari.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Jiffy - 2003-01-11

If you really must run Konqueror on Windows, you can use Cygwin. You could also try VMWare.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Stig - 2003-01-14

...or http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Henwrath - 2005-02-18

I've used a Knoppix boot CD to boot my home computer(Normally boots to Win2K) and test websites with Konqueror. It works like a charm. For doing anything more than testing you will probably want to learn how to use other apps to edit and deploy changes, I used SSH to access my servers(unix) and edit HTML pages with vi but that's not for people unfamiliar with Unix.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - bender_ubl - 2004-04-13

how does that work? I work with win 2000 and i´ve a linux - Homeserver that i telecommand with ssh and i´m interested in fish:// (ftp over ssh ) . So do you know how to install konqueror under win2k or any other program supporting fish ?? thanks for your help ! bender_ubl

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Athanasii - 2005-09-07

If fish is like ftp over ssh, than I think it is like sftp. FileZilla is a great sftp client for Windows, so is WinSCP. These both support drag-and-drop, but not directory access by applications. If there was an ssh integration to Windows so that sftp was viewable in an explorer window like ftp currently is, we'd be a lot closer. (Windows XP has Network Places that are shortcuts to ftp sites with stored passwords.) I'd like to know if this is possible!

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Rakhun - 2007-12-10

fish is a protocol to access files through a ssh commandline :) I'm not exactly sure how it does it, but for example it could do ls - to get the list of files, to show graphically cat [filename] - to get the contents of a file and it does show this data graphically like FTP, it just uses the common commands to retreive data, which means most servers that have SSH access support this

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - John3V - 2008-09-19

You just need "andLinux" [url=http://picbg.net/img.php?file=0d11f9b0d8308208.png][img]http://store.picbg.net/thumb/82/08/0d11f9b0d8308208.png[/img][/url]

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Doug - 2003-01-15

Ive only one problem with all that. Im stuck using a Windows system more often that I like, a result I suppose of being a Windows interface programmer. Anyway, Ill put up with the restarts, gives me a regular coffee break, but I still want to be able to use good browsers. Anyway, thats my 2 cents.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Metrol - 2003-01-15

Before replying to this I want to disclaimer my next couple of statements with an appreciation from where you're coming from. In short, I'm not trying to turn on the flame thrower here. >...but I still want to be able to use good browsers. As inconvenient as it may be for you Doug, users such as yourself "should" be feeling a bit of application envy while remaining on Windows. If that envy doesn't ever build, neither will the demand for a Unix desktop or KDE. Being that what I really want to see is an industry wide move away from Windows, I want users just like you to be irritated as all hell with the options you have available to you on that platform. The combination of dissatisfaction with Windows and wanting to use the killer apps on Unix is the key to true market presence. To provide you Konqueror, or any other of the cool apps now running under Unix, is to do nothing but keep you comfortable in your lock in. You may get your app or two, but in the end you lose just the same. Only Microsoft wins.

Re: Konqueror/Safari for Windows? - mac.zooks - 2003-01-15

Safari for Windows, now that would be a switch! (pun intended) My iMac is the first personal computer I've ever owned. So I was relieved to see IE was pre-installed, simply because I was forced to be familiar with it at work. At least I had a starting point from which to venture as a newbie. It seems, however, that what I perceived to be lousy dial-up performance turned out to be lousy IE browser performance. This left me hungering for a really good browser. Chimera was faster but REALLY buggy. Netscape didn't really enthuse me either, though fewer bugs. Safari came along at JUST the right time for me. Theoretically, if Windoze users could get a taste of KDE, just to experience how much faster it works --- albeit--- with the caveat that the BEST PERFORMANCE WILL BE EXPERIENCED ON A UNIX BASED SYSTEM--- they might just be curious to check out "Unix-land". Bill Gates might be able to copy a KDE browser, but not without giving up his power. So if KDE makes it onto DOS/MS platform in some form or another, Microsoft can't control it, because open source can't be monopolized. (Of course, if anything I've written is contradictory or doesn't make the least bit of sense, take it with a grain of salt. After all, I've only been a computer owner for 3 mos! LOL )

Re: Konqueror/Safari for Windows? - Ryan - 2004-09-15

3 months! The majority of people I know that have used a computer for over 2 years don't know what chimera, kde, unix, or anything like that is. Props!

Re: Konqueror/Safari for Windows? - mac.zooks - 2004-09-25

Well, I guess that goes to show you that the majority of people who own computers don't have Macs. Sad, but true, but probably for the better-- for now. LOL!

Re: Konqueror/Safari for Windows? - Timothy J. Warren - 2005-07-31

Linux is okay, but nothing beats the Mac for ease of use and Eye-candy interfaces. I just wish Safari was ported to Windows so I would at least one well-written free program on my computer. Not to downplay Firefox or Mozilla, but it is true that they just don't have the eye-candy that ANY Apple software has.(Sincerely wishing I could afford a Mac)

Re: Konqueror/Safari for Windows? - rkane - 2005-10-03

If your only in it for the eye candy, then just get this and put it on your Windows Computer. http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/ They even have Mac OSX theme. If you are really in the mood for eye candy though, you should probably have a linux box, and run a different window manager besides KDE, or Gnome. one that you can fully customize like this: http://www.fvwm.org/screenshots/desktops/Pierre-Eric_Marchandet-1600x1200/screenshot.jpg Lataz!!

Re: Konqueror/Safari for Windows? - Sven - 2006-02-12

You call that: http://www.fvwm.org/screenshots/desktops/Pierre-Eric_Marchandet-1600x1200/screenshot.jpg ...eyecandy ? How sad is that :P though the windows blinds has some nice themes, but seems to be a bit unstable or buggy or slow or what so ever is wrong with it.... never mind and lets wait for the "Vista experience" :D Sven.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Charlie Paglee - 2003-03-10

Lets see if I can follow Metrol's arguments. Windows is great because it has a lot of apps, but B. Gates is not a nice person and builds annoying things into Windows, soooooo, we should all switch to some extremely complicated OS so that we can have access to a few obscure programs. Most Windows users will NEVER buy this line of reasoning. And Windows users will always think that Linux / Unix is obscure because they have never used any of the programs that have run on it. Or another idea. What about porting good Linux programs on to Windows so that Windows users can actually see how great Linux is. Then they won't be so afraid of Linux, and once they get used to Linux software on windows they will just purchase Linux the next time around. Lets see how many companies are out there trying to follow this frame of reasoning: Lindows Lycorice Xandros Mandrake (kind of) All of these people are trying to make Linux more LIKE WINDOWS so that people can use WINDOWS SOFTWARE on Linux. But wait ... Metrol sais that Linux software is better, so why are they doing this. Is it possible that Windows software is better, or maybe its just that Windows users don't know about Linux software so they want Linux to become Lindows. Metrol you should support porting Linux applications to Windows. It is a far better idea to win Windows users by getting them to enjoy Linux software than to win them by turning Linux into Lindows!!!!

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Metrol - 2003-03-11

> we should all switch to some extremely complicated > OS so that we can have access to a few obscure > programs. If you have such a bitter hatred for Linux on the desktop are you just here to troll?

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Adam Ellis - 2003-03-16

I don't think he is here to troll, he was just stating his oppinion as you were. It sounds to me like you have more of a bitter hatred for Windows than he does of Unix... just open your mind up a little, windows has it's good points. And besides that, he was right; people will never make a move to unix just to run a few different applications that they can't run on windows(especially when there are comparable programs on windows). Views like yours will hold back unix for a long time to come.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Metrol - 2003-03-16

> It sounds to me like you have more of a bitter > hatred for Windows than he does of Unix In reviewing my initial comment I do not believe I stated anything negative about Windows at all. I merely stated that I would like to see the desktop market shift towards Unix. A growing dissatisfaction with what can be done with Windows is a means to that end, not an expression of hatred for anything. I would like to quote the line that prompted my "troll" follow up to clarify why I stated this. "...soooooo, we should all switch to some extremely complicated OS so that we can have access to a few obscure programs." If there was something I said that even approached saying something this insulting about Windows please quote it from my previous comment. I'm sorry, I just don't see it. > just open your mind up a little, windows has it's good points. Been using every flavor of Windows since 3.1. Did time as an NT admin, and continue to provide technical support for a wide variety of Windows implementations and applications to this day. My mind is quite open to the pros and cons of Windows. > Views like yours will hold back unix for a long time to come. Tell me something then, what is your #1 compelling factor in choosing which operating system you will be using? Security? Stability? How about price? For me and, probably real safe to say, the vast majority of the marketplace the deal maker is what applications run on it. No, Konqueror by itself is not a compelling reason enough. It's a component in a growing suite of applications that are starting to make KDE a compelling reason to give it a hard look when it comes down to decision time. Most users, with all applications being equal, will most likely go down the same road with the rest of the market... that market being nearly all owned by Microsoft today. Breaking this trend will require great applications that can only be run under a Unix based OS. Case in point to this argument is how Apache and Samba have changed the server landscape. Yes, Apache will run under Windows, but not nearly as efficiently as under Unix. A compelling reason to utilize Unix! This is not anti-Windows. This is pro-KDE. If you haven't looked around and noticed just yet, this is a KDE advocacy related site we're posting on here.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Bhaswar Dasgupta - 2003-06-05

It is all human psychology, developed over the ages by crushing societies, terrible inflations, and of course, opression of the penniless. It is not about 25 years of computing, it is about thousands of years of oppression. PEOPLE EYE WITH SUSPICION THINGS THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO BUY. Unix / Linux are very good examples of wonderful things that come free of cost (or for a minimal price), but alas, people prefer to pay and BUY things, even if inferior. My sentiments are strong, say what you may, but I will have my say. I would never NEVER NEVER prefer an Operating System whose operating interface is unreliable, which hangs more often than not for trivial reasons, which provides an inferior security strategy, and Oh Yes! one that is most vulnerable to virus attacks, system corruption and instability, over another that is more programmer-friendly, robust, strong, stable, secure and elegant (that it is cost effective may have been included here, but that hardly counts in comparison to the other properties I mentioned). Linux is my favourite, and I promise, there will be a day when nobody will remember Windows. And by the way, did I mention that Linux systems can mount existing Windows partitions, whereas Windows fails even to detect the disk segment on which Linux is resident. That's for another point: Compatibility. Hear, Hear!

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Nate Johnson - 2003-10-15

The dirty little secret that UNIX-heads usually don't see or have a hard time admitting, is that Windows does do something well. That there is a real REASON why is it so widely used. Lindows, et al are not trying to make Unix look like windows, they are trying to make Unix more intuitive to use (like windows is). Microsoft has done a pretty good job of abstracting the user experience from the complexity of the system. They do this to maximize the number of paying customers. This part of what they do is good. Open source developers too often do not care about making their software easy enough for their grandmother to use. They are most often tech geeks rather than business people and as would be expected, usually develop things that are useful to them and theirs, without too much thought to the huge group of people (majority on the planet) that are scared shitless by computers. The only thing stopping the open source movement from permanently trumping closed source software, is the one thing that we think is empowering us: the copyleft copyright scheme and all the resulting complicated tangled spaghetti mess of licenses. Public Domain software is the answer. You allow those companies that want to develop open source into proprietary products to do so, and then down the road their innovations make it back into the open source projects, either by being re-written, or directly, as Apple has now done with FreeBSD and KHTML. The missing link is a for-profit (proprietary even) company stepping in and really focusing on making computers as simple as possible for as many users as possible (maximizing their sales). This link is missing because the GPL and other copyleft licenses strongly discourage typical commercial development. Most venture capital investors and business leaders are not convinced about open source. They want to keep intellectually property close at hand. To convince them, we have to co-opt them with public domain source, not force them with the GPL. The more liberal the license, the more use a program gets (BSD code is in Windows, Mac OS, Solaris, etc), the more development (proprietary and not) it gets, and the faster it evolves to be the best it can and have the most value to everybody. See <a href="http://betterdifferent.com">betterdifferent.com</a> for more arguments against intellectual property. Set your information free! Nate Johnson n_johnson@yahoo.com (858)824-9003 ps ignore the "fine print" on this website. All my comments are freely donated into the public domain. Go ahead and improve and reuse them in any manner whatsoever. Live free!

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Jeff Johnson - 2003-10-16

>>Public Domain software is the answer. You allow those companies that want to develop open source into proprietary products to do so, and then down the road their innovations make it back into the open source projects, either by being re-written, or directly, as Apple has now done with FreeBSD.<< [Removed khtml it is lgpl and not public domain-like] What's the advantage for the free software developer? Why should the developer allow some company to hijack the software, make it proprietary and sell it without giving the developer a single cent? Why is proprietary software based on (formerly) free software better than proprietary software based on completely proprietary code? The open software developer would not gain anything, but lose some market share. The interrest of most developers (especially those using the GPL) is that the application is improved and gets better. If somebody wants my work for free, they should also give me their work for free, otherwise I want a different formof compensation (=money).

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Jered Winchester - 2004-03-14

OR should we, instead of porting good *nix software to windoze, port good windows software to *nix systems?????????? HOLY *&^@#$ BATMAN, WHATTA CONCEPT!!!! So lets all speak to anyone we know in the *nix system area (unix, minix, linux, who cares if its red hat debian bsd) and tell them to devote some of thier time to wine http://winehq.com and CrossOver http://crossover.codeweavers.com type applications??? Put windows on linux I say and kill windows entirely look at Lindows and Xandros, both fine implimentations of an attempt to ease the transition. If you get programmers and developers to make linux based copies of thier software and promote wine and crossover type implementations perhaps we CAN make this world a stable computing enviroment!!!!

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - ZuNBiD - 2003-06-28

"If one day... I reboot my windows system and all i see is software ported from linux... Next day I'll be booting a linux system !!!" Ancient Portuguese saying.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Domenico Pagliarulo - 2003-01-24

Michael Collette you are a f***ing IDIOT!! This flame is for Michelle and the rest of you lamers you advocate NOT porting good Linux/UNIX software to Windows as well. You are just a bunch of GEEKS who know NOTHING about marketing, which is the principal reason why Linux will take longer than it should to become a standard and dethrone MicroSucks. Microsoft lovers (I am not one - I use Opera) will NEVER switch to Linux until the applications they are using are available on Linux. If a bunch of MS users started using Konqueror (which gets its name from Navigator --> Explorer --> Konqueror) then they would know that the BEST version of Konqueror is available for Linux. Once they were used to using Konqueror as their default brower they would start considering switching to Linux because they would want to use the latest and greatest version of their favorite software. The 'Avenue for Transition' you espouse will never happen because 99.9% of the users out there will NEVER KNOW just how good Konqueror IS! The really sad thing is that it wouldn't even be that difficult to do a Konqueror build for Linux as Qt is already available for Windows. That NOBODY has ever taken the initiative to compile it for Windows, ant that lamers like Michelle Collette are AGAINST this just goes to reinforce the TOTAL GEEK nature of Linux development, and the complete inability of this user/developer group to understand the FIRST THING about marketing and the way people adopt new products/technology. Too bad. Grow UP!!!

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - DP - 2003-01-24

After a little research I am happy to report that someone has taken up the initiative to port to Windows, See: http://khtml-win32.sourceforge.net/

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Metrol - 2003-01-24

Well gosh, thanks to your insightful yet subtle post I can now see the error of my ways. Your mispelling of my name, Microsoft's, and the subsequent reference to "lamers" have unquestionably put me in my place. It certainly gets right to the heart of my argument by referring to me as an "f***ing IDIOT". It is literally all I can do to suppress a "same to you, but more of it, nah, nah, nah" reply in kind, but I digress. I have now grown up to where I realize just how right you are. If every key piece of software from Unix line were available on Windows, then of course the populace of computer users would flock to Linux by the millions. It's all so clear now. They'd all leave Windows so they can... ummm, errr, gimme just a second here. No wait, I'm sure it's something to do with... umm. I know, they could install a FREE Linux on top of the copy of Windows... that came pre-installed on their PC. No, that can't be it. Well darn it, I guess I'm back to being a lamer, idiot, geek again. And here I was, so very close to being all growned up.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Gill Bates - 2003-06-21

Raeding from your story, it has become quite clear to me that you have never taken the trouble to go beyond rather narrow boundaries as far as self education is concerned, which is of course good for Microsoft Windows sales as they focus on exactly this type of cattle, and yes, Linux lovers are usually of a superior intelligence and broad-mindedness, so the wheat is separated from the chaff, so what you call Geek is in fact a compliment, however, you are in no position to give a compliment because of your relative low scientific level compared to Geeks. Enjoy MicroCrap !

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Steve Wood - 2005-07-15

Actually, if you look beyond all the swearing and immature ranting, Mr. Pagliarulo has a very, very, very good point. I think that the whole linux community, already knowing a lot about computers, forget what it is like to not understand something about computers. And Linux is very intimidating for a beginner. And Linus said it himself in an article that linux was not really suited for home users. But if the goal is to provide microsoft with REAL competition, than the first priority would be to look at certain distros and make them more user freindly. I understand the interface is user freindly, but there are advanced things many users can do in windows that seem totally impossible for non geeks in linux. Then, once you had a beginner freindly linux distro going(knoppix would be the one i would choose), you do what he said and port linux programs to windows to give people exposure to linux, but being careful not to make people think that they should just keep using ported versions and never switch to linux. My Idea would be to figure out how to get it set up with computer retailers like Fry's Electronics and Circuit City(Although you would start with little stores first) to have live cd's up by the candy and the cash register and ideally give them away free like AOL discs although since linux is free there is no war chest to pay for all this.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Fred - 2006-06-09

I couldn't agree more. Think about this. I'm just about ready to make the transition TO LINUX because I'm finally almost exclusively using free software on windows. List of cross compatible apps I use daily: * Open Office 2.0 * Gaim * FireFox * Thunderbird. Now that all my productivity software is cross platform, it will take very little effort to just change the underlying Operating System from Windows to Linux. Believe me, the WGA tool microsoft is using really pisses me off as a legitimate owner & user of their genuine software. It took me 3 days and some support from their forums to figure out how to make it work. Too much trouble for a piece of software I paid for, but I digress. Nothing would make me happier than to see more cross platform apps where the users on Windows could become reliant on those apps and then it will make the transition to linux painless.

friendly penguin - Link - 2007-03-21

Rock, Rock on. the WGA sucks considerably, word is, Vista hit hard with their 'big brother'. when the day finally comes when the built in "windows downgrade" (accessible through the control panel) doesn't LET you run XP, i'm making the jump to something worthwhile. this would preferably be done sooner, but as stated before, its not as user friendly as it could be, the only exception i could find would be Ubuntu, an exilent idea. i already use OOo all of the time, but prefer the Gimp over photoshop, Firefox is a given, and love you guys for the link to win32 Konqueror. Gnome is great and all, but if there was as simple an install for Knoppix or what have you, i know many people that would jump in an instant. PS: i got this invite for a "customer satisfaction" survey in an email, try to be polite, but have fun! https://www.microsoft.ipsos.com/?T=L5APOBi

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - anger2headshot - 2006-12-20

I couldn't agree more. There is absolutely no way people will be convinced to switch to Linux without a taste of the best. Sure, vmware and stuff helps, but it just isn't as good as full throttle. I myself find life in Windows happy enough, but with a bit more linux without cygwin, just native compatibility, we will definitely have more switchers.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - MArco - 2007-02-03

Hello, I'm a newbi on Linux and I can say that I would love to switch once for all to linux, but this is not easy. I have been able to install a distro....but trust me sometimes it really feels like go only Windowzz, hey if not for windows probably I would not be able to work in my present position....anyway not going off topic....please ...please...Konqueror for Windows...(my interest for linux started with Firefox)...and trust me more open source software on windows will make people will look in a different way to linux..

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - SeekerOfWisdom NotComplainers - 2007-02-15

Upon searching for a port of Konqueror for Win, my first impression at the start of this flame is, "Domenico is not someone I would like to either collaborate with nor take very seriously." It doesn't take too many decades in the business to realize that there are many dimensions to software, and any given expert is lacking in one or more of them. Of course, we know some of Domenico's lacking expertise, notably professionalism, social networking, and emotional maturity; however, he is also not understanding the clear difference between commercial software and open-source software. I hope some metaphorical light bulbs start popping. Commercial software is created to be sold and updated and patched and supported, at cost. Quality here is sacrificial if your market is strong enough. That is business. Open-source is geared to creating better products, of course, better in the minds of those creating them. It is a clear-hearted desire to make a strong, positive mark in the world. In the end, one becomes better financed and marketed and the other continues seeking to improve yet remains hidden. So while Mr. Pagliarulo enjoys getting his rant on, he effectively is accomplishing very little. If his experience is marketing, then he should perhaps consider applying his trade to aid those whose lives are dedicated to making better software products than propaganda techniques. Because as 'most of us' know, open-source is a story of collaboration that is epic. Nationality, religion, sex, philosophy are ignored in the quest for better software. I hope in some small way Mr. Pagliarulo reviews this with an open mind and considers who he really is ( as perceived ) compared to what he perceives himself to be. I hope his next jaunt into cyber-wars displays an evolved perspective. Pass it on.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Abe - 2008-08-22

Who gives a hoot about which operating system is better. I personally use both, and it's all user preference. Please quit arguing and settle on "everyone is different". It bothers me to no end when people don't understand this. On a more related note, I got Konqueror working on my Windows via Cygwin. There's nothing wrong with trying to use Konqueror on a different operating system than Linux.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Vij83 - 2008-09-16

It is correct nobody take effort to make available best linux application to MS Windows. KDE guys should rethink abt it.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Past Present Future - 2003-05-25

I use Konqueror under Linux 8.1 SuSE on all my machines. No Windows anymore. No Internet Explorer anymore. No NetScape Anymore. The Web world looks wonderful.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Tom Klem - 2003-05-29

There is another reason why some of us on Windows want a Windows version of Konqueror. We want our web sites to be usable for Konqueror users. If we don't have a Windows version, then many web sites will be frustrating for people using Konqueror on the UNIX desktop. That will slow acceptance of the UNIX desktop.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - bigMac - 2003-06-11

There were times I had Linux installed just for testing some of my stuff in Konqueror-like browsers, still back in the time of NN4.x "bugward compatibility" coding that ruined 90% of W3C's ideas on web accessibility. I tried to make my friends think how great Linux was, but ended up buying Win-based applications, while there was nothing really challenging among KDE tools. Hipocrisy? No. Sole survival. You Linux geeks wouldn't have to provide all the tools within the Win Konqueror version. I don't mind, after switching to Opera7 I'll never get back to IE or something, because finally I see the light at the end of the dark tunnel of xml-based content that was supposed to provide web content to all people and different browsers. See, either you make a browser that's at least 99% W3C-specs compliant OR please, please gimme a chance to CARE for Linux users and check my pages before launching, BUT on Windows, while I'm never 100% sure on my xhtml/css layout. Do I really have to check them? Here in Poland i get 0.4% of Linux-user hits during the week... btw I found this page looking for a chance to download Konqueror for Win. regards.

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Jimus - 2003-10-31

I agree with the above posts, especially now that the default Mac Browser uses the same rendering engine. It would save a heck of a lot of time and effort, I mean I could dual boot in to Linux or I could buy a Mac or VMware (yeah on my salary). But I'd rather just click on an Icon and test away. Thanks for your time Jimus

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Júlio Santos Monteiro - 2005-01-16

I completly agree with the idea of a Konqueror for Windows. When I create my websites using XHTML+CSS, I always test them in Firefox, Opera and IE. Why not Konqueror, too?

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - www.pompey-pics.com - 2008-07-19

I've done exactly the same as others - I've tested most of this particular site ( http://www.pompey-pics.com ) in opera, IE7 Firefox 2 and 3 and Safari, but cannot test on Konqueror at the moment. I completely agree with the above comments, and also found this page searching for Konqueror on Windows! Oh, if anyone can test this site on Konqueror, please let me know!

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Kerratos - 2008-09-23

Why not just run kde cygwin and install that. That should give you exactly what you want. Here's a link to another artcile: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Unix-Linux-OS-1064/install-Konqueror-Windows-XP.htm

Re: Konqueror for Windows? - Fejack - 2003-08-25

Well, I was one of the computer users reluctant to "migrate" from Win32 to GNU/Linux, mostly because of specific applications used at the time. I must outline that most of the Win32 software I use to have on was not legit. Four years ago, I upgraded my PC, and installed XP. My scanner was no longer recognised, and my printer and digital camera worked so-so, because of drivers. One year ago, I got a big nhard disk crash. I decided to give GNU/Linux a try, using the Red Hat 7 distro and the Gnome desktop. My scanner still was not recognised, but that was no worse than Win XP. I had grown accustomed to the Open/Star Office, GIMP, Mozilla and Opera on Win32, so "migrating" to GNU/Linux wasn't that hard. I actually discovered that using binary RPMs was no harder that looking after a crack and applying it on an trial installation. Over time, I upgraded to Red Hat 8 and Red Hat 9. On the latter install, I decides to give a try to KDE, and was wery pleased by the quality and detail of the interface, which comes very close to a Win XP desktop in terms of ease of use. According to me, GNU/Linux is very close to being ready for the desktop. I agree that it would be a mistake to try to make Linux more like Windows. Yet by porting native GNU/Linux applications to Apple or Windows, programmers actually broaden the user base and offer the convenience of having the same interface whatever the OS. Applications such as Blender, Sodipodi, Open Office, Opera, Gaim, GIMP or Mozilla could become universal, platform-free standard UI's.

Safari - Chris - 2003-01-08

There are some bugs in Konq 3.0 that prevent me from using it as default browser instead of mozilla. Now I hope that most of them will get fixed by the safari changes and that Konqueror will really be the best browser for Linux/KDE systems. When can we expect a Konqueror version that will include all these changes from safari? I'm impatiently waiting for it.

Re: Safari - Hamish Rodda - 2003-01-08

3.1 is already a big improvement over 3.0, so you may not be waiting long.

Jaguar goes global with Safari! - John Hood - 2003-01-08

It still hasn't sunk in yet! The notion of using an Apple-branded browser seemed like a 'pipe dream' only a few days ago! However, here I am using Safari and looking forward to a brighter future-in-surfing courtesy of Apple and KDE. Kudos to everyone involved. If anyone wants to contact me and discuss Apple/Open Source-related matters. Please visit: http://homepage.mac.com/johnhood/

When will this merge with KDE? - Stof - 2003-01-08

When will the changes merge with the "official" KDE?

Re: When will this merge with KDE? - Aaron J. Seigo - 2003-01-08

it's already happening. there have been a dozen or two commits merging the safari changes in already...

Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platform - Sascha Leib - 2003-01-08

Hello all, I don't know if all of you really grasp what "Safari" means for Konqueror. Think of it: all future Macs will ship with a KHTML-based web browser *as the default browser*. Apple has a total market share of somewhere around 5 % (approximately the same as Linux) in the Desktop market. So first of all, KHTML's market penetration will double. Secondly, while Linux users can usually decide on installation time whether to use KDE or Gnome, Mac users have to stick to "Aqua" (not a loss, Aqua is great!), so while about 2/3 Linux users (optimistic guess) use KDE, 100% Apple users will end up with a KHTML-browser in their Dock. Thirdly, a number of (Linux) KDE-users will install Mozilla or Opera as default browser. Well, it's just how these tech-geeks are: more toys with more options are more fun. At least you guys need some kind of email client and Mozilla's is just great. Mac users don't need another email client. Apple's "Mail" is professional grade and beats most costly professional mail-clients. And while there are still a number of other great web browsers for MacOS X (my favourites being "Chimera", "iCab" and "Mozilla" - in this order), very few will see a reason to change the default web browser. So my estimation is that less than one quarter of Linux users is using Konqueror, but in a while, approx. 80 % Mac Users will use Safari. Or in other words, KHTML's market share will quadruple. But wait, there is more to it: over 2/3 of Web designers and creatives is using Macs - while their usage on Desktop Linux should be somewhere below 1 %. This means that KHTML's penetration on Web designer's workstations will increate by some 5000 % (in words: over five thousand percent!). In the future, almost every serious web designer will have a KHTML-based browser on (or under) his/her desk. Web pages will be adopted to look good with KHTML - not the other way around. This is the good and the bad news: Konqueror is out of the niche and starts to play in the major league. All thumbs up for you guys. /sascha (Admin, Mac-Programmer and Web Designer)

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platform - Watchdog - 2003-01-08

Now, is that good news or bad news?

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platform - Jordan Fisk - 2003-01-08

Apple's marketshare is currently 2.25% worldwide. That's obviously a far different number then their percentage of the total installed base of PCs but it's been down in the 1.8-3% range for many years so it's probably pretty close. Not nearly half of all Macs out there are even running OS X yet so we're looking at a fraction of a fraction. It's still a pretty significant addition of KHTML end users though.

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platf - Michael Collette - 2003-01-10

> Not nearly half of all Macs out there are even running OS X yet If Quark would get out of their vaporware mode I would imagine the OSX numbers to jump in a significant way. There's a lot of publishing folks holding at OS9 for purely this reason. If another year goes by without an OSX version of QuarkExpress, I rather expect that Adobe will simply eat that market segment as the industry won't wait forever no matter how in love they are with Quark. However it plays, the OSX conversion will happen this year. Plus the fact that all new Macs sold are OSX by default. That's a lot of boxes out there. Especially in the notebook realm.

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platform - Steven Kolins - 2003-01-12

Something almost everyone forgets in these market share estimates is the education market in which Apple has lead for generations though lately Dell is about tied with and Linux has barely begun to be a presence - and Apple is almost universal in k-6. Now the k12 market is still running Mac OSes 7,8,9.... Mostly they are probably still running Netscape 4.08 - 4.8 though many are now in IE 5.1.x. But the migration to X has begun. Enterprise management for X has just begun with X Server 10.2 and will push ahead. One of the biggest things pushing back is the State Budget crises - these force the buying cycle in k12 to slow (as that is where almost all k12 tech money comes from.) But there is a compensating influence. Up until recently all other departments tended to make requests of the tech dept to fulfill their own needs for hardware and software. Since the tech dept has generally run very low on money everyone is now putting up *their* money and asking the tech dept to buy the right thing. And X is what they are going to have to wrestle with! Just something to think about.

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platf - Oliver Kurlvink - 2003-01-09

>Secondly, while Linux users can usually decide on installation time whether to use KDE or Gnome, Mac users have to stick to "Aqua" (not a loss, Aqua is great!), so while about 2/3 Linux users (optimistic guess) use KDE, 100% Apple users will end up with a KHTML-browser in their Dock. you mix up the desktop and the window manager (or the toolkit layout). what apple users have to stick to is the used toolkit, which is the aqua-design. you can theme this a little bit like you can theme kde, but it's still the same toolkit. like running konqueror in a gnome-environment you can run a different desktop and replace the finder, which is what you mean. this is document by apple. then run safari (or any other application) on top of this different desktop like konqueror in gnome. so you seem to mix up aqua and finder.

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platf - bobbob - 2003-01-09

Until a khtml based browser comes out for Windows it will be statistically insignificant for web designers. As soon as one does, I will ensure that my pages work correctly in it. bb

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platf - Anonymous - 2003-01-09

I will remind you: http://lists.kde.org/?t=104205234000003&r=1&w=2

Comment on desktop market share - Rob Calhoun - 2003-01-15

I think the best estimate of desktop market share is Google usage, e.g. http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/zeitgeist-dec02.html That shows Mac users to be about 4% of web users and Linux users about 1% of web users. I'm sure there are millions of Linux machines doing a bang-up job as servers (including Google's own machines) but there are more Macs used a personal machines. However, many of those Macs are old and not running OS X.

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platf - extended - 2003-01-17

[over 2/3 of Web designers and creatives is using Macs] Do you have any proof of this statement, or did you just pull it out of thin air like all the others? I choose this one as it seemed the largest claim. Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platf - Eric Kincl - 2003-07-19

I highly doubt 2/3 or web designers use Macs. I'll bet more than 40% are on windoze (FrontPage, Dreamweaver (I know mac version exists, but im willing to bet more people use PC version) plus I garantee you that 99.99% of people who program ASP pages use windoze) After the 40% on windoze, ill bet roughly 30+% use *nix on iX86. This is b/c it is easiest to test on (save files directly and test locally), it is stable, all the nerds, who are after all the ones making the web pages like *nix, and its open source, just like PHP/MySQL etc... So I'm sure they use it just cause. The remaining % is prolly mac web designers. (30%-) Macs have no real pros for web disigners unless they are also doing the graphics, which i would say rarely happens unless they are freelancing on thier own. However... I still do agree that the fact that Safari using KDE code is a good thing. It cant hurt. Down with MicroCrap

Re: Safari Means Konqueror Becomes Reference Platf - anon - 2003-07-19

> The remaining % is prolly mac web designers. (30%-) Macs have no real pros for web disigners unless they are also Uh, wtf????? I think you're really talking out of your ass here, because a great deal of the web designing masters, such as Mark Pilgrim, use Macs. This is why a great deal of web designers were stirred when Safari came out. It was something they started using on a daily basis. > I'll bet more than 40% are on windoze (FrontPage, Dreamweaver (I know mac version exists, but im willing to bet more people use PC version) I'll be around 55-60% use Windows in fact. > After the 40% on windoze, ill bet roughly 30+% use *nix on iX86. This is b/c it is easiest to test on (save files directly and test locally), it is stable, all the nerds, who are after all the ones making the web pages like *nix, and its open source, just like PHP/MySQL etc... So I'm sure they use it just cause. Working on web development and administration as my day job, I've noticed very few using some sort of UNIX. Of course, a lot of the time, they are using UNIX servers for hosting, but more often than not, the UNIX servers are colocated and thus must be remotely accessed (and not through graphical means like X11) I'd have to say less than 5% of web developers use *NIX as their workstation. Perhaps 60% use it for their servers though.

one for apple!(?) - Steven Hoomolya - 2003-01-08

I'm just impressed that Apple's front page for Safari explicitly acknowledges Konqueror, i.e. one does not have to search through a hierarchy of links before Konqueror is mentioned. (This is impressive! Where did you, if ever, learn about BSD code used in MS-WIN-NT/2000?) Could this be the start of sg. big? Well, maybe ... I hope that cooperation between Apple and KDE developers continues, and that Apple will be kind enough to return the favour and, besides mentioning Konqueror in connection with Safari, include link to the Konqueror and/or KDE on the Safari home page.

Re: one for apple!(?) - Jaq - 2003-01-10

(This is impressive! Where did you, if ever, learn about BSD code used in MS-WIN-NT/2000?) Isn't the TCP/IP stack based on BSD code?

Re: one for apple!(?) - Metrol - 2003-01-10

> Isn't the TCP/IP stack based on BSD code? Ummm, everyone's TCP/IP stack is based on BSD code. Some of the earliest development on the protocol was worked on under BSD. Mind you, I believe this predates the BSD's we know today by quite a while. Back when BSD really truly meant Berkley University was working on it.

Re: one for apple!(?) - Michael Collette - 2003-01-10

> Where did you, if ever, learn about BSD code used > in MS-WIN-NT/2000? This goes right to the heart of the BSD vs GPL license. Apple couldn't release Safari without also releasing the source code, and thus the true source of where it came from. It was going to be pretty darn obvious whether they mentioned it or not. Might as well get OSS developers on their side. Microsoft was under no obligation to mention BSD licensed code in their marketing, so they didn't. Nothing at all wrong with this, as they complied with all the terms of the license. As to why Apple mentioned FreeBSD code within OSX right from the start? Couple of possible reasons for this, but none really to do with licensing. First off, Apple wanted to tap into some of the community support that comes with being a contributing member of the Free community. More importantly, it let the world know that the bug ridden infrastructure of OS9 had been removed and replaced with the impressive stability of FreeBSD. A definite marketing plus as they wanted to put the Mac platform under the Unix flag. > that Apple will be kind enough to return the favour I can't see where this is really needed. Apple has complied with the GPL by releasing their changes to the community. In so doing, both Apple and the *nix world at large benefit. Asking Apple to also provide free marketing is simply too much. Also, there's no real benefit to the Linux community directly at this point. Apple's web site is talking to Apple computer users making use of their hardware and OS. This isn't a segment that Linux is going to benefit from for quite a while yet. Even if it were, it'd be like RedHat linking to Suse's site. Just doesn't make sense.

LGPL - Jiffy - 2003-01-11

> Apple has complied with the GPL Just to note, khtml and kjs are both licensed under the LGPL.

Re: one for apple!(?) - some konqueror user - 2003-01-11

I clicked on Safari at http://www.apple.com then clicked on a link about "Open Source" then clicked on a link to http://www.kde.org only a few more clicks to this page

How positive can you be!! - jack - 2003-01-08

First of all, don't get me wrong. I'm an os X user, and i don't think there's anything like it. I hopefully look at the GNUstep project, but then that's the same technology. Anyway, Apple could have made this browser completely open source?? why didn't they. Of cource this browser means recognition for the open source community, but it is also an easy way for apple to come with a new OS X browser. What I mean is, they tage the good stuff, make something nice with it, but don't share the entire code (I understood that the KWQ part is NOT opensource.) soowe being an 'MacHead' I'm surprised that there are only positive reactions..

Re: How positive can you be!! - Anonymous Monkey - 2003-01-08

Are you sure on that. Can somebody verify whether or not the whole thing is open source or not? I've heard both that it is and isn't. Either way, this is a great thing for Konqueror and OSS in general (bugfixes and improvements to KHTML and kjs, and punting IE from the Mac desktop).

Re: How positive can you be!! - Brandon - 2003-01-08

The KWQ part is a KDE-QT/Quartz compatibility layer. It's the part that makes sure that khtml can talk to OSX. I don't see why it is such a big deal that they didn't open source that.

Re: How positive can you be!! - Sad Eagle - 2003-01-08

At least some of it is open-sourced - it's part of the WebCore tarball. The license header looks like the BSD license to me, too.

Re: How positive can you be!! - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-09

KWQ is release with the WebCore packages which I have already checked out and nosed around in, as previously stated it seems to be just a cut down version of QT and KParts just to get things to run, It is not and should not be considered a QT replacement and on another note please understand it is just used to get Safari to run.

Re: How positive can you be!! - jack - 2003-01-09

I understand what KWQ is, and i agree that i's not such a big deal. It's good to hear that it's released with the Web-Core packages though. The point I'm trying to make is, Apple is NOT "a good open-source citizen", as they claim. They only contribute the changes they made to the open source part they used (correct me if i'm wrong). So that's absolutely nothing more than they are required to. I would have liked a "download safari source code" link" next to the "download safari".

Re: How positive can you be!! - Tim Gollnik - 2003-01-10

Every person or company who's contributing to the OSS is a good member of the OSS-community. I can't understand your point.

Re: How positive can you be!! - Ari Ukkonen - 2003-01-12

That is all they are required to do, that is all anyone who uses LGPL code is required to do. If the code was under GPL, it would be a different story and safari would never have seen the light of day. I don't see how what they did was in anyway not being a good OSS citizen. They contributed back code in the components they used from the KDE project and kept the code they wrote to interface with said code to themselves which is perfectly fine.

Re: How positive can you be!! - Gunter Ohrner - 2003-01-10

BTW, what license does khtml have? I guess apple is linking their browser to khtml or at least they are loading/linking khtml dynamically, so if khtml is GPL Safari as a whole would have to be? Greetings, Gunter

Re: How positive can you be!! - Anonymous - 2003-01-10

And that's the reason it's LGPL.

Re: How positive can you be!! - glenalec - 2003-01-14

But why do we need another OS browser? Konqueror does well under *nix! The big thing is the sharing of the rendering engine, where improvemens from both sides helps both sides.

Re: How positive can you be!! - Gunnar Liljas - 2003-01-15

Exactly! The parts not being open source are of no interest, unless you're aiming to create a Safari "clone". Sure. it's always nice to look under the hood, but still, this is a magnificent contribution from Apple. It may be a small step for KHTML, but it's definitely a giant leap for the true spirit of open source (without the FSF zealotry)

Native QuickTime for Linux, (*)BSD...? - Pinghead - 2003-01-08

Maybe that will be the next step for Apple to contribute to the open source community, who knows? As I see it, one of the largest things missing is the multimedia support, in particular the web-multimeda formats, for making all our prefered OSs available to John Doe. Even if MPlayer is a fantastic tool and has come a long way, I think they wouldn't mind help directly from Apple. :)

Re: Native QuickTime for Linux, (*)BSD...? - vm - 2003-01-08

I am hoping that apple announces they have secretly been working on koffice about a year and they've a version that kicks openoffice's arse. QT does exist for OSX and it uses native cocoa. Only problem is use of KDE libs but then 'quack' does exist.

Congrats to all! - Jack Kennedy - 2003-01-08

I'm typing this in Safari on OS X. Very impressive. Just writing to thank all of you who've worked on KDE, because this would simply not be possible without you. The great news is that because the majority of web designers are sitting on macs, we'll see more and more pages being tested to work with KDE. Thanks to everyone again -- this browser rocks. Now if only Apple would give us some tabs...

This is the biggest step KDE has ever made - rokrau - 2003-01-08

Lots of other KDE components will get a closer look from developers now. Congratulations to the KHTML and all the KDE developers. Roland

Whomever said Apple has a 2.25% market share... - Steven - 2003-01-09

Where did you get your numbers? Most people agree it is currently about 3.25 percent, but that is just of sales. Macs are far closer to 15% if you count all the computers out there, because they last longer. And Apple is on track to get 10 Million OS X users very soon.

Reciprocal Gestures - Jeff - 2003-01-09

First I consider myself somewhat OS independent, meaning I love operating systems in general. I wish I had a strong justification to purchase that 17" PowerBook beauty, but I don't. I'm just wondering if the KDE/KHTML folks might find Apple making recipricol guesters by sharing their newly found unix expertise with the open source development of KDE. I use both Gnome and KDE and have likes and dislikes about each. If Apple's statement about being a "good open source citizen" rings true, I hope to see them contributing. The only thing preventing Linux distros from gaining desktop market share is the strength of its presentation to the end user. People will pay money for Linux, I do. But I don't see my father-in-law buying it just yet. Linux is very strong and very capable; It's a "do what I say, don't get in the way" operating system and I would love nothing more than to see linux get a top quality User Interface based on standards that third party application developers will embrace. You folks at Gnome and KDE have come a long way and your efforts are appreciated, I hope Apple finds it within themselves to contribute some of their unix UI expertise to your efforts. Good luck and keep up the great work! Jeff, CA

Apple Market share - Karikalan - 2003-01-09

OS X compatible CPUs: Apple has shipped on the average 700K units each quarter for the past three years. In other words, 3x4x700 K units = 8400 K units or 8.4 Million computers. The overall market has shipped close to 100 Million CPU's on the average each year. So, 8.4/300 = 2.8% of the market. Opensource + Apple is a potent combination. Apple bringing in its years of experience in human computer interface and usability issues, and the opensource community bringing in the technical knowledge! Sky is the limit... Great news indeed.. Kari

snapback feature - ic3man - 2003-01-09

now lets get the snapback feature in konqueror

X11 for Mac OS X also - Mike - 2003-01-09

The same day as they announced the browser Apple also ( much more quietly ) announced a new version of the X windowing system ,designed by them, for use under OSX. http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/ I just tried it with Abiword and it worked much, much better than before. It both launched and ran faster. It runs the app in a window with OSX gumdrops, drop shadow, and it even genies to the dock. Would this make KOffice as viable on OSX as OS9 apps are under Classic? Would a special version need to be made? BTW, Safari is great. Thanks for all the hard work. Apple licensed a commercial product to develop iTunes out of, based on that they could have used anybodys browser to build on. That they chose to use yours should be a great compliment. Here's hoping they "embrace and extend" some more. Mike

Re: X11 for Mac OS X also - Ben Moretti - 2003-01-10

YES! This is excellent. I can now run Xemacs on my iMac. I was wondering when Apple would ship X11 with OSX. So now all of the thousands of Unix applications with windowing interfaces are available to us. Anybody interested should check out http://www.osxgnu.org/ Yum. I also agree with many other posters that there will be a backwards flow to the Linux world from the work Apple are doing. Cheers!

Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Andreas Hillberg - 2003-01-09

Hey guys! I don't belong here really, I'm a hardcore mac addict to the bone. First time I even heard about KDE was on the MacWorld Expo last tuesday. I've never used Linux to be honest with you, used MS for a few hours my entire life. I saw the expo, heard the words "KDE" and "Konqueror" and got really interested in what this was. What have I found? Well it really enlightened my view for the x86, which for me before was a dead world filled with ms users and Linux users which I never bothered finding out more about. I've read alot about KDE, xfree86, Linux (although just the light beginner reading) and maybe it doesn't matter much, but KDE has gotten recognized by Apple, and you got a new user. I'm definately getting myself a good machine, and Linux! The big reason why I haven't done this step is first, I will NOT use any ms product! Second, I agreed with me, myself and I that if I got a x86 it would be for games (game addict too). I've heard Linux doesn't have much games (as mac do). Once I decided to swallow my pride and go ms, but I did ask a close friend (Hardcore Linux guy) on irc about it, and he showed me to http://www.transgaming.com . And I promise to Jobs (we mac addicts do that instead of God), I haven't had a bigger smile on my face since I first tested MacOSX. It's christmas all over for me! So here I am, I'm the new kid on the block! In conclusion, you gained improved code for Konqueror, and ATLEAST one new member to your community!

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - AC - 2003-01-09

Welcome! Remember, Linux + KDE can only get better with time, and it seems to be moving faster all the time. If you run into trouble, there are lots of helpful mailing lists. Good luck!

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - nusuth - 2003-01-09

Well, although I do recommend everyone to switch to an open sourced OS and KDE, I really cannot tell whether someone just heard about it should better switch to linux. I wish you best of luck. I strongly suggest finding a pesterable local guru before proceeding any further :) Also you'd better check Mac-on-linux project (which enables you to run OS X on machintosh *inside* linux) and install yellow dog linux, gentoo for ppc or something on your Mac. That way, you can experiment with linux and run your OS X apps at the same time on your favorite hardware. When you decide you have learned enough about this linux stuff and its alternative applications you can go use linux on x86 with transgaming.

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-09

I have to words for any new Linux user who doesnt know much about the OS those words are: SuSE LINUX

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Thorsten Schnebeck - 2003-01-09

Ok, SuSE is nice but I would say: KNOPPIX (www.knoppix.org)

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Janne - 2003-01-10

I would say: Gentoo Linux After they have used Gentoo for a while, they will know ALOT about their OS ;). Gentoo doesn't leave the user ignorant, it educates them.

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Jesper Juhl - 2003-01-11

Believe it or not, but I'd actually say Slackware (and yes, I'm serious - you'll *learn* a lot more).

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-13

You cannot put new people on distributions where you hav to configure everything yourself, Newbies do better with Automatic configuration and learning from that, you guys want linux to be more adopted yet you reccommend the hardest distros out there. Get serious

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Jesper Juhl - 2003-01-13

> You cannot put new people on distributions where you hav to configure everything yourself, Why not? I was a newbie myself once (back in '93) and I started out with Slackware (ok, there wasn't much choice back then). And I managed just fine - had to work hard to figure out how the system fit together and reading a lot of man pages and HOWTO's etc. but I learned a huge amount of stuff in the process that I don't think I would have learned (at least not as fast) if I had started out with one of the "handholding" distributions. > Newbies do better with Automatic configuration and learning from that, Personally I don't agree with that. If all you want is to install the system, get a desktop, browse the net, read email and write a few letters etc. then maybe that's the way to go. But if you want to learn how the whole thing works then jump into the deep end at once and learn it the hard way (trust me, the knowledge will stick better that way, and you'll be able to handle most other distributions without much trouble afterwards). > you guys want linux to be more adopted yet you reccommend the hardest distros out there. The hardest distro? I don't agree - maybe it's just me, but I find the simplicity of distributions like Slackware, Debian to be a lot easier to work with than having to navigate a lot of GUI tools in RedHat, Mandrake etc. And I think you generalize a bit. I've helped a few people over the years get started with Linux, and most of them I got started on Slackware (some have moved to other dists and some have stayed with Slack) - in almost all cases I experienced, that after some initial frustration and the need for me to explain a lot of stuff, these users quite quickly picked up stuff like the how the directory tree fits together, where config files are kept (and how to manipulate them), how to compile programs, build custom kernels, how to fix problems with X from the commandline when X wouldn't start etc. After a few weeks most of these people were quite selfsufficient and able to troubleshoot and fix most issues they came across by themselves. On the other hand I've seen many people struggle with Mandrake, SuSE etc. for months without getting past the stage where they needed handholding while installing RPM packages and configuring network connections etc... I don't think any given distribution is harder than any other. It's more a matter of some distributions appealing more to some peoples way of learning than others. People learn new stuff in different ways, and what's hard for some people seems quite easy to others. Some people learn better by the 'gentle introduction' and then move on to the 'more complicated' stuff later, while other people (myself included) learn easier by diving into the complicated stuff at once and then experiment and learn from my mistakes (and learn a lot of secondary stuff while searching for the solutions to hard problems). > Get serious I'm completely serious.

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-14

I started out with RH 4 back in the day but the thing is that those days are over, most new linux users are desktop users, the GUI tools exist so as to make the install as friendly as possible. Its not a matter of helping anyone set up their box they want to do it themselves. The installation of Slackware and Debian is intimidating to desktop users who are a non technical, they dont care what IRQ their sound card, modem and network card use. They dont care about refresh syncs for their monitors, Desktop users and especially those that are getting into Linux from the Mac are mostly non-geeks they need a friendly install, if they feel intimidated and are forced to try to understand something they know absolutely nothing about they will either go back to the Mac or they will stay with Windows. If they want to stay with the PowerPC chip go Yellowdog Linux, if they want an x86 box go with Suse. I am in no way flaming Slack or Deb, I have used both of them myself and I find them to be good distros, but some people do not have a geek they can call at 3 am. Of all the destop distros I have tried, Lycoris, Xandros, Lindows, RH 8 and Suse Suse is by far the easiest and most user friendly distro I have seen and since migrating my customers to Suse I have had waaaaaaaaaaaaaay less service calls.

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - threenorns - 2003-05-02

i was a newbie the same time as my mother. i went DOS, she went GUI (IBMs PC-DOS). it is now ten years later and i *still* have to fix her computer every two days -- she hasn't the foggiest idea how to do anything except surf the net, read email, chat on IM or message boards, and play music. if she can't double-click, she's lost. oh -- and call me when something goes blooey. the system i have now, i know inside out and backward because i put it together myself and spent a lot of time saying "NOW wtf did i do!???". now i'm checking out knoppix -- looks very, very interesting... if i could only work out the friggin' modem...<sigh> threenorns

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Anonymous Monkey - 2003-01-09

If you want to try Linux out before buying a new machine, you can get Linux for the Mac from Suse, Mandrake, Yellow Dog, and others. You could dual boot your machine and give Linux a test spin. Of course more software for Linux can be had on x86, but Linux on PPC/Mac would be a cheaper way for you to try KDE.

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Bryan Feeney - 2003-01-11

I'm pretty sure KDE 2.2 is working on OS X, look up Fink on Google to see how things are getting along.

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Ari Ukkonen - 2003-01-12

You are going to be disapointed with some of the missing features/bugs/glitches when running games under XWine. You would be better off either looking at the mac ports at aspire.com or geting a console like the XBOX (I know, it's an MS product boo hiss) or a PS2 which btw has a linux distro officially supported by Sony.

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Andreas Hillberg - 2003-01-14

Me again. =) Thanks for all the feedback. I've checked out SuSE and Debian and will decide from one of those two which I'll pick. The note about me trying Linux on my Mac it's out of the question, first, I'll not leaving MacOSX, I'm adding Linux. Second, I'm a professional web designer/ coder, for which I can't afford messing to much with this machine. I assumed XWine would have missing features/bugs/glitches, but I don't really care. I'm mostly in it for the experience of Linux (game second, maybe I didn't write that so clear, my fault), and from what I've heard Linux developers are pretty awesome in creating/fixing software so it will be ok. =) As for mac ports of games, well some are ok, mostly it's a joke. I did play RtCW once, was pretty good, gaming clan and all... 1.41 came out for Win/Linux... a month later I had to leave the clan, haven't played it since 1.4 first came out, and still to this day no sign of 1.4/1.41 patch on mac. For which I've lost all hope on good, up to date games on mac, it's dead on that end. I already have a PS2, love it, won't touch XBOX. And the hardware (the linux box) isn't that expensive, for the unlikely reason I don't like Linux, I'll sell it further... easy =) But my guess is that I'll love it!

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - Jesper Juhl - 2003-01-15

> And the hardware (the linux box) isn't that expensive, for the unlikely reason I don't like Linux, > I'll sell it further... easy =) Just make sure the hardware you buy is actually Linux compatible. Linux' support for various hardware is constantly improving, but some stuff is still not (som some will probably never be) supported. > But my guess is that I'll love it! Many do, some don't. I wish you the best of luck. Enjoy Linux. :-)

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - chris - 2005-10-23

i have heard you can play ps2 games on your xbox with wine but how

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - ac - 2005-10-24

LOL

Re: Greetings from a hardcore machead! - jon - 2005-12-21

whats wine and how do i get it?????

Thank you - Andrew - 2003-01-09

I would like to thank you to all the developers for starting this project. I am using Safari under OSX and it is fantastic! I got to your site following a thread on a Mac forum, and all I would like to tell you guys...is that without you I wouln't have a web browser like I do now. I hope that the changes Apple has made will help you guys out too, and that you can maintain a good relationship to benefit everyone. Good job once again! Andrew

Linux Speed increases? - ac - 2003-01-09

Does anyone have an idea of how much faster the KDE Konqueror will be after the apple changes are merged in?

Safari breaks single day download record for Apple - Janne - 2003-01-09

"First introduced during Steve Jobs Macworld keynote yesterday, Apple's new Web browser, Safari, broke the single day download record previously held by iTunes, according to Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. Safari has been downloaded 300,000 times in the last 24 hours -- the previous download record for Apple was for iTunes, which had two days of 100,000 downloads. In fact, Schiller said that 20 percent of all Mac downloads from Apple.com in the last 24 hours came from a Safari browser." It seems that KHTML just got ALOT of new users ;)

Re: Safari breaks single day download record for Apple - fiveoh - 2003-01-10

No suprise, really. It's a fantastic browser! It blows me away! I, too, am a Mac-head and I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but a huge thanks to all the KDE developers and KDE community for making such great technology! Cheers also to the OSS community as I'm starting to learn more about and use all this wonderful technology -- Apache, PHP, mySQL, Gecko, and now KDE!

Safari : ) - James7609 - 2003-01-10

Great day for Apple and Open Source in general. This could be the kick in the teeth M$ needed to start a chain reaction of awareness and change. I was just so sure that Apple would use the Gecko engine, since they used to favour Chimera ( a Moz-based OS X browser ) for various keynote demos... mind you I had never heard of KDE or the Konqueror browser until Tuesday and now I use one as default ; ) ) A great day!

Apple Irrationality - Cynic - 2003-01-10

Cheerleaders, please wake up and smell the coffee. The ONLY reasons this stuff came back is because Apple is required to do so under the GPL. Apple are the leeches of the open source movement. Any why not? It's good business strategy. They must have some smart managers somewhere over at Apple, because I just can't believe Steve Jobs could come up with this brilliant strategy.

Re: Apple Irrationality - AC - 2003-01-10

> because I just can't believe Steve Jobs could > come up with this brilliant strategy. Never underestimate Steve Jobs or the zeal and loyalty of Mac users. Open Source advocates should know better. Sure we'd like Apple do to more, but as long as they're compliant with the KHTML license, what's the problem? I'm glad Apple has done this to counter all the anti-OSS moves by Microsoft.

Re: Apple Irrationality - Steff-X - 2003-01-10

Of course it's business strategy. Apple wants to make money and more marketshares and that's perfectly natural for a company. However, note that having to follow GPL rules does not mean Apple has to do it like it actually did. The Safari team could have posted messy and almost-unusable changelog and it didn't, so I have no doubt about their commitment with the open-source community.

Re: Apple Irrationality - rlr - 2005-05-12

That's it? Your justification for Apple doing this is that it's natural for a company to do so and that it could have done worse? How does that fact that something is natural for someone make that something right? How does the possibility of a worse case make something acceptable?

Re: Apple Irrationality - Stefan Schustereit - 2003-01-10

> The ONLY reasons this stuff came back is because Apple > is required to do so under the GPL. OK, where's the beef? Apple knew about the GPL before they started to play around with open source rendering machines. So what? They decided to take KHTML, and this decision was directly fitted to return the sources. Have a look to the list of Safari programmers - they're all open source minded. Stefan

Re: Apple Irrationality - notCynic - 2003-01-12

Cynic, wake up and take the Prozac. The GPL is not anti-profit. Apple could have developed a completely closed sourced browser or could have purchased one. Apple complies with the GPL, and you whine. Would you have been happier if Apple took the code and challenged the GPL in court? By the ranting in your post, it appears that you'd rather Apple ask like Microsoft. Good call... Do you think the GPL is a horrible idea? Should software be left in the public domain? Was Stallman a fool? No. The GPL is needed. If releasing code werent required, Microsoft would have destroyed the movement long ago with hundreds of incompatible libraries and corrupted protocols. The GPL does not require large corporations with deep pockets and R&D departments use open source software only. Apple's actions have helped both projects. The "cheerleaders" are happy because they see this helped the movement they care so much about. You have confused the open source movement with hatred. Why is using open source such a brilliant idea that Steve Jobs couldn't have thought of it on his own? He co-founded Apple, building his own hardware and software (including an OS) in his mothers garage with the help of Steve Wozniak, but using open source software is far too complex for him to grasp??? I guess Open Source is doomed then. If people as smart as Jobs cannot comprehend the movement, how will it ever succeed?

Re: Apple Irrationality - laird popkin - 2003-01-17

This comment is just goofy -- Apple has released tons of code to the development community that wasn't required to be released. Look at all their work on BSD -- they aren't required by a license to release any of it, and they did. And their QT compatability layer between KHTML and Aqua. They developed the Rendezvous (ZeroConf) spec as an open standard when they could have done it (and faster/cheaper) as a proprietary effort, and released a reference implementation of it. I think that Apple is doing exactly what it should -- it's benefitting from open source projects, and it's contributing like crazy back to those projects.

Re: Apple Irrationality - PG - 2003-02-20

WHAT SHOULD STEVE JOBS DO WITH APPLE MAC TODAY? ANY SUGGESTIONS??

Konqueror & LiveConnect (Safari?) - kartoffelsalat - 2003-01-10

I heard (read) some rumors that LiveConnect was implemented in Konqueror. Did not find anything on that topic doing a site search in www.konqueror.org and my Konqueror 3.0.3 is NOT able to liveConnect. Does anyone know more about that? Did Apple do something with LiveConnect? Does Safari support it? Java <=> JavaScript communication would be really neat!

Re: Konqueror & LiveConnect (Safari?) - Sad Eagle - 2003-01-10

That was implemented for 3.1, IIRC.

Re: Konqueror & LiveConnect (Safari?) - Hamish Rodda - 2003-01-10

I remember that this was discussed in depth during 3.1 development... take a look, it's probably there in 3.1.

Re: Konqueror & LiveConnect (Safari?) - Patrik - 2003-01-15

So, did Apple make Safari support LiveConnect? Would be really neat... Anyone know more about that? Rgds, /Patrik

Re: Konqueror & LiveConnect (Safari?) - chr$ - 2003-01-18

Safari1.0 Beta (v51) of 1-10-03: seems like no LiveConnect yet... Tried to call an applet's method from JavaScript and it didn't work... Bye, Christian

Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-10

I think this sucks. So far most of the comments I've seen have been happy ones. I'm not happy. Let's remember a few things shall we? 1) Apple makes their money selling proprietary platforms. If you think the Mac, or Mac OS X is not proprietary, then you need a serious reality check. 2) Proprietary platforms are bad for software freedom and society in general. 3) Therefore, proprietary platforms are a bad thing, therefore in MacOS is a bad thing for all of us in the long run. Or are you all so blind you have not learnt anything from the past decade? Jobs would be the next Gates faster than you can say "WTF?" 4) This is not "Apple and open source working together". Apple were compelled to release these changes because KHTML is protected under the LGPL. If they had really been "working with open source" they'd have told the KDE developers as they were working, instead of producing an enormous patch dump which will be difficult to integrate (and a few of the items were already done by the kde guys). However they decided to pander to Jobs ego so he could go "tada" as he loves to do at Macworld. I find this mindless sycophantic Apple-drooling disgusting. Wake up people! Do you not see what is happening? Is Safari open source? No. In fact, Apple have released basically jack all of their own code. FreeBSD has got a few minor patches and some test suites out of them. If you think MacOS is open source go try and fork it. Go on, I dare you. Just make sure you have a large budget for the legal costs. I think Ian Clarke was right when he said for some people the fad was more important than the philosophy. KDE is working for a free desktop - Apple quite clearly is not. This is a dark day for KDE and free software in general. Flames are expected. Go ahead, I've seen them all before.

Re: Another POV - Hamish Rodda - 2003-01-10

Which part of this is going to be bad for KDE? From what I can see, we only receive benefits...

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-10

If you look at the situation as: there is only KDE, all that matters is that KDE is good, then this is a positive announcement. I don't. I see it as: There is a free platform called Linux (s/linux/freebsd/ if you are so inclined). KDE is a component of that free platform. The more people that use Linux the better, because that way computers are finally commoditized and technology is freely available to all again. When a product becomes a commodity, you see profit margins shrink, innovation speed up and companies become more efficient. I want to see this happen, I don't want to see another Gates or Jobs. Technology as key as computing should not be owned by anybody. So I see this as a bad thing, because it takes peoples eyes off the ball. KDE getting better is good, but not at the expense of also boosting a proprietary platform, otherwise you could wake up to find that nobody uses KDE and everyone uses MacOS. If you think that would be OK, why do you think KDE is GPLd? Why do you think we have GNOME? It was the "only the betterment of KDE matters" attitude that led to the split in the first place. Think about it.

Re: Another POV - dc - 2003-01-10

You sound like a control freak trying to tell others what to do. Do you even understand Open Source? Open Source is about free software, but it's also about better software. Rewriting software is stupid. Rewriting software costs humanity. Reusing software is good. Reusing and improving existing software is better. Reusing, sharing, and improving existing software is good for humanity. Open Source happily gives you freedom to use and improve the software. If you contribute back it makes everybody even more happy. Apple gave us Open Source software and/or improvements. Be happy that they have contributed and stop being so paranoid. It's freaky. Bill Gates wants to write proprietary software, let him.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-10

I am not paranoid, I am realistic. Apple is not interested in the good of humanity, it would be illegal for the board of directors in fact to be interested in anything other than the maximization of value to shareholders. They sell a proprietary platform, and they want to see as many people as possible use it, regardless of what those people actually want. See how they have been buying up companies and scaring their customers witless by making them think they'll drop the Windows/UNIX versions. In terms of business models, they are identical to Microsoft except at least MS use open hardware. Therefore, the fact that I am concerned is quite justifiable given the amount of abuse the industry has seen over the past decade. It turned out to be Gates because he bet on commodity hardware and Jobs didn't, but it could easily have been the other way around. Finally, I understand open source just fine. If a company wishes to improve some free software to solve a problem they have, that is fine. In this case however, their "problem" is that not enough people are locked into their proprietary platform. I don't want to see that "problem" of theirs solved, and I am stating my disappointment at this. Maybe you think all that matters is the code, which is your opinion and that's fine, I think there's more to it than just the code. Feel free to disagree.

Re: Another POV - Lasse Larsson - 2003-01-12

>In terms of business models, they are identical to Microsoft except at least MS use open hardware. It is not Open Hardware. It is not free and it is not Open. I you want to produce a PC you have to complay with three sets of definitions. Microsoft, Intel and the BIOS. This thinks are all under properity and has to be followed and this companies do earn a buck each time a PC is manifactored. So no Open Hardware.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-12

Anybody can build a PC, the IBM specs are out in the open and have been for a long time. You don't need to use Windows or Intel products, you can use Linux and AMD for instance. There may be licensing costs at some point, I don't know. Anyway, it's comparatively open.

Re: Another POV - Sad Eagle - 2003-01-10

KDE isn't "GPLd". Plenty of components use other licenses, like BSD or X11 or MIT.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-10

Yes, I'm aware of that. However the bulk of it is under the (L)GPL. I oversimplified slightly to avoid bogging down the post

Re: Another POV - ac - 2003-01-10

KDE is more than that. KDE works on many many Unices whether free or proprietary.

Re: Another POV - Pengiun - 2003-01-14

People like you is what makes the Linux community look really bad to the masses with your immature ideology! Apple has chosen a path and yes is building a business model around open source... so isn't thousand other companies! What boils down to is that you have a misguided anti-Mac attitude that just wants to bitch and complain just to hear yourself speak! I'm glad that not all Linux types are as arrogant as you are! Kudos to the KDE and Apple development teams for brining another piece of positive momentum forth that will only benefit the open source community!

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-14

[ Apple has chosen a path and yes is building a business model around open source... so isn't thousand other companies! ] Open your eyes. Their business model is exactly like Microsofts, except along the way they are using lots of open source software to help them. The end result is still not open source, not free and completely proprietary. [ What boils down to is that you have a misguided anti-Mac attitude that just wants to bitch and complain just to hear yourself speak! I'm glad that not all Linux types are as arrogant as you are! ] I guess you could have answered me with well thought out arguments against my position, but presumably you either couldn't or couldn't be bothered, both reasons I simply cannot respect. You are the one that's bitching and complaining. I stated my viewpoint and have put a lot of effort into making sure it was understood and debating with people who took the time to try and understand what I was talking about. You did not.

Re: Another POV - Pengiun - 2003-01-14

[ Open your eyes. Their business model is exactly like Microsofts, except along the way they are using lots of open source software to help them. The end result is still not open source, not free and completely proprietary. ] Apple's business model 'WAS' exactly like Microsoft's, but that failed due to their own arrogance long ago and now they have decided to jump on the open source bandwagon and I like that, especially if it's going to benefit everyone in the Unix/Linux world (myself included)! I don't like proprietary standards anymore than any other open standard advocate, and now at least Apple is headed in the right direction in regards to those concepts! [ I guess you could have answered me with well thought out arguments against my position, but presumably you either couldn't or couldn't be bothered, both reasons I simply cannot respect. ] Because I'm not wasting my breath! You have argued with a ton other folks on this thread, so what's the point?! I understood your every word, but you're onesided on this whole debate and have a closed mind about what's going on instead of facing to the reality of things! You're the type to rain on the parade if you see other people happy, of course you're allowed to your own opinion (like everyone else), but you're throwing stones out of a glass house and people can see in very clearly!! I'm not going to waste another breath, but my advice to you is not to ignore the truth in which you are shadowing!!

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-14

[ Apple's business model 'WAS' exactly like Microsoft's, but that failed due to their own arrogance long ago and now they have decided to jump on the open source bandwagon ] Other people on this thread disagree with you, and for good reason. I suggest you think hard about that one, bandwagon jumping is not the same as actually taking the core values to heart and acting on them. MacOS X is not open source, neither is QuickTime, nor is 95% code that has actually been developed by Apple. Feel free to argue that point, the evidence is stacked against you however. [ you're onesided on this whole debate and have a closed mind about what's going on instead of facing to the reality of things! ] It's perfectly possible to convince me otherwise - I did not reach these conclusions entirely on my own you know. They came about through debates with other people, which made me see "the big picture". So far nobody has presented credible counter arguments to my main points (Apple make proprietary platforms, these are bad, therefore Apple is bad). The economics are quite compelling. [ You're the type to rain on the parade ..... <snip> ] Getting hysterical over it won't help, you can either attempt to address my points or not. I'm sorry if you were happy about this and now you're not, but that's not "raining on the parade" - it's telling it like it is, and if some people get upset by that, well, they'll have to do some thinking won't they. [ I'm not going to waste another breath, but my advice to you is not to ignore the truth in which you are shadowing!! ] The truth should be obvious to anybody who makes an effort to stay neutral and consider all the arguments and all the facts. If you don't want to make the effort, go ahead and flame me some more, I'll continue to reply if I see what I believe are inaccurate characterisations or FUD simply so people reading this thread don't assume I don't reply because you've made a point I can't refute.

Re: Another POV - Pengiun - 2003-01-14

[ Other people on this thread disagree with you, and for good reason. I suggest you think hard about that one, bandwagon jumping is not the same as actually taking the core values to heart and acting on them. MacOS X is not open source, neither is QuickTime, nor is 95% code that has actually been developed by Apple. ] Actually it looks like most of the other posts are against your viewpoint in thinking! How do you know exactly what is going through the minds of the engineers and programmers at Apple?! Apple obviously wants to be a part of something great, and that is being a part of the open source community! They hired Jordan Hubbard foir starters to working on the underlying portion of Mac OS X called Darwin, which I might add is an open source project! So you're half right about Mac OS X not being open source!! You argue that Apple is not helping open source whatsoever, but praise Red Hat, though some KDE developers are not exactly happy with RH's attitude lately: http://www.mosfet.org/noredhat.html Of course I have no complaints about Red Hat... just using this as an example. People will always have differing opinions on the subject at hand, but don't go slandering and making false accusation and unproven statements to satisfy your own dislike of something you can't control! [ Getting hysterical over it won't help, you can either attempt to address my points or not. I'm sorry if you were happy about this and now you're not, but that's not "raining on the parade" - it's telling it like it is, and if some people get upset by that, well, they'll have to do some thinking won't they. ] I'm not any of the above... helk I'm tickled pink that Apple is recognizing the efforts of OSS and hopefully everyone involved will benefit from it! [ The truth should be obvious to anybody who makes an effort to stay neutral and consider all the arguments and all the facts. If you don't want to make the effort, go ahead and flame me some more, I'll continue to reply if I see what I believe are inaccurate characterisations or FUD simply so people reading this thread don't assume I don't reply because you've made a point I can't refute. ] At the rate you're going with this and the past replies you have made to others, I won't worry about how many times you reply, it proves nothing other than ignorance (which is bliss)! On a side note: I commend you for your passion and dedication for what you believe in, but at least stick to the hard facts and stay away from bad gossip, you're intelligent it seems so why not put that to a better use than waste space on these kinds of threads preaching about something not all people will agree on!

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-14

[ Actually it looks like most of the other posts are against your viewpoint in thinking! ] I was talking about the "Mac OS is open source" part. Most people do not disagree with this, most of the argument has been about my assertions that what Apple are doing is bad. [ So you're half right about Mac OS X not being open source!! ] I seriously doubt Darwin is 50% of the MacOS code, and more to the point even if it was (which it probably isn't) 50% isn't enough for Mac apps to be run on anything other than MacOS, which is basically what this all boils down to. [ You argue that Apple is not helping open source whatsoever, but praise Red Hat, though some KDE developers are not exactly happy with RH's attitude lately: ] Yes, a remarkably silly argument in my view. Redhat made some cosmetic changes at best to KDE, and got a kick in the nuts. Apple take some open source code and integrate it into their commerical and proprietary operating system and everybody praises them. It makes no sense at all. [ you're intelligent it seems so why not put that to a better use than waste space on these kinds of threads preaching about something not all people will agree on! ] Thanks. I continue to post here because I want people to realise what is happening, that Apple are not actually interested in the long term benefit of open source, they are interested in the long term benefit of themselves, and those two things are mutually incompatable.

Re: Another POV - Joe Anton - 2003-01-15

Its not clear why you believe Redhat is going to continue to provide a free platform. The free download disappears when a sizeable installed base exists and is dependent on future upgrades. What is the motivation to produce a rock solid reliable platform with excellent documentation when the business model is services? My opinion is that Redhat and Sun (Java) are seeding the market. What may be free now won't be in the future.

Re: Another POV - you know me - 2007-03-14

I don't want to live in the shadow. So what do you want me to do. You can track me anywhere

Re: Another POV - you know me - 2007-03-14

I don't want to live in the shadow. So what do you want me to do. You can track me anywhere

Re: Another POV - Gunnar Liljas - 2003-01-15

Well, except from the fact that I believe that this is just yet another act of open source zealotry, Linux monopolism etc., and that I think that you're way wrong, there is also another aspect, and that is that this particular happening is about a web browser. Web browsing is the most ppular usre of a computer today, and it's heavily dominated by Microsoft Internet Explorer (looking at the stats from our 60000 visits/month web server, where Windows IE claim 98.1%). Although Apple's market share is small, the Safari browser really has the potential to make a difference. Not so much in the browser statistics, perhaps, but in the way web pages are created and validated. This is good. Perhaps there's not a big upside for the open source movement, but there certainly is no downside.

Re: Another POV - chris c - 2003-01-15

okay just my two cents on Mikes position. Darwin is NOT 50% of the MacOs... it is actually closer to 80-95% of it. The only thing you don't get is the gui! All the other underpinnings are there, you can even load it on intel and some AMD hardware. There is very limited support but it is there. You might want to check GNU-Darwin and take a look at what they have. Does Apple make proprietary hardware? Yes! Is as open and transparent as the WinTel side of the planet? No! And we suffer fewer viruses as a result. We have better overall system security and integrity. So, from my POV I would rather have less hassle and more security then what the WinTel people have to go thru. You can still get tons of information about the hardware et al from Apple but you have to register to be a developer! This is partly to keep the riff raff from getting into mischief, because if something suddenly springs onto the scene that is nasty Apple WILL do their damnedest to figure out WHO did it and it will be their ass! A lot of people want Apple to release their code for a lot of their toys. They won't. And they honestly should NOT be expected to! Those are the products that they sell to pay their employees...you know the guys and gals with college loans to pay off and put food on the table... those people. And they are a bit gun shy about letting people take a peak at the code....hmmm why is that? The last time it was done was by a smallish software vendor who wanted to see the code to make window overlap...oh what was his name? Oh ya BILL GATES!!! He licensed that bit of code and stole an empire! And before you bring up Xerox... they gave Apple NO CODE. Apple did not steal any either. They built from the ground up their own GUI. If you don't think that Microsoft stole code read in detail the judgement of the lawsuit. The judge declared that all windows products upto something that at the time was codenamed "new wave" were derivative works of the original copyright holder Apple computer. However the licensing of the window overlap code under copyright law of the time gave the licensee access to the whole document. They just could not copyright THEIR work as original. That was one of the prime movers for XP coming out...the copyright for Win95/98 was UP since it was from the date of the originators copyright Apple. So..... they have been massively anally raped in the past. Why do you expect them to bend over now? We are talking about a man that started in his garage with friends and BUILT that company from the ground up. Sure he acted like a total dickhead for awhile but can you honestly say that anyone you know inclusive of yourself would not have gotten a swelled head from the experience? Does he like to pull a couple of rabbits out of the hat at MacWorld? Hell yes! That is why there was NO communication between the Konqui team and Apple until after it was released. Will there be good communication in the future? In all likelyhood yes. Will Apple give as much if not more then they have taken? Most likely yes. Have they given to the FreeBsd community? Yes, not as much as some would like but have you asked yourself if the reason behind that is maybe that they are NOT doing things with the code that is usable by the community since it would be tighter integration with their GUI? I would guess from your tone no. Yes they make money...OOOO what a sin! They also up until a few years ago had a MAMMOTH R&D budget...have firewire? They developed it! Hold the patent. And even though they are only charging a pittance of 50 cents a port for using it you have people like Michael Dell who would rather end run to avoid paying. So what would be the possible insentive to develop new products if you are not going to recover the costs? None. Apple is a hardware manufacturer first and a software maker second. Many of the shareholders would like them to split the company down those lines and take the apps etc to other platforms....but cooler heads usually prevail. Its fine that you have an opinion, it fine to voice it. But please don't draw comparisons between a company that is 180 degrees away from Microsoft in the manner you have. Apple is about as close as you are going to get in the modern business world to a "good" guy these days. I am truly sorry that you have only had the experience of dealing with the plunder baron of Redmond and his cronies. But there are some people in business that were raised to be better people then he was. Btw..... My Dads developer number with Apple is 97.... he was there before Bill G came hat in hand to beg for some help in keeping his floundering little company in business. Excel was the product.

Apple good guys?? - mendred - 2003-01-16

Grow up, Microsoft and intel are guys who popularised the concept of desktops for home user.They did it for profit all right, but it was a lot cheaper than the macintosh. And apple could have easily destroyed them if they hadn't got greedy. If i remember right, u had to pay royalties to even develop an app for the mac. And of course mac clones were out of the question. In contrast no royalties for windows apps, and a pc could be built out of shelf componenets. And atleast microsft made nt for the alpha(ok maynbe not great but i love that platform(alpha), where was the mac os for any other platform other than the mac??) and u have the audacity to call apple a good guy? They are a business with great products, brilliant engineers but had very poor business acumen and no vision atleast until the imac. Hopefully that's changing now. Wanna rule the world apple? Charge no royalties for making mac clones. In fact try to use the open source community as much as possible, and contribute back, just like u have done now. THEN u will really be the good guys for good, but until then i will just wait and watch. P.S: I seriously hope that Apple continue being the good guys. Frankly because it would benefit them, as much as it benefits the opens source community. KOffice for the mac will be a great thing with all its quirks sorted of course.. 2)I wonder why they never tried to get fresco working for OS X? Now that would be somehting to see on the mac.

Re: Apple good guys?? - chris c - 2003-01-20

uh I said as close as you can get. As to populurizing the desktop... that is a matter of degree. Apple had the lions share of the desktop market for home users at one point and lost it. That was a bad decision on Steveos part, he could have charged a lot less for the first mac, and gained position. They were very weak on business apps at that point so not much share in that arena as they would have liked, although on a side note what used to be Seafirst bank in MS's home town kept using their Macs for a good 10-15 years and may still be doing so I don't live there any more. As to fees to build an app... I am not so sure on that one Hoss. Don't recall having to pay squat. Not even for the developer license during the time in question. Now on to the clone fiasco. Apple did not charge a license fee per se. they charged a QA charge to make sure that the hardware was upto spec. Rather prudent since they have still an industry leading reputation regarding how tight the hardware/software mesh. Any deviation from that would HURT their reputation. The clone license indicated that the clones were to target non exploited market segments and NOT to interfere in the areas that the parent was dominent in for the platform. Two things changed: Cost of the QA went up (costs Apple made not a drachma on the QA just charged the cloners cost of operation). And the cloners started going after the core business. the cloners would not pay the cost of the QA and would not cease and desist on the trimming away at the core of Apples business and fulfill their license. So they got their ticket yank. Apple bought the best of them and kept many of them on as employees. And further went beyond what they had to do in letting the cloners continue selling their stocks until they were out. They also gave them a nice little severence package of a sort. Both of which they were not required to do under the letter of the agreement. So ya they are good guys... well some of them are. Steve may have some personality flaws but lack of loyalty is NOT one of them. When I had some problems with my Bondi iMac he got wind of it and interceded. Without my asking, he made a call to the repair place and gave them a little talking to. And after that did not fix the machine (turns out the retailer stored it in a non climate controled area and the unit had been hard frozen at one point), he got me a brand new one. Did not have to. I still have that little Grape (and at the time you could not find a grape one anywhere they were a couple weeks backed up on em) 333 (and I had bought the 233) built in Cupertino. Thing is a rock! You can't kill it. I have run classic, OSX, and two distros of Linux on that little puppy. Never a hiccup. And all because my dad used to be a pretty hot hand with FORTH. So I may be a little biased. But then again I have a little more insight into the man in charge, not much more but enough more. This may not make much sense to you but it may to others: Steve is the kind of guy that gives you a firm handshake and looks you in the eye. Bill G.... I don't the only time I met him he had a hand shake like a wet fart and would not look at you. But that was way back in '85 he might be diffrent, but I am guessing not.

Re: Another POV - Corey Quilliam - 2003-01-10

Why is proprietary platforms bad for software? People do need to get paid. I think this is a great idea because not only are Apple developers submitting their source code back to KDE (and yes, I know they are required to by the LGPL license) but they are also interesting in future collaborations. Tell me how this is bad for open source? We are getting the source code (and enhancements) of Apple developers, and are free to use them in a free environment. Just because KDE is working for a free desktop, doesn't mean that there are "moral issues" with using the source code enhancements of a company who are not. And, I don't know about you, but Melton's email sounded like they are all for Open Source, it's just not their primary business. Apple is a company, and they are there to make money by selling software and hardware. That doesn't mean that are an evil empire ready and waiting to squash the "little open source guys". I am truely happy with these events, and am looking forward to future releases of KDE because of it. How is any of this bad for the development of KDE? It's either they look at the changes and enhancements made by Apple developers and use them, or, they just go on with their daily lives and continue the way they always have. The options are there.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-10

> Why is proprietary platforms bad for software? People do need to get paid. They can still be paid, just not by writing proprietary platforms. Very few people actually get paid to write platforms, for desktop computers in fact there is Microsoft and Apple. That's it. The source code is a means to an end, never forget that. The end is a free platform. Why do we need one? It's simple. A platform is a power magnifier, think of it like a lever. Because on one platform, there are many apps built upon it, that gives whoever controls the platform a large amount of power over everybody who builds upon that platform. See Microsoft, they can make the whole software industry spin around on the whim of Gates. They can extort money from people, because it's either that or lose all your apps. A proprietary platform is like the feudal land system, where one Lord of the Manor controlled many poor peasants, who had to do as he said otherwise they would lose the land on which they lived. The platform is like the ground in this sense. The analogy breaks down slightly because we still have land ownership. It's rather different from medieval times though - if your landlord doubles your rent, you can easily go elsewhere. There is very little lockin. If the Lord doubled the rent to his peasants, they could not move, because they were serfs and tied to the village, and they couldn't just move into a new house, they couldn't just take their crops with them etc. The lockin was very high. > We are getting the source code (and enhancements) of Apple developers Yes, and at a shallow level that is nice. Take a look at the big picture. Apple contribute back only what they need to. The amount of code that was originally developed by Apple and has been opened up is pitiful - a chess game anybody? Would you be happy if Microsoft decided to drop JScript and replaced it with KJS? They'd give back any changes they made, probably some improvements, probably lots of patches to introduce all the IEisms and ActiveX integration and whatnot that MS are known for. I wouldn't, because it's still JScript, Microsoft are still extending their platform, they are still using lockin as a lever. The power balance doesn't change. Technology doesn't get any more free. > Apple is a company, and they are there to make money It doesn't matter. They make money selling a proprietary platform, that must stop. They can go find something else to do, selling MP3 players or bomber jackets or whatever. Would you feel sympathetic for a hired killer saying "hey, I'm just trying to make money"? No, didn't think so. If you make money doing something ultimately harmful to society, that is a bad thing. > How is any of this bad for the development of KDE? I don't care about the development of KDE, point blank could not give a damn. I care about a free platform, period. The KDE project also cares about such a thing, hence I support them. They make a GPLd desktop environment which is a very important component of a free platform, but it's still a means to an end. If something is good for the development of KDE, but bad for the development of the open platform as a whole, then it's bad. Apple taking code originally developed for a free operating system and integrating into a non-free OS like MacOS for their own benefit hurts us all in the long run. It's this kind of "who cares about philosophy, the code is there" attitude that led to the creation of GNOME because the wider community actively considered KDE to be a threat. Luckily that changed when Trolltech made Qt GPLd, and all was well again, but remember why people are doing this. You may only care about how many pages KHTML can render, but to me that isn't so important. What is important is the long term health of the industry. Apple, being merely a Microsoft-wannabe, is dangerous, and I treat this announcement as such.

Re: Another POV - Joseph Feld - 2003-01-10

> It doesn't matter. They make money selling a proprietary platform, that must stop. They can go find something else to do, selling MP3 players or bomber jackets or whatever. Would you feel sympathetic for a hired killer saying "hey, I'm just trying to make money"? No, didn't think so. If you make money doing something ultimately harmful to society, that is a bad thing. Straw man analogy. Murder is an illegal and clearly immoral activity, capitalism is not and you present no compelling evidence to the contrary, merely your own assertions. It is not as clear as you wish to pretend that proprietary capitalism is at all harmful to society or to that portion of it tied to the computer industry.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-11

[ Straw man analogy. Murder is an illegal and clearly immoral activity, capitalism is not ] In fact you'll find the sort of strategies that Microsoft have used to maintain its dominance on the desktop ARE in fact illegal, as well as immoral. Apple haven't been sued, but they use similar strategies - how do you think Omni feel after having spent years support the Mac platform and now Apple turn around and not only give away but bundle a web browser with the OS? I'm sure that's fine by you, just like the IE bundling was fine with most pure users of Windows. There are lots of things that one can do that are bad, but not illegal. This form of capitalism is about power, pure and simple. There are no laws against it, but it's bad for everyone except the platform owner nonetheless. [ It is not as clear as you wish to pretend that proprietary capitalism is at all harmful to society or to that portion of it tied to the computer industry. ] You missed my point entirely. Reread my posts. I am not against capitalism, or closed source software. I am against proprietary platforms, as they distort the balance of power beyond the abilities of the free market to correct. History shows us this all too clearly.

Re: Another POV - Mike - 2003-01-11

The response from Omni was: Ken Case, CEO of the Omni Group, wrote: "OmniWeb is a browser which provides a very rich browsing experience, and is a very successful product for us despite free competition from the web industry's giants, Microsoft and Netscape. OmniWeb's biggest weakness has been a lack of compatibility with some web pages, and solving this by implementing newer web standards is the focus of our current efforts on OmniWeb. "Safari appears to be a great alternative to Internet Explorer as a free web browser which ships with the operating system. It seems to be quite fast, small, and easy to use (much like the new 12" PowerBook), and I'm very glad to see Apple basing their product on standards and open source technologies. "But the most interesting thing about Safari where OmniWeb is concerned is not the application itself: the wonderful news for OmniWeb is that Apple has based it on a fast, compatible (and small!) rendering engine which is tuned for Mac OS X, and which they are making available to the entire Mac OS X development community! (For details, see http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/webcore/.) This means that we may be able to reach our compatibility and speed goals for OmniWeb much more quickly than when we were working alone, and then return our focus to doing what we do best: providing a rich browsing experience. Thank you, Apple!" I found this qoute on Mac Fix It Mike

Re: Another POV - Joseph Feld - 2003-01-11

>[ Straw man analogy. Murder is an illegal and clearly immoral activity, capitalism is not ] >In fact you'll find the sort of strategies that Microsoft have used to maintain its dominance on the desktop ARE in fact illegal, as well as immoral. Apple haven't been sued, but they use similar strategies - how do you think Omni feel after having spent years support the Mac platform and now Apple turn around and not only give away but bundle a web browser with the OS? I'm sure that's fine by you, just like the IE bundling was fine with most pure users of Windows. You build another straw man. The actions of Microsoft, or even Apple's actions with regards to Omni are irrelevant with regards to the Apple/KDE transaction that was under discussion. Microsoft wasn't even involved and Omni is a business and businesses sometimes loose if they're not diversified enough. Neither have anything to do with how Apple has somehow harmed society by participating in an open source project. Please try and make your point through direct evidence, not allegorical analogies. Based on the comments I'm reading in this thread with very few exceptions the KDE society sees nothing wrong with Apple's actions. > [ It is not as clear as you wish to pretend that proprietary capitalism is at all harmful to society or to that portion of it tied to the computer industry. ] >You missed my point entirely. Reread my posts. I am not against capitalism, or closed source software. I am against proprietary platforms, as they distort the balance of power beyond the abilities of the free market to correct. History shows us this all too clearly. <sigh> I understood your posts completely. However, proprietary platforms are simply a subset of free and proprietary capitalism. To seperate one from the other requires artificial restrictions that I would not support. Simply put: I know what you said and I don't agree.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-11

[ Neither have anything to do with how Apple has somehow harmed society by participating in an open source project. Please try and make your point through direct evidence, not allegorical analogies ] I have not said Apple are harming society by participating in an open source project, I said they are harming society in general by doing something that in the long term is bad for the health of the free market, and that just because they choose to use KHTML in order to do this doesn't make it alright, as so many people seem to assume. [ Based on the comments I'm reading in this thread with very few exceptions the KDE society sees nothing wrong with Apple's actions. ] That's because most people are unconcerned with what may happen 5 or 10 years from now, and are equally unconcerned with matters of general principle. Allegorical analogies they may be, but if we ignore the lessons of history, we're just condemned to make the same mistakes over and over. Apple, Microsoft, Be Inc, it could have been any of them. It shouldn't be any of them.

Re: Another POV - Joseph Feld - 2003-01-11

> I have not said Apple are harming society by participating in an open source project, I said they are harming society in general by doing something that in the long term is bad for the health of the free market, and that just because they choose to use KHTML in order to do this doesn't make it alright, as so many people seem to assume. The free market does not require that computer platforms be open to maintain it's health, only that there be alternatives available. Proprietary platforms, in and of themselves, are not wrong. Proprietary platforms with no competing alternatives are wrong. If KDE were the only platform available how would this be an improved state of affairs over today's Microsoft monopoly? The average consumer, business or personal, is not capable of contributing to the code base or the steering of the KDE platform direction. They would be stuck with whatever the KDE higher-ups provided, same as they are today with MIcrosoft. The answer to this conundrum is a healthy mix of competing platforms, the ownership or openess of which is irrelevant. >Allegorical analogies they may be, but if we ignore the lessons of history, we're just condemned to make the same mistakes over and over. Apple, Microsoft, Be Inc, it could have been any of them. It shouldn't be any of them. The danger of using allegory to bolster an argument is it makes it too easy to ignore important differences between the presented analogies. In any case, you would need to supply direct evidence to support your fundamental claim about proprietary platforms being harmful to society (and before you bother I've heard the argument before from other sources and I think it's altruistic nonsense). Otherwise, your analogies are at best, meaningless, and likely misleading. A.k.a., a straw man argument. >That's because most people are unconcerned with what may happen 5 or 10 years from now, and are equally unconcerned with matters of general principle. I'm sorry, but I find that statement to be arrogant presumption. Just because an individual does not agree with your conclusions does not mean that they are unconcerned with principles or the future.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-11

[ The free market does not require that computer platforms be open to maintain it's health, only that there be alternatives available. Proprietary platforms, in and of themselves, are not wrong. Proprietary platforms with no competing alternatives are wrong. ] The very nature of a proprietary platform is to exclude competition: 1) Customer A evaluates OS/A and OS/B. 2) OS/A has slightly more apps, maybe one particular app they want. Therefore they choose OS/A because at the end of the day, the OS is a means to an end, the end being the apps. 3) Developers look at OS/A and OS/B, and see that OS/A has more users, so they decide to write their app only for OS/A because supporting both is too much effort. 4) Goto 1. Windows is near as makes no odds to a monopoly and it's not because Windows is so good nobody wants an alternative. BeOS was better, but it died, due to that logic above. It's a nasty catch-22 situation that the free market cannot deal with. [ If KDE were the only platform available how would this be an improved state of affairs over today's Microsoft monopoly? ] Because KDE is open and not controlled by any one individual or group. If KDE turned into an evil dicatatorship, it'd be forked and things would continue as before. Of course in reality, KDE would never be a monopoly because it can't be all things to all people. I use GNOME2 for instance, I prefer it's feel, but I used to use KDE3 and liked it a lot. So you still end up with choice, and even if GNOME didn't exist there could well be different distributions of KDE. [ The answer to this conundrum is a healthy mix of competing platforms, the ownership or openess of which is irrelevant. ] Not in my opinion, because proprietary platforms have an unfair advantage over open ones, open platforms don't have lockin to any great extent. See fink? See how most open source apps are capable of running on MacOS, on Windows, on Solaris etc. Now see how difficult it is to run Windows apps on Linux (hard) or MacOS apps on Linux (impossible). Proprietary platforms have lockin to a much greater extent, which is why I oppose them, it distorts the free market - open platforms don't. I once thought the same as you by the way, I thought it'd be great if Linux, MacOS and Windows all had 33% of the market. Then I realised how unstable such a situation would be, it'd all too easily snowball back into one dominant platform.

Re: Another POV - Anthony G - 2003-01-11

>Would you feel sympathetic for a hired killer saying "hey, I'm just trying to >make money"? I think this statement summarizes your mental health state. You just compared Apple the company to a hired killer. I am glad you are not in any position of power. You are a fanatic worthy of Osama Bin Laden, just as closed-minded and bigoted.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-11

[ I think this statement summarizes your mental health state. You just compared Apple the company to a hired killer. I am glad you are not in any position of power. You are a fanatic worthy of Osama Bin Laden, just as closed-minded and bigoted. ] Here's a tip - if you take an analogy literally, question somebodies mental health and compare them to an international terrorist, expect them to think you're an idiot. My point was that saying "Apple are only trying to make money" is not a valid argument. So what? We all want to make money. That doesn't mean we should do something ultimately harmful to society in order to make money. The fictional hired killer was to ram home the point and make it crystal clear what I was talking about. Instead of responding to my actual points, you insult me. Don't expect people to take you seriously.

Communism doesn't really work dude. - Joe Millionaire - 2003-01-14

This will make little or no sense, but then your post doesn't either. Example: The (former) Soviet Union The Open Source Community and effort is a hugely underappreciated movement, but for zealots to proclaim that companies simply shouldn't exist to sell software/hardware is beyond naive. We don't live in a vacuum, and the world you hope for (at least in this arena) does not and will not exist. Someone has to make the transistors, chips, etc. Rolling your own OS and suite of apps? Great. But frankly I'm willing to pay for an OS/App with a team of people working on it instead of hoping that the nice but not-quite-there-yet app that gets worked on when the team has a chance will work for me. It's like the idea of collective farming - sounds nice on paper, but eventually someone's going to get tired of pulling taters out of the ground and figure out a way to buy them from the next farm over.

Re: Communism doesn't really work dude. - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-14

[ The Open Source Community and effort is a hugely underappreciated movement, but for zealots to proclaim that companies simply shouldn't exist to sell software/hardware is beyond naive. ] This is maddening. Please READ what I have written before posting again OK? I have stated, many times, that proprietary software IS ALRIGHT. I'll let that sink in. I write it for a living. PLATFORMS are not, because they screw up the internals of capitalism. The exact what they do this has been explained a million times before if you don't understand. Apple sell a proprietary platform, the fact that it's made up of software and hardware isn't really relevant. I am not advocating all software be built by volunteers. It's certainly possible to get paid to work on free software, in fact Linux has many professional coders, artists and now UI designers as well working on it. [ Someone has to make the transistors, chips, etc. ] And they still can. Where did I say everything should be available for zero cost? I don't recall saying that. Please find the quote where I said that, or hell let's be generous, even where I implied it. What part of "platform" is so confusing. That word must apply to about 0.1% of the worlds software.

Re: Another POV - Rayiner Hashem - 2003-01-11

Why is proprietary platforms bad for software? >>>>>>>>> There is a fundemental difference between platforms and applications. Making money off applications doesn't harm society, because applications really aren't fundemental and not much else depends on them. Borland or WordPerfect being proprietory hasn't stopped valid competitors like OpenOffice from being created. Platforms are different. They entrench the user in a certain base of software and have close associations with a user's data. All closed programs have certain disadvantages for the user due to their closed nature. In an application these disadvantages have a limited scope. In a closed platform, these disadvantages are pervasive.

Re: Another POV - Gunnar Liljas - 2003-01-15

*in the light of Safari, possibly making web browsing a somewhat more standards compliant world* This is old thinking. Sure, making a platform choice is still very important.... [...and have close associations with a user's data] ...and it's that very association that should be addressed, not the existance if the platforms. Any application or OS or whatever that takes us a step towards open standards also brings us a step towards a document centric "computer world", where the choice of platform is *less* important. The choice will never be completely unimportant, but I applaud everything that gives me yet another option.

What about platform choice? - Andrew Blackburn - 2003-01-10

"1) Apple makes their money selling proprietary platforms. If you think the Mac, or Mac OS X is not proprietary, then you need a serious reality check." There are open-source and non-proprietary parts of MacOS X (i.e., the Mach kernel), but the real goodies - Quartz, Cocoa, Carbon - are proprietary. Not going to dispute that. "2) Proprietary platforms are bad for software freedom" If one looks at proprietary software as being software that's being denied its rights, and that an increase in the number of closed-source programs means an increase in the number of programs being denied their software rights, he might agree with you. However, I have a difficult time looking at closed-source software in the same light as, say, Japanese-Americans held in internment camps during the second World War. However, users have rights too. One of the rights that the users have is the right to software choice - the right to select the software that best meets their needs. Why should I, a user, be denied the opportunity to (gasp!) pay for software if I feel the commercial software better suits my needs? " and society in general." This is a point that is apparently self-evident only to you. "3) Therefore, proprietary platforms are a bad thing, therefore in MacOS is a bad thing for all of us in the long run. This point stands up if - and only if - one agrees that all closed-source software is bad. And not just bad for the software industry, but bad for everyone. Uhm...that's quite a statement. "Or are you all so blind you have not learned anything from the past decade? Jobs would be the next Gates faster than you can say "WTF?"" And Linus Torvalds is different? Or Theo DeRaadt? Or you? Or me? We'd all like to be in a position to dictate terms to the computer software and hardware industries. Seems like open-source is on really, really thin ice if you have to beat Apple up because they're standing in the way of KDE's world domination. "4) This is not "Apple and open source working together". Apple were compelled to release these changes because KHTML is protected under the LGPL." And they fufilled their end of the bargain. I don't see how this somehow magically translates into Apple shorting the Konqueror developers. "If they had really been "working with open source" they'd have told the KDE developers as they were working, instead of producing an enormous patch dump which will be difficult to integrate (and a few of the items were already done by the kde guys)." No, instead, they produced an enormous, *well-documented* patch dump. Whether they do it all in one batch, or in a number of small batches, the patches would still have to have been made. It's the difference between making one payment of $100 or four easy payments of $25. I agree, duplication of effort sucks. But Apple is hardly the only organization that's accidentally duplicated someone elses' efforts. And I really, really, really doubt the Safari developers did it to intentionally slight the Konqueror people. "However they decided to pander to Jobs ego so he could go "tada" as he loves to do at Macworld." Let me couch this in other terms - because they liked being *employed* software developers, rather than *unemployed* software developers, they cooperated with Steve Jobs, the CEO of their *employer* Apple Computer, and did their jobs. Excuse me, but this sounds a lot more like common sense than pandering.

Re: What about platform choice? - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-11

[ If one looks at proprietary software as being software..... ] Please reread my posts. I am not against proprietary software. Apple can make all the MP3 players they like. I am against proprietary PLATFORMS, because they are an economic abnormality that allows those who own them to exert power and influence beyond what their abilities would normally be. The owners of such things are invariably corporations so platforms (technology upon which 3rd parties build applications, Sky TV is such a platform, s/apps/channels/) tend to be abused, and we all lose. [ However, users have rights too. One of the rights that the users have is the right to software choice - the right to select the software that best meets their needs. Why should I, a user, be denied the opportunity to (gasp!) pay for software if I feel the commercial software better suits my needs? ] It's not about software. Think about this. It's about *platforms*. You have choice in the car market, and most people are happy with this. There are many types of cars for all types of people and situations. Nonetheless, there is no such thing as a private road network that is only accessible to people who buy cars from Pear Corp. Petrol stations will serve people whatever car they drive, there is no such thing as Ford buying up Shell and closing their stations to only Ford cars. You must drive on the side of the road dictated by the government. The road network is the platform. Cars are built upon it. Nobody "owns" the road network in its entirety, although most of it is usually run on behalft of the people by the government (which is democratically elected, unlike a corporation). [ And Linus Torvalds is different? ] Yes. Linus does not control the kernel. He is in charge because the majority agree with his policies and decisions, and believe they are for the best. If that ceased to be, the kernel would be forked. You cannot fork Windows nor MacOS. Jobs and Gates are concerned primarily with making large amounts of cash, whereas Linus has demonstrated repeatedly that he's more interested in a good kernel. [ We'd all like to be in a position to dictate terms to the computer software and hardware industries. ] Speak for yourself. I want a future where society itself decides the terms, not one particular individual. [ And they fufilled their end of the bargain. I don't see how this somehow magically translates into Apple shorting the Konqueror developers. ] Where did I claim that? I did not in fact claim that, you are putting words in my mouth. I said I was disappointed with peoples reactions, because they are taking their eyes off the ball. This announcement does not move the vision of a free platform forward, it is merely Apple doing what they are legally obliged to do (and in a rather inconvenient way, TransGaming do such patch dumps as well and the Wine core team dislike them intensely). [ No, instead, they produced an enormous, *well-documented* patch dump. Whether they do it all in one batch, or in a number of small batches, the patches would still have to have been made. It's the difference between making one payment of $100 or four easy payments of $25. ] Incorrect. Please run your own open source project for a while before you make statements such as this. The process of developing open source software is a collaborative one, decisions on architecture, code style and such must be made as a group. As an example, TransGaming recently did a patch dump of a SHM WineServer implementation. It is supposed to improve performance. However, despite the existance of good documentation, the patches were not applied, because it was implemented in a way that the maintainers believed was wrong, parts were missing, the bugginess was unknown and such a large patch would have taken large amounts of effort to merge (it was against an old branch) and seriously destabilised CVS head for a long period of time. Patch dumps are a bad way to contribute to an open source project. When people cooperate, inform each other of what they're doing and how, development is easier and the result is better. [ Let me couch this in other terms - because they liked being *employed* software developers, rather than *unemployed* software developers, they cooperated with Steve Jobs, the CEO of their *employer* Apple Computer, and did their jobs. Excuse me, but this sounds a lot more like common sense than pandering. ] This is entirely irrelevant. I am a free software developer and in fact have 2 jobs, one full time and one part time, to insinuate that really they couldn't possibly follow good project practice because otherwise they'd lose their jobs is either inaccurate or a damning indictment of the culture in Cupertino.

Re: What about platform choice? - Andrew Blackburn - 2003-01-11

"Please reread my posts. I am not against proprietary software. Apple can make all the MP3 players they like." Sorry to not have seen your previous rants, but I only became aware of this thread today and haven't had time to properly orient myself with your personal brand of software activism. "I am against proprietary PLATFORMS, because they are an economic abnormality that allows those who own them to exert power and influence beyond what their abilities would normally be. The owners of such things are invariably corporations so platforms (technology upon which 3rd parties build applications, Sky TV is such a platform, s/apps/channels/) tend to be abused, and we all lose." "Open standards" can be abused just as easily as closed ones, let's not forget. And the fact that a standard is exposed, or was established through some "open" method (which it usually wasn't, even if we say it was), doesn't mean that it's a particularly good one. NTSC television, for example, has been the standard for television delivery for decades here in North America. In the meantime, the existance of that "standard" has actually acted as a barrier to entry to other, superior methods of video delivery. "You have choice in the car market, and most people are happy with this. There are many types of cars for all types of people and situations. Nonetheless, there is no such thing as a private road network that is only accessible to people who buy cars from Pear Corp. Petrol stations will serve people whatever car they drive, there is no such thing as Ford buying up Shell and closing their stations to only Ford cars. You must drive on the side of the road dictated by the government." This is not entirely true - there are large parts of North America where diesel fuel is hard to come by. People who buy electric, hydrogen, or methanol powered cars have even tougher choices. This wonderful "road standard" has actually done a great job of blocking alternative fuel adoption. "The road network is the platform. Cars are built upon it. Nobody "owns" the road network in its entirety, although most of it is usually run on behalf of the people by the government (which is democratically elected, unlike a corporation)." Actually, corporations *are* democratically elected, just through a different process. Whereas we have annual public elections to select our political leaders, every day we have corporate elections to decide who our corporate leaders are to be. Every time we buy something, we're voting. (In fact, the corporate election process is truly democratic, whereas most of us reading this (anyone living in, say, North America or Europe) live in a Republic.) "Yes. Linus does not control the kernel. He is in charge because the majority agree with his policies and decisions, and believe they are for the best. If that ceased to be, the kernel would be forked. You cannot fork Windows nor MacOS. Jobs and Gates are concerned primarily with making large amounts of cash, whereas Linus has demonstrated repeatedly that he's more interested in a good kernel." And if, in the pursuit of those large amounts of cash, Jobs or Gates or McNealy or Fiorina happens to produce a good kernel too, we should still condemn them because they did it for the wrong reasons? You certainly can't tell me that a person who names his operating system after himself hasn't involved his ego. But I guess as long as he's not doing it for money, doing it for ego is okay. And I can't believe - for one second - that Linus has not benefitted monetarily from Linux, or that the thought of making a couple of bucks never crossed his mind. Linus is in charge of Linux because the core developer group has chosen to stay loyal to him. He did personally maintain the kernel for a long time, and relinquished control only because he could no longer keep up with the pace of development needed to keep Linux viable. "Speak for yourself. I want a future where society itself decides the terms, not one particular individual." Funny...that seems to describe the present. No one is forcing anyone to buy Windows, or MacOS - even the people who have signed contracts that say they have to have only coerced themselves. "Where did I claim that? I did not in fact claim that, you are putting words in my mouth." I sit corrected. You didn't say that Apple shorted the Konqueror developers, you said they left them a mountain of patches to integrate - i.e., that Apple's developers had created a lot of work for the KHTML developers they wouldn't have otherwise had. "I said I was disappointed with peoples reactions, because they are taking their eyes off the ball." No, actually, you leveled a personal insult at them. Telling someone he is engaged in "sycophantic Apple-drooling" isn't exactly complimentary, and certainly doesn't invite reasoned discussion about a topic you obviously feel stronly about. How dare we stray for a moment from Stallman's vision! "This announcement does not move the vision of a free platform forward, it is merely Apple doing what they are legally obliged to do (and in a rather inconvenient way, TransGaming do such patch dumps as well and the Wine core team dislike them intensely)." You're going to have to stop ranting for a moment and define platform for those of us who aren't indoctrinated into your religion. Where does "platform" end and "software" begin? Is a "platform" an OS (like Linux or MacOS X)? A published technical standard (like TCP/IP or HTML)? A source code base (like KHTML)? I'm a little fuzzy on where you're going with this. Apple certainly had the option of being much less cooperative with the Konqueror developers than they were. They could have made sloppy changes, documented them poorly, and waited four or five years to return them. I think that Apple has gone beyond compliance with the letter of the law, and has also met the spirit of the law. Dirk Mueller didn't sound too unhappy with Don Melton. "Incorrect. Please run your own open source project for a while before you make statements such as this. The process of developing open source software is a collaborative one, decisions on architecture, code style and such must be made as a group. Funny. I work as a commercial developer, and those same decisions are made the same way. I don't want to alienate my employees, or overlook a better design, just because "I'm the boss". "As an example, TransGaming recently did a patch dump of a SHM WineServer implementation. It is supposed to improve performance." However, despite the existance of good documentation, the patches were not applied, because it was implemented in a way that the maintainers believed was wrong, parts were missing, the bugginess was unknown and such a large patch would have taken large amounts of effort to merge (it was against an old branch) and seriously destabilised CVS head for a long period of time." And the people who run KHTML have the right to toss out any code changes from Apple on the same grounds. For that matter, I have to toss out code changes done by my co-workers that I feel violate design principles or are poorly implemented. The fact that I wasn't able to use their work doesn't change the fact that they still need to be compensated for their contributions to the project. "This is entirely irrelevant. I am a free software developer and in fact have 2 jobs, one full time and one part time, to insinuate that really they couldn't possibly follow good project practice because otherwise they'd lose their jobs is either inaccurate or a damning indictment of the culture in Cupertino." This is far from irrelevant. Apple's employees behaved in the most responsible manner they could, given their constraints. They have personally pledged further support to the KHTML group, and Apple has come out as a corporation and pledged further cooperation. They could have been far less responsible than they were, but they have every incentive to cooperate with the Konqueror group because it means a better product for them...and for us. The indictment made of the culture in Cupertino is only this - they are a company, seeking profits through competitive advantage, gained by the element of surprise. Heaven forbid.

Re: What about platform choice? - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-11

[ "Open standards" can be abused just as easily as closed ones, let's not forget. ] Not if they are in fact open. The definition of "open standard" seems to vary wildly between organisations and people. Is .NET an open standard? Arguably so, as some of the relevant specs have been submitted to first ECMA then ISO. Nonetheless, there is only one defacto implementation, and of course Microsoft themselves have already extended the standards. So Redmond is in the driving seat here, and even though small parts of the technology are available for public reimplementation, for an actual implementation to be useful it has to keep up with the non standard extensions. [ NTSC television, for example, has been the standard for television delivery for decades here in North America. In the meantime, the existance of that "standard" has actually acted as a barrier to entry to other, superior methods of video delivery. ] Yes, I know. Nonetheless, having everyone using the not-so-great NTSC was deemed preferable to having some channels only receivable on some TV sets. Otherwise, you could find that TV set manufacturers buy up the most popular channels, and made them only viewable on their particular brand of TV, meaning people are now choosing that brand of TV based on what "apps" are available - ie it's become a proprietary platform and innovation in the TV set industry suffers. And in fact that is exactly what's happening with Sky TV. The UK TV regulators are not happy, but BSkyB is based in Luxembourg so they are out of legal reach of the regulators. [ This is not entirely true - there are large parts of North America where diesel fuel is hard to come by. ] Yes, that's normal supply and demand though. Diesel isn't hard to come buy because a company that makes petrol-only cars has decided to make it hard for you. [ Actually, corporations *are* democratically elected, just through a different process. ] That's based on the assumption that customers are: a) perfectly informed and b) perfectly neutral ie classical economics. Obviously in reality none of these things are true. I never "voted" for Microsoft willingly, yet they are most definately in power. That's because customers are not perfectly neutral, they're willing to overlook flaws in Windows in order to get the apps they need/want. Marketing affects the first. [ I sit corrected. You didn't say that Apple shorted the Konqueror developers, you said they left them a mountain of patches to integrate - i.e., that Apple's developers had created a lot of work for the KHTML developers they wouldn't have otherwise had. ] Right. If Apple had sponsored the development of KHTML (as other companies like codeweavers sponsor wine) then they'd have assigned some engineers who would have worked with the core KDE team (possibly hiring some original khtml developers) and development would have continued as normal. This kind of business relationship takes place every day, but Apple chose not to do this. [ No, actually, you leveled a personal insult at them. Telling someone he is engaged in "sycophantic Apple-drooling" isn't exactly complimentary, and certainly doesn't invite reasoned discussion about a topic you obviously feel stronly about. How dare we stray for a moment from Stallman's vision! ] Perhaps I should have toned down my language in that part. I feel that people are treating Apple specially for no good reason other than good marketing on their part. CodeWeavers contribute huge amounts of code to Wine every single day, yet I have never seen 150 comments of nothing but mindless praise for them. This makes me angry, because when put in perspective Apples contributions to open source are tiny considering their size as a company - Redhat, CodeWeavers et al all run profitable businesses and give most or all of their code away under the gpl. I'm not saying Apple should do this. I don't in fact agree with Stallman - he wants all software to be free, and I realise this is currently impractical. I just want the platform to be free, because that is a) achievable and b) a good thing for society, as it levels the playing field in the computer industry. [ You're going to have to stop ranting for a moment and define platform for those of us who aren't indoctrinated into your religion. ] Now who's leveling insults? An unusual point of view != a religion. From another post: * I define (for the purposes of this discussion) a platform to be a technology upon which "applications" are built. An application could be a piece of software, or a TV channel on Sky TV, or a series of Word macros etc... KHTML is not a platform, the web is a platform and web sites are the "applications". KHTML is something you need to access that platform. Another such example would be, the Win32 APIs are a platform, software programs are the apps and you need an implementation of the Win32 APIs to access that platform. Implementions are MS Windows or Wine. In the case of the web, it's an open platform. Technical standards are set by a neutral standards body which debates its upcoming standards in an open forum, allows public comments and reviews and does not charge for implementations of its standards. Multiple implementations are not just encouraged, they are required. Win32 is not an open platform despite the existance of more than one implementation, because Microsoft is in control of that platform. I guess if one day everybody used Wine instead of MS Windows they might lose that control, assuming there are no nasty surprises lurking in the form of patents, but for now it's a closed platform. [ I think that Apple has gone beyond compliance with the letter of the law, and has also met the spirit of the law. ] Compliance in spirit is like a scale isn't it - they could have done a CodeWeavers or a Redhat and been 100% helpful, or they could have been Evil(tm), they chose somewhere in the middle. Hence my dislike of the seemingly endless positive comments on this forum - often companies that really do try their hardest to work well with open source projects get slagged off not just here but elsewhere, I've seen it. Yet for some reason Apple are infallible. One comment even mentioned a "budding relationship". [ Funny. I work as a commercial developer, and those same decisions are made the same way. I don't want to alienate my employees, or overlook a better design, just because "I'm the boss". ] Well, I dunno how you run your projects, but if one of my employees decided to work on their own projects in secret then do a massive patch dump I'd be pretty pissed off. Internally company projects require co-operation from everyone and people have to know who's working on what, there has to be internal consensus on how things will be done. This didn't happen here. [ And the people who run KHTML have the right to toss out any code changes from Apple on the same grounds. ] Sure they have the right to - but if these changes had been made in the right way from the start, any mistakes/design decisions/code style problems the Apple developers had would have been fixed from the start. [ This is far from irrelevant. Apple's employees behaved in the most responsible manner they could, given their constraints. ] I'm not interested in Apples employees, I'm interested in Apple. If Apple choose to impose arbitrary restraints on their employees, that's still an issue. [ The indictment made of the culture in Cupertino is only this - they are a company, seeking profits through competitive advantage, gained by the element of surprise. Heaven forbid. ] The "element of surprise" here is little more than Jobs being able to get ooh and ahhs at MacWorld. It's purely an ego thing - considering it's being bundled with the Mac and is given away for free, they couldn't have lost any competitive advantage by properly cooperating. Anyway, I'm drifting off topic again - even if Apple had cooperated properly with the KHTML team I'd still be annoyed (perhaps a bit less so), because people are still pretending what Apple are doing is all right, when in my opinion it's harmful in the long term, just as Windows/Microsoft was. But peoples eyes seem to glaze over whenever the word MacOS is mentioned. Daft but true.

Re: What about platform choice? - Jonathan Sanderson - 2003-01-12

Let me see if I can get this right: Your argument (summarised from your first post) is that - (1.) proprietary platforms are inherently bad (your considered opinion, to which you are of course entitled). (2.) Mac OS X is a proprietary platform (irrefutable overall, despite minor exceptions). Therefore: (3.) Mac OS X is a bad thing. (valid conclusion, if one agrees with premise (1.)). Thus far, nothing to do with KHTML and Safari. In fact, you note: [huge snip] > KHTML is not a platform, the web is a platform and > web sites are the "applications". [snip] > In the case of the web, it's an open platform. [huge snip] I'm having a hard time seeing how the KHTML/Safari news affects your argument. There's currently no evidence that Apple's misappropriating the efforts of the KHTML developers, but even if there were, this wouldn't directly hurt KHTML. What have I missed?

Re: What about platform choice? - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-12

[ (1.) proprietary platforms are inherently bad (your considered opinion, to which you are of course entitled). ] Indeed. I have also attempted to justify that opinion with arguments based on sound economics. [ What have I missed? ] Presumably the point of my first post, which in fact didn't talk about KHTML much at all. Apple have done what they are legally obliged to do, albiet in a rather inconvenient way, and that is fine. My anger stemmed from the fact that I clicked "Read More" and saw 150 comments of nothing but praise for Apple, the only even slightly negative comment I saw was from a self-proclaimed Mac head. There are companies out there who give more back to the free software movement every single day than Apple has in its entire existance, who instead of doing enormous patch dumps by surprise have hired the coders on the projects they were interested in, and gave them autonomy. Redhat, IBM, Suse, CodeWeavers - the list goes on and on. Yet I have never seen such ridiculous amounts of hyperbole about these companies, in fact when Redhat had the temerity to alter the default artwork and menus this forum iirc was up in arms, yet Redhat have given more back to the community than pretty much anybody else and are clearly interested in seeing a free platforms succeed (they can then make money by being experts in it, not by controlling it). It's peoples attitude that angered me, the "well we got some patches so why should we care what Apple are doing in the long term" view that if everybody took would make the whole point of KDE (being a free desktop) irrelevant, we might as well all have bought a Mac. At the end of the day, Apples long term goals involve taking control of the computing industry just like Microsoft did over a decade ago. They won't succeed, their business model precludes that from ever happening, but nonetheless on general principle what they are doing is bad yet nobody here seems to care. That's what angers me. KHTML was merely a catalyst for that particular rant.

Re: What about platform choice? - Joe Anton - 2003-01-12

RE: [Redhat] clearly interested in seeing a free platforms succeed (they can then make money by being experts in it, not by controlling it. I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "being experts in it" but it shouldn't be surprising that Redhat is *initially* interested in seeing a free platform succeed because they are working to be the defacto Linux standard that developers target. The moment an installed base of both users and apps reaches a critical # then I would imagine their attitude will change. By that time a brand will have been established and people will pay for it rather than Redhat Clone A or B. They have shareholders too.

Re: What about platform choice? - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-12

[ I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "being experts in it" ] They make money from services and support, ie consultancy and the Redhat Network (service). [ The moment an installed base of both users and apps reaches a critical # then I would imagine their attitude will change. By that time a brand will have been established and people will pay for it rather than Redhat Clone A or B. ] I think we just entered the realm of total fantasy. Yes, anything *could* happen, tomorrow Apple could decide to open source MacOS X and give it over to a democratic working group, but they're not going to. So far Redhat have shown no inclination towards controlling Linux, and all their code is GPLd. It's about as non-evil as you can get. The RH business model is pretty clearly defined.

Re: Another POV - Jesper Juhl - 2003-01-10

> 1) Apple makes their money selling proprietary platforms. If you think the Mac, or Mac OS X is > not proprietary, then you need a serious reality check. Yes, Apple is trying to make money. That's quite normal for a company, and what is wrong with that? > 2) Proprietary platforms are bad for software freedom and society in general. That's a very simpleminded view in my oppinion. A proprietary platform is not by definition "bad". Lots of people have a need for software that is boring to write, needed only in a special field etc. Chances are that no opensource developer will bother to write such software, but the maker of proprietary software can be bothered since the user will usually be willing to pay for it. Some needs are better fullfilled by a proprietary company. How does this harm your own software freedom or the society you live in? You a still perfectly free to develop a free equivalent of the proprietary software if you feel it's needed. > 3) Therefore, proprietary platforms are a bad thing, therefore in MacOS is a bad thing for all of > us in the long run. Or are you all so blind you have not learnt anything from the past decade? Nobody's forcing you to use MacOS if you don't want to. If Apple is willing to let its developers work on code where some of it is being released back to the OpenSource community I think that's great - that does no harm (but it may do some good). > Jobs would be the next Gates faster than you can say "WTF?" Personally I prefer to judge people by their actions and not just by the fact they run a company. How well do you know Steve Jobs? Do you know for a fact that he would behave the same way Bill Gates does? If you don't have concrete evidence, then don't judge. If you do have evidence, then present it and let people make their own judgements. > 4) This is not "Apple and open source working together". Have you been paying attention *at all* to the discussions, exchange of idears and code etc. happening on the KDE mailing lists and elsewhere? If what's currently happening is not what you'd call cooperation, then I'd like to hear your definition of the term. > Apple were compelled to release these changes because KHTML is protected under the LGPL. Yes, and they actually did that. They could just as easily have stolen the code, the ideas etc. If Apple had just obfuscated the code and incorporated it in their product (or encrypted the binary), do you think anyone would ever have noticed? They could also have just read the code and then reimplemented it a bit differently - would anyone have noticed? I don't think anyone would ever have found out. But they did not do that. They played nice and released all their changes back to the Konqueror people. > If they had really been "working with open source" they'd have told the KDE developers as > they were working, instead of producing an enormous patch dump which will be difficult to > integrate It's not difficult to integrate. Apple produced a very detailed changelog and the merging of the code is already progressing nicely. I read an email by one of the Konqueror developers a little while ago who said the merging would probably take a few weeks. A few weeks is not very long considering the amount of changes - I Apple had not released such a clean patch and changelog the job would probably have taken months. > (and a few of the items were already done by the kde guys). Ok, so a bit of work was duplicated, so what? They also implemented a lot of stuff that was still on the TODO (and who knows when it would have been done if Apple had not done it?). Also a lot of bugs were fixed, that's nice and although they would probably have been found eventually by other people what's so bad about Apple finding and fixing them *now*? > However they decided > to pander to Jobs ego so he could go "tada" as he loves to do at Macworld. So what? We got a huge amount of code to improve KJS/KHTML with - what do you care what he does with the browser his company developed? OpenSource is about freedom. And if the license permits him to release Safari the way he did (and the license does permit it), then what's so terrible about it? The developers placed the code under an open license. Thereby they made a choise about how they would allow the code to be used, and they chose to use a license that permits a company such as Apple to do exactely what they have done. The Konqueror people wrote the code, they chose the license - respect their desition and don't blame Apple for playing by the rules *the_people_who_wrote_the_code* defined. *YOU* are free to choose whatever license you wish for code *YOU* write. But you don't get to choose what license other people should use for their code. > I find this mindless sycophantic Apple-drooling disgusting. Wake up people! Do you not see > what is happening? Is Safari open source? No. No it is not, and it does not have to be. KJS/KHTML is opensource and Apple did the right thing and released their changes to those components back as opensource. The rest of the browser they wrote themselves and since they wrote that, *they* get to chose the license for that bit. What's wrong with that? The abbility to chose the license *you* want for code *you* write is exactely what enables you to write opensource software, if you want to keep that freedom of license choice, then you should let other people have that freedom as well, even if they choose different from what you like! > In fact, Apple have released basically jack all of their own code. And what right do you have to require that they do so? Don't they have the right to do as they please with their own code? > FreeBSD has got a few minor patches and some test suites out of them. Good for FreeBSD. > If you think MacOS is open source go try and fork it. Go on, I dare you. Just make sure you > have a large budget for the legal costs. The core of MacOS X (Darwin) is released under the terms of the "Apple Public Source License". That license is listed as an approved OpenSource license on http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ . MacOS X contains more than Darwin, and some of those parts are not OpenSource, but that's Apple's choice to make, not yours. You can go right ahead and fork Darwin if you want to. > I think Ian Clarke was right when he said for some people the fad was more important than the > philosophy. KDE is working for a free desktop - Apple quite clearly is not. This is a dark day > for KDE and free software in general. As long as Apple is playing by the rules and KDE is bennefiting from that I don't see the problem. Don't forget that they are playing by the rules that the KJS/KHTML developers defined - it's not like they went and invented their own rules. If you don't like what's permitted by the license that covers KJS/KHTML, then go ahead and write your own HTML render engine and JavaScript engine and release those under whatever license you want - then you can complain if someone don't play by your rules with your software. > Flames are expected. Go ahead, I've seen them all before. The above is not intended as a flame, but I guess you will get some since your arguments are very hollow indeed. /Jesper Juhl

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-11

[ Yes, Apple is trying to make money. That's quite normal for a company, and what is wrong with that? ] It is normal for a company, and it is wrong because it's not what is best for society. That is why no country, not even America operates pure capitalism. Instead it's bracketed and controlled, with the profit motive being constrained legally in order to channel it into energy that's useful to everyone. Unfortunately in this case there are no laws against proprietary platforms, and may well never be. Planned obselesence is something that companies are hardly ever found guilty of, because it's so hard to prove. Nonetheless, it's generally agreed to be a bad thing. [ That's a very simpleminded view in my oppinion. A proprietary platform is not by definition "bad". Lots of people have a need for software that is boring to write, needed only in a special field etc. Chances are that no opensource developer will bother to write such software, but the maker of proprietary software can be bothered since the user will usually be willing to pay for it. ] You're confusing platforms and software. They are very different. Proprietary software is fine. I write it in my main (day) job. Proprietary platforms (in general) are not, as they artificially restrict competition in ways the free market cannot cope with on its own. [ You a still perfectly free to develop a free equivalent of the proprietary software if you feel it's needed. ] On the contrary, if I was to try and replicate MacOS X I would be sued immediately, probably on the basis of infringing the look and feel, even if I used my own original artwork. Such a legal action would be pointless because the courts have long established that you cannot protect look and feel, but they would do so nonetheless (they have done for theme authors for instance). [ Nobody's forcing you to use MacOS if you don't want to. ] What, you mean like nothing forces me to use Windows? In fact, I rarely use Windows now, but that itself took a lot of effort and I was always careful to keep my dependancies on Windows to a minimum. MacOS is just the same as Windows in this respect. Right now nothing forces me to use MacOS because it has virtually no market share, but if tomorrow it had 50% of the market, suddenly I might find that app I need to use to do my job is MacOS only. If you think people choose their platforms based on which is best, you need to examine the findings of the Microsoft trial more carefully. It's happened once and was bad, I for one am not willing to let it happen all over again with Apple. [ No it is not, and it does not have to be. ] Correct. Apple have done only what they are obliged to. Yet I see posts on this story saying that Apple is the friend of the free software movement, that it has benefited us, and now Apple is everybodies best mate. This is ridiculous, their goals are what they have always been, and because they have done once what companies like Red Hat do every single day, people are coming out with the most ridiculous hyperbole. Read my posts carefully. I state only the facts. I never stated Apple should have released their code, I stated they they didn't - we are getting back only what we forced them to give back. Considering it's MacOS only and already based on KHTML, the code would have been nearly useless anyway practically of course (much like darwin). Therefore this event is entirely unremarkable, yet people treat it as the second coming. Do people think so highly of TransGaming? I think not. I find it worrying that people are so easily brainwashed in this way. [ MacOS X contains more than Darwin, and some of those parts are not OpenSource, but that's Apple's choice to make, not yours. You can go right ahead and fork Darwin if you want to. ] Why bother? Darwin is useless. It's a kernel that supports virtually no hardware, and is lower performance than Linux anyway. If you had Ferrari and I gave you a gift of a Lada, you might be grateful, but you probably wouldn't drive it. Note that nobody uses raw Darwin in any significant numbers. MacOS itself is proprietary. Nothing can change that. Raw Darwin is not enough to run MacOS apps, therefore it's a closed platform. [ Don't forget that they are playing by the rules that the KJS/KHTML developers defined - it's not like they went and invented their own rules. ] I have not forgotten that, I am well aware of it. Stallman created these licenses in his quest for a free platform made of free software. By doing what they are obliged to do and no more, they violate the spirit if not the letter of that agreement. [ If you don't like what's permitted by the license that covers KJS/KHTML, then go ahead and write your own HTML render engine and JavaScript engine and release those under whatever license you want - then you can complain if someone don't play by your rules with your software. ] I have seriously considered such a clause in my own project, but fortunately it solves a Linux-specific problem so would be of no use to any proprietary platform vendor I can think of. I do not wish my efforts to go towards the advancement of something that keeps the status quo in place, or replaces it with an identical copy. Such a thing is hard to make legally waterproof however. [ The above is not intended as a flame, but I guess you will get some since your arguments are very hollow indeed. ] So far no response has given credible arguments against my opinions IMHO, they are mostly based on confusion of what I actually meant. I put a lot of effort into making that post as precise as possible, but some people still misunderstood. To recap: * I am not against proprietary software. I am against proprietary platforms. * I define (for the purposes of this discussion) a platform to be a technology upon which "applications" are built. An application could be a piece of software, or a TV channel on Sky TV, or a series of Word macros etc... * I am against such things because they warp the natural laws of competition - people choose a product based on what apps are available, not on the quality of the product (when a platform is dominant) * When that occurs, organisations or individuals gain more power than they should, and they normally abuse that power, so we all lose. * I am not claiming Apple are doing something illegal. * I am not claiming nobody should get paid for writing software. * I am not saying everything would be all right if Safari were open sourced. Even if it were, it'd be another Darwin, nice to have but ultimately useless as it'd only run on a Mac (or not run well on anything else). * My arguments are based on basic economic and social theory. If you don't understand them, I'm happy to explain them. It's pretty obvious once you know why platforms are economic abnormalities, but I remember I didn't realise until it was explained to me :)

Re: Another POV - Jesper Juhl - 2003-01-11

> [ Yes, Apple is trying to make money. That's quite normal for a company, and what is wrong > with that? ] > > It is normal for a company, and it is wrong because it's not what is best for society. So, the only "right" thing to do, is to only do things that bennefit society as a whole? I'm sorry to say it, but the world is not that rosy, and I don't think it ever will be (and I'm not entirely sure I /want/ it to be in all respects). > Unfortunately in this case there are no laws against proprietary platforms, and may well never > be. In my oppinion there should *not* be any such laws. I don't want to live in a society where everything is controlled and regulated. The problem with too many rules and regulations (laws) is that they can never be made to suit everyone. I'm not at all a fan of proprietary platforms myself (don't get that wrong), but I'd rather live in a less regulated society that permits proprietary platforms (and various other stuff I don't like) then have too many laws and regulations that restrict the things I *do* like. How do you deside what to outlaw? If we set the rules by your standards/ethics/morals/etc, then you'll probably be stepping on quite a few of my toes and vice versa - then I'd rather not have those laws and let you and me live by sepperate rules in sepperate locations. I hope you understand what I mean. > [ That's a very simpleminded view in my oppinion. A proprietary platform is not by definition > "bad". Lots of people have a need for software that is boring to write, needed only in a special > field etc. Chances are that no opensource developer will bother to write such software, but the > maker of proprietary software can be bothered since the user will usually be willing to pay for > it. ] > > You're confusing platforms and software. They are very different. Yes, I realize that platforms and applications are different, and I don't think I'm confusing them. A platform does not have to be something a lot of people use or even be publicly available to be "a platform". You could have a platform developed for a specific purpose for a specific (possibly closed) audience, and then develop applications for that platform - it's still a platform, and I don't think that it's nessesarily bad that such a platform be proprietary. It *may* be bad, but that depends entirely on if it fullfills the needs of the users of that platform or not, the single fact that a platform is proprietary does not by definition make it bad (at least not in my book). > Proprietary software is fine. I write it in my main (day) job. I'm glad we agree on something. :) > Proprietary platforms (in general) are not, as they artificially restrict competition in ways the > free market cannot cope with on its own. If you restrict the, so called, free market, is it then still "free" ? The restrictions you want to place on the market by outlawing proprietary platforms is just as artificial (or more) as the restrictions the platform itself places on the market. The restrictions placed by the platform can be broken by developing alternative platforms (proprietary and/or free), restrictions placed by laws are harder to break. It may not be *easy* to break out of the restrictions of a proprietary platform, but is that an argument for outlawing it? I don't think so, who said anything that's not easy should not be allowed. > [ You a still perfectly free to develop a free equivalent of the proprietary software if you feel > it's needed. ] > > On the contrary, if I was to try and replicate MacOS X I would be sued immediately, probably > on the basis of infringing the look and feel, even if I used my own original artwork. Such a legal > action would be pointless because the courts have long established that you cannot protect > look and feel, but they would do so nonetheless (they have done for theme authors for > instance). You are saying that you would be sued, but that the suit would be poinless. In that case you *are* free to develop it - it's only a matter of resources on your part to be able to win the lawsuit. And, nobody is saying that you need to replicate every detail of the platform. Linux, FreeBSD, FreeDOS and ATheOS are all alternative platforms to (for example) Windows or MacOS. And their existance is proof that it *is* possible to develop alternative platforms even though proprietary platforms are allowed and in widespread use. > [ Nobody's forcing you to use MacOS if you don't want to. ] > > What, you mean like nothing forces me to use Windows? In fact, I rarely use Windows now, > but that itself took a lot of effort and I was always careful to keep my dependancies on > Windows to a minimum. MacOS is just the same as Windows in this respect. Yes, I mean exactely like 'nothing forces you to use Windows'. Just becourse some specific platform is in widespread use does not disallow you using something else. > Right now nothing forces me to use MacOS because it has virtually no market share, but if > tomorrow it had 50% of the market, suddenly I might find that app I need to use to do my job is > MacOS only. You would still have the choice of finding or developing an alternative to that app (og pay someone else to do so). > If you think people choose their platforms based on which is best, you need to examine the > findings of the Microsoft trial more carefully. It's happened once and was bad, I for one am not > willing to let it happen all over again with Apple. I *don't* think that people always base their choises on what's best (I'm not that naive). But I know that I try to base my own choises on what suits my own purposes best. If someone else chooses to use a bad, expensive or unsuited tool then that is their problem, not mine. To give an example: I personally like using Linux, KDE, gcc etc. and therefor I spend some of my time and money on improving that platform and set of tools. If you also bennefit from my efforts, then that's just great - if you don't, I don't care. > [ No it is not, and it does not have to be. ] > > Correct. Apple have done only what they are obliged to. I have no problem with that. In some situations I also only do what I'm obliged to even if someone else could bennefit from me doing more. Some times I do something extra just to help someone else out (feel free to search the net for stuff I've contributed to various projects), but not always - I reserve the right to choose when to do so or not and I don't have a problem with Apple doing the same. > Yet I see posts on this story saying > that Apple is the friend of the free software movement, that it has benefited us, The changes they made to KJS/KHTML *have* bennefited us. It *also* bennefited Apple, but personally I don't mind that. >and now Apple > is everybodies best mate. This is ridiculous, their goals are what they have always been, and > because they have done once what companies like Red Hat do every single day, people are > coming out with the most ridiculous hyperbole. I'm not saying that they are our best friends or anything like that. I'm just saying that we *did* bennefit from what they did, and I'm happy to just reap those bennefits and move on. If, in the future, we bennefit some more then that's great, if we don't I won't loose any sleep over it. > Read my posts carefully. I state only the facts. I never stated Apple should have released their > code, I stated they they didn't - we are getting back only what we forced them to give back. Yes, I see that, but you are implying that you don't like that they only do what they were forced to. That seems to bother you, whereas it does not bother me. > Therefore this event is entirely unremarkable, yet people treat it as the second coming. Do > people think so highly of TransGaming? I think not. I find it worrying that people are so easily > brainwashed in this way. Some may be brainwashed, sure. And some may just find it to be very nice that the community got a large amount of code from Apple and try to see the positive aspects of that and not be very troubled by the fact that Apple also got something out of the exchange. > [ MacOS X contains more than Darwin, and some of those parts are not OpenSource, but > that's Apple's choice to make, not yours. You can go right ahead and fork Darwin if you want > to. ] > > Why bother? Darwin is useless. It's a kernel that supports virtually no hardware, and is lower > performance than Linux anyway. It may be useless (to you), but that's not the point. The point is it's free and available and you *can* fork it, you *can* use it as-is and you *can* use it as a base and develop it into something that you find usefull. If you choose to not use it and use something else like Linux or Windows instead doesn't make it less free (and personally I really don't care *what* you use - proprietary or not). > [ Don't forget that they are playing by the rules that the KJS/KHTML developers defined - it's > not like they went and invented their own rules. ] > > I have not forgotten that, I am well aware of it. Stallman created these licenses in his quest for > a free platform made of free software. By doing what they are obliged to do and no more, they > violate the spirit if not the letter of that agreement. What you (or I) find to be the "spirit" of the agreement is entirely subjective. I *might* think they don't violate the spirit of the agreement and you *might* think they do. You can argue about that for ages and people will always disagree exactely *what* is the spirit of the agreement. If you want someone to obay the spirit of the agreement, then you should turn that "spirit" into words and make it the letter of the agreement (or accept that it's open to interpretation). > So far no response has given credible arguments against my opinions IMHO, Exactely, in *your* oppinion. In my oppinion, credible arguments have been given (if I didn't find my own arguments, for example, to be credible, why would I make them?). >they are mostly > based on confusion of what I actually meant. Maybe some people did understand what you meant but just disagree with you :) > * I am not against proprietary software. I am against proprietary platforms. I'm not against proprietary software. I'm also not against proprietary platforms (I just happen to prefer the free ones, but the proprietary ones have a right to exist too). > * I define (for the purposes of this discussion) a platform to be a technology upon which > "applications" are built. An application could be a piece of software, or a TV channel on Sky > TV, or a series of Word macros etc... I understand that perfectly well. > * I am against such things because they warp the natural laws of competition In your oppinion. > - people choose > a product based on what apps are available, not on the quality of the product (when a platform > is dominant) That may be true for some (even most) people, but not all. > * When that occurs, organisations or individuals gain more power than they should, and they > normally abuse that power, so we all lose. Just becourse power is normally abused does not mean it's *always* abused. I don't agree to impose restrictions just becourse something *can* be abused or *often* is abused. Don't restrict by default - allow by default and then punish when abuse takes place. And the statement "so we all lose" is not true - those who abused the power usually wins (I'm not saying that's "right" - just stating a fact). > * I am not claiming Apple are doing something illegal. I know. > * I am not claiming nobody should get paid for writing software. We agree. > * I am not saying everything would be all right if Safari were open sourced. Even if it were, it'd > be another Darwin, nice to have but ultimately useless as it'd only run on a Mac (or not run well > on anything else). Maybe they'll opensource the whole thing, maybe they won't... whatever they do we already did get *some* bennefit from the thing... > * My arguments are based on basic economic and social theory. If you don't understand them, > I'm happy to explain them. It's pretty obvious once you know why platforms are economic > abnormalities, but I remember I didn't realise until it was explained to me :) Feel free to explain, but I won't promise I'll agree with your arguments.

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-13

[ So, the only "right" thing to do, is to only do things that bennefit society as a whole? I'm sorry to say it, but the world is not that rosy, and I don't think it ever will be (and I'm not entirely sure I /want/ it to be in all respects). ] Well, in general I believe you should try and do what is right not just for yourself but for everybody else too. I'm not especially religious, but it seems that this is important for society to work. That's kind of a fundamental assumption I've made as it transcends technology and is pretty general. If you think sometimes personal gain at the expense of others is OK, then my whole argument kind of falls down, and we'd have to try and argue that one out first. [ In my oppinion there should *not* be any such laws. I don't want to live in a society where everything is controlled and regulated...... If you restrict the, so called, free market, is it then still "free" ? ] Well the "free" market is something of a misnomer. In fact the market is quite heavily regulated even in America, which has the freest of all the markets. We have laws against attempting to create or extend monopolies for instance. That's because the free market is not in fact infallible, and it's perfectly possible to "play the system". We have laws against fraud, laws for enforcing contracts etc.... all that's needed to make the free market work smoothly, because otherwise you could warp the rules to your own advantage unfairly. So I don't think a law against proprietary platforms would be all that unreasonable. [ A platform does not have to be something a lot of people use or even be publicly available to be "a platform". You could have a platform developed for a specific purpose for a specific (possibly closed) audience, and then develop applications for that platform - it's still a platform, and I don't think that it's nessesarily bad that such a platform be proprietary. It *may* be bad. ] Well it really depends on scale. In principle, if an organization makes a proprietary platform on which 3rd parties build *competing* products, ie operating systems, then I think that is bad. On the other hand, if the platform is only used for non-competing products, perhaps all from the same company or doing very different specialist tasks then maybe that isn't so bad. I haven't given a great deal of thought to that situation. In reality Apple aren't any threat realistically, I'm arguing it as a matter of principle. Apple will never have enough market share to pose any credible threat to either Microsoft or Linux, but nonetheless, I believe what they do is wrong anyway. [ You are saying that you would be sued, but that the suit would be poinless. In that case you *are* free to develop it - it's only a matter of resources on your part to be able to win the lawsuit. ] That was merely an example. There may well be patents on throbbing buttons or something, and anyway who is realistically going to fight a company with as much money and lawyers as vicious as Apples? It's not worth the trouble. Even if you did manage to do it, it'd be like Wine, an unofficial "ghost" implementation, not really a level playing field competition-wise. [ And their existance is proof that it *is* possible to develop alternative platforms even though proprietary platforms are allowed and in widespread use. ] Yes, but look at how hard it's been! Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of volunteers have put in over a decade of work and we're still not there! And Linux will have a viable chance of actually competing head on with Windows once Wine is nearly perfect, which won't happen for a long time :) Using huge numbers of volunteers like this is a big economic hack basically. The fact that somehow it's all held together for so long isn't really a good way to say well proprietary platforms are OK because all you have to do to compete is to basically recreate computing from the ground up then give it away for free. [ Yes, I mean exactely like 'nothing forces you to use Windows'. Just becourse some specific platform is in widespread use does not disallow you using something else. ] No, but it can be made extremely hard. Luckily my job involves tools that are available on Linux, but many people need for instance Cubase VST (because all their musical works are in the VST file format) which of course only runs on Windows or the Mac, so I have to choose between them. I guess there are sequencers available on Linux but they are significantly behind VST so if I used them I'd find it much harder to compete for CD sales than it'd normally be. So, it's not actually disallowed, but it's so hard for most people that it might as well be. Kind of like it's not impossible to give up crack, but crack addiction is still bad because it's so hard to stop. [ You would still have the choice of finding or developing an alternative to that app (og pay someone else to do so). ] At the risk of falling behind in the market because I spent my R&D budget on a Linux version of the app all my competitors were using, so now my products are more expensive and not as good, so I go bankrupt (simplistic but you get the idea). [ It may be useless (to you), but that's not the point. The point is it's free and available .... ] Well, if I want to use a MacOS app it's useless look at it that way. There are no apps out there that say "Darwin required" (unless they are ports of non-gui linux software). They all require MacOS which is closed. So other than a fun toy perhaps Darwin isn't all that useful. [ > * I am against such things because they warp the natural laws of competition In your oppinion. ] Although some of my points are opinion yes, this is not one of them. The economic theory behind the way platforms warp the free market make sense, so far nobody has seen fit to dispute them. They do indeed restrict choice and often cause people to buy an inferior product to access their applications. [ That may be true for some (even most) people, but not all. ] Unfortunately economics is indeed majority rule. I'd like for all games to be released for Linux but they aren't, because economics dicatates that because I'm in the minority it's not profitable to do that, so I'm certainly affected by what other people choose to do. [ Just becourse power is normally abused does not mean it's *always* abused. I don't agree to impose restrictions just becourse something *can* be abused or *often* is abused. Don't restrict by default - allow by default and then punish when abuse takes place. ] Unfortunately as the Microsoft trial has shown, even if they had been effectively punished (which they weren't) we'd still all be using Windows. There is no good way legally to correct the aberrations caused by something like Windows (or macos) so it's best to prevent it in the first place. [ Maybe they'll opensource the whole thing, maybe they won't... whatever they do we already did get *some* bennefit from the thing... ] IMHO in the long term the con of having perhaps another Windows is far greater than the short term pro of having a nicer rendering engine. [ Feel free to explain, but I won't promise I'll agree with your arguments. ] Well, I have tried, it's pretty simple: * There is no such thing as a free market, because pure capitalism doesn't work, it's unstable and tends to produce a society in which the strong trample the weak. In pure capitalism there is no justice. * So we control the free market, with laws against monopolies, fraud, insider trading and so on. The market is not infallible, it can and is manipulated, so we try and prevent that. * That's to ensure the market acts as free as possible, and it stays free, because that's how the majority are served best. When there is competition we all win. * Platforms are unusual in that once you build something on them, you are then at the mercy of the platform creator. If they decide to stop supporting you, you need to upgrade (eventually). If they don't wish you to move to a competing platform, they can make it extremely hard or impossible for you to move. * Hence the fact that Linux is developed by volunteers and given away for free yet still it's hard to make inroads into the desktop. * These factors are why Microsoft is a monopoly. * The free market cannot cope with platforms such as this on its own, and the legal system does nothing about them (they are too new really). So, because they are so dangerous, I oppose them, hence I oppose Apple and Microsoft (and Be Inc etc, though they are now dead, killed by the economics I now describe to you).

What exactly are you whining about? - Jiffy - 2003-01-11

I looked through your recap and I still don't see what all the whining is about. Are you upset with Apple about something? They have comitted themselves to using an LGPL'd HTML rendering engine. Their adoption of that engine makes open internet standards more prevalent, something you seem to be demanding. Would you have preferred that they go ahead and use their own closed-source engine? Perhaps you're upset because all the cheering is a little too general. Whatever you're so upset about, you are going to have to spell it out. So far, you have come off sounding like a raving lunatic.

Re: What exactly are you whining about? - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-11

[ Perhaps you're upset because all the cheering is a little too general. Whatever you're so upset about, you are going to have to spell it out. So far, you have come off sounding like a raving lunatic. ] I'm upset because other people are raving about how great Apple is, when in reality their goals do in fact conflict with the vision of society being in control of its own technologies again. They are just like Microsoft in terms of business model, but because rather than develop their own stuff they are using open source stuff suddenly they are saints. I have no problem with them using KHTML, I have a problem with people rationalising to themselves that actually the Mac is OK, when actually a proprietary OS *and* proprietary hardware is a step backward from where we are today.

Re: What exactly are you whining about? - grabmeru - 2003-01-11

[ I'm upset because other people are raving about how great Apple is, when in reality their goals do in fact conflict with the vision of society being in control of its own technologies again.] Ahem... doesn't that actually read that their goals do obviously conflict with *your* vision of society. Now - disagreeing with your opinion or visions doesn't automatically turn other poeple in a bunch of jerks mindlessly raving about a company's behaviour you obviously don't like. If it's just that Apple didn't live up to your expectations, feel free to express that. However - please accept that other people have different expectations and choose to feel less disappointed. Since your're so fiercly defending the freedom of choice in computing, please give us the freedom of not being forced to buy into your "proprietary platform" when it comes to personal visions of society.

Re: What exactly are you whining about? - Datschge - 2003-01-13

So much whining and most of it is even off topic regarding the news. I think you just have way too much time, you better spend it for implementing commonly requested missing features to any open source environment of your choice. Your rambling here leads to nowhere.

Re: What exactly are you whining about? - ahem! - 2003-01-20

alrighty... so you want everyones computer to have the same chipset and same API frame work.... look to your OWN house first! ever try to compile a version of Kopete for LinuxPPC? Don't worky. So you must mean I must run the same chips as you to be within your utopia of societal control of technology. And how exactly does this engender personal choice freedom? How is any diffrent then everyone being forced to drive the exact same car with same engine? It don't. You fail to see that anyone can write for the MacOS... write good clean code and use a cross platform UI widget set like TCL or QT both of which are supported natively by the Mac and hook into the carbon/cocoa API's. You can then with extremely little work run it on Win or Linux.... How does that make the "platform" a factor? Now you do have a point that Apple does not lay open the holy of holies to just anyone... so not every misanthropic script kiddy with a bad attitude and some time to kill can write yet another in a series of resource wasting hardware destroying viruses. I will stick to my proprietary Mac OS thank you. I surf with near impunity... open what attachments suit my fancy... and don't fear every email like it was a package of white powder with a Kabul return address. Now if you want that kind of access Apple does have a mechanism for it. You pony up the bucks let them know who you are, and if you do something really bad with the knowledge run the risk of them finding you and making your life a living hell. Its called accountability. The system you espouse has far to great a risk of there being NONE.

Re: What exactly are you whining about? - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-20

[ alrighty... so you want everyones computer to have the same chipset and same API frame work.... ] Er, no. Where did I mention chipsets? Bytecode VMs and cross compilers make the underlying chipset nearly irrelevant. [ ever try to compile a version of Kopete for LinuxPPC? Don't worky. ] Sounds like a bug in Kopete to me (or Linux/PPC). I don't see the point of this, sorry. [ So you must mean I must run the same chips as you to be within your utopia of societal control of technology. ] Again, dunno what you're talking about. Chips? Where did chips come into this? You could run an open platform on a toaster, I couldn't care less. [ You fail to see that anyone can write for the MacOS... write good clean code and use a cross platform UI widget set like TCL or QT both of which are supported natively by the Mac and hook into the carbon/cocoa API's. ] That's fine, portable code doesn't give me cause for concern (although of course Qt is only a free platform on X11 based systems) However, there's a whole load of non-portable code out there, and Apple encourage this by providing the Carbon and Cocoa APIs. Where are the alternative implementations of these? I don't see them. I don't think I could build them either, where is the reference implementation, where is the royality free artwork (which is required for duping a platform as the Wine team will telly you). They don't exist, do they? None of the code Apple writes in is any way portable, so I'm not surprised Mac apps themselves aren't. On the other hand, Linux software is plenty portable. If you have the source, you can just recompile, if you don't then you need to export the right ABI FreeBSD style, but all the code the app will link against is open source so there is virtually no cost to using Linux the platform, hence the large number of organisations that do so (redhat, debian etc). [ You can then with extremely little work run it on Win or Linux.... How does that make the "platform" a factor? ] A platform doesn't have to be provided by the native OS by the way. Java is a platform, but it lets you run software on all types of computers. So is Qt to a certain extent. [ Now you do have a point that Apple does not lay open the holy of holies to just anyone... so not every misanthropic script kiddy with a bad attitude and some time to kill can write yet another in a series of resource wasting hardware destroying viruses. ] I think you lost the plot. Viruses have nothing to do with it. Windows isn't open source either and that has lots of viruses - or had you forgotten that? MacOS doesn't have any viruses because it has such puny marketshare, similar situation to Linux. Re: accountability, as I'm sure you're aware Microsoft is in exactly the same boat and they are plagued with viruses and hackers. Apple is hardly accountable either, what did its customers do when iTunes formatted their hard drives? Sue them? Of course not, Apple has way too much money.

Re: Another POV - Chris Brien - 2003-01-25

<<The core of MacOS X (Darwin) is released under the terms of the "Apple Public Source License". That license is listed as an approved OpenSource license on http://www.opensource.org/licenses/>> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html The Apple Public Source License is not free. It is less free than many other licenses, and even includes a restriction which not even Microsoft are capable of including. Apple are not interested in free software. However, the Free Software Foundation are aware of what Apple does. Try having a look at the FSF boycott of Apple and their reasoning behind it.

Re: Another POV - Ari Ukkonen - 2003-01-12

Proprietary? Is my IDE drive proprietary? What about my GeForce2MX video? My PC133 Ram? Those USB Mice and keyboards that also work fine on my PC? Firewire? Airport a.k.a. WiFi? PCI slots? AGP slots? Are you trying to tell me that all those PC's that ship by default with Windows XP are not running a proprietary closed os?

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-12

[ Proprietary? Is my IDE drive proprietary? ] Yes, but that's OK, your IDE disk drive is not a platform. People don't extend it or build other technologies or products on your disk drive. IDE itself is pretty open. [ What about my GeForce2MX video? My PC133 Ram? Those USB Mice and keyboards that also work fine on my PC? Firewire? Airport a.k.a. WiFi? PCI slots? AGP slots? ] Ditto with the exceptions of WiFi, which is in fact an open platform, as is PCI as is AGP. There may well be licensing costs for those technologies, I don't know, but nonetheless there are multiple competing implementations and the culture is to allow and encourage them. WiFi, PCI and AGP are all well documented and anybody can use them. Please distinguish between closed *platforms* (which I am against, which is why I'm against Apple) and closed *products*, which I am fine with. Note that despite using large amounts of open techology, a Mac is in fact a proprietary platform because it's not possible for other people to build them - enough of the internals are Apple proprietary that you cannot build clones without their permission, which they never give. [ Are you trying to tell me that all those PC's that ship by default with Windows XP are not running a proprietary closed os? ] Huh? No, Windows XP is very much a proprietary closed platform. Where did I ever even imply that it wasn't? Windows is exactly the sort of dumb situation I want to see never happen again.

Re: Another POV - Ari Ukkonen - 2003-01-13

Mike, I don't see how you can reconcile being against what you would call a "proprietary" platform and yet you make a living writing proprietary software, as do I. I would guess that this software you develop runs on windows. Hypocrite. I'm for software choice when it comes to platforms and software and I fail to see how a closed source system hinders development of either closed or open source software by either apple or third parties. BTW. The kernel and BSD subsystem (the OS) is open source, only the Aqua subsystem, filesystem and some bundled apps are closed source. IMHO, the OS is open source whereas the GUI and bundled extras are not. Why don't you download Darwin for X86 some time?

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-13

[ Mike, I don't see how you can reconcile being against what you would call a "proprietary" platform and yet you make a living writing proprietary software, as do I. ] Extremely easily. I'm not going to write what I've already written a hundred times in this thread already for you, read some of my other posts, then if you have *specific* queries about my arguments feel free to raise them. [ I would guess that this software you develop runs on windows. Hypocrite. ] I would guess that you need to prejudge people less, and start thinking more. In fact, the software I write is mainly java server based, and I work on Linux. It also runs on Windows, because Java is portable. That's OK, I'm writing apps, not platforms. Therefore calling me a hypocrite when in fact you have a) Misunderstood my position completely and b) Made wild assumptions about the work I do based on no evidence at all just makes you look dumb. [ BTW. The kernel and BSD subsystem (the OS) is open source, only the Aqua subsystem, filesystem and some bundled apps are closed source. IMHO, the OS is open source whereas the GUI and bundled extras are not. ] Open source: - Darwin (which is mostly FreeBSD which was already open source anyway) Proprietary - Quartz (graphics system) - Aqua (widget toolkit) - Carbon APIs - Cocoa APIs (the bulk of the platform are in these two) - Filing system - Quicktime Sorensen - IOKit/CoreAudio/other generic frameworks - Dock/Control Panel/applets/gui tools (not really relevant to it being proprietary). Hmm. It's closed source. If you've somehow managed to rationalise to yourself that you're actually using an open source OS then I'm impressed - if it was in fact a free platform however there would be a port for the PC already. As you no doubt realise, such a thing is impossible. [ Why don't you download Darwin for X86 some time? ] Because it almost certainly would not be compatible with enough of my hardware to be useful. Darwin being open source is a nice gesture (though consider it was largely already open source somewhat hollow), but ultimately pointless, we already have an excellent kernel with great hardware support and high performance in the form of Linux, another one isn't much use.

Re: Another POV - Brian - 2003-01-14

Mr. Hearn, you have spent a great deal of time raving with arguments that I and clearly most, if not all, others here believe are without substance. Why are you in such contradiction with the rest of the OSS community? I believe you have a warped definition of the goal of OSS. The OSS community should not be about forcing all platforms to be open source, it should be about choice. Why do 90% of users use Windows? Because its a better OS? I argue that many, if not most, are forced too due to browser and software compliance. You will agree, I'm sure. But some people like Windows. More power to them, what do I care what they use- its their choice. Some, but not all are stupid and ignorant, and every reasonable human knows you can't argue with stupidity and ignorance. But I want my choice too. Therefore, I want compliance, and to not be forced to use someone's platform or application. Can proprietary software cause problems? Yes, example Microsoft. But clearly not in this case. Apple is not a threat to you, and they have behaved. What Apple has done here (yes, at the same time helping themselves) is provide better compliance for Konqueror- and we are a step closer to having choice. It levels the playing field, and allows more options- choice. This is good for OSS. Period. -B

Re: Another POV - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-14

I have made my arguments very clear time and time again, and will continue to do so until somebody convinces me otherwise, which is most certainly possible but so far very few posts have even come close, they either flame me or make arguments which aren't actually related to what I was talking about (how will people get paid, it's about choice not freedom etc). [ I believe you have a warped definition of the goal of OSS. The OSS community should not be about forcing all platforms to be open source, it should be about choice. ] Actually it should be about freedom. You know, that's why it's called *free* software, not choice software. The GIMP is basically the only open source graphics tool of any merit, and as Photoshop doesn't yet run under Wine I guess I am "forced" to use it. But I don't care, because the gimp does what I want. If one day it didn't do that anymore, I could make it do what I want. If it was, as you say, about choice, somebody would have started a competing project just to ensure nobody was "forced" to choose the Gimp. [ But some people like Windows. More power to them, what do I care what they use- its their choice. ] Unfortunately, their choices are not independant. I care what they use, because their choices affect me by reducing the number of apps available for my chosen platform. I choose Linux, but the choices of others means that Photoshop is not, and quite possibly never will be available to me natively. So what other people choose does indeed affect me, in a serious way sometimes, occasionally so much so that I am practically forced into going with their choices as well even if I don't agree with them. Once you have argued successfully that we can all choose our platforms independant of each other, then I would no longer care because what does it matter what other people use? Unfortunately it does matter. That is central to my argument and I have gone into great detail about the economics behind this fact in other replies, so if you don't understand why platform choices aren't independant please look there first. [ Apple is not a threat to you, and they have behaved. What Apple has done here (yes, at the same time helping themselves) is provide better compliance for Konqueror- and we are a step closer to having choice. It levels the playing field, and allows more options- choice. This is good for OSS. Period. ] You are confusing short term practicality with long term inevitability. I'm sure they don't pose any realistic threat, I have covered that in other replies but in principle they wish for as many people as possible to use the Mac. Regardless of whether I wish to use their products or not then, that affects me. KHTML may be open source, but Safari is not, nor is MacOS. OSS is here for the long term, so that's what I think about. Short term gain could be tomorrows pain.

Re: Another POV - Just passing through... - 2003-01-16

Your comments are <A href="http://news.com.com/1200-1120-975444.html">practically verbatim</A> of Richard Stallman. Disgusting. Before you get your panties in a bunch, it would help if you knew my background. I'm a UNIX (note: not Linux) system administrator, and have been since 1992; you will find me running FreeBSD on all of my servers. However, you will find me -- happily, might I add -- running Windows XP on all of my workstations. I am what both the open-source community and the pro-Windows communities call "the devil's advocate." I appease to neither side, because I believe both sides have fundamentally wrong approaches to their products. On open-source: I ran and used Linux vehemently from 1992 until 1997. I became completely and thoroughly disgusted with how purely chaotic the core of the Linux operating system became. Patches atop patches which didn't apply cleanly to previously patched versions, Alan Cox's "personal" patches, and "Enterprise" patches from vendors such as RedHat (I was a Slackware fan, for the record). As I spent more and more time exposing myself to open-source software, I began to notice a similar trend throughout all communities: the meritless chaotic nature of OSS. OSS is idealised to be something that has no central management (see Richard Stallman's definition, re: "it's got us this far, so obviously it works"). Lack-of management means lack-of responsibility, and lack-of responsibility means trouble, especially for businesses (small, medium, or corporate). Another major flaw with OSS is the fact that as a defense mechanism, OSS fans seem to believe that ever end-user knows how -- or wants to, for that matter -- read source code. Can you imagine my 75 year-old grandmother trying to figure out why her workstation no longer works due to a bug in the Linux IP stack? I sure can't. It's not a plausible mentality to think like that. Most (i.e. the majority of) end-users do not know how to read source, nor do they want to -- I myself am a great example of a programmer who can (and does) read source, but *refuses* to assist in the OSS model because I believe that software authors should take FULL responsibility for code they write, and not "pawn it off" onto The Community(tm) to maintain for them. I submit bug reports to authors, and in most cases, those bug reports are ignored. The concept of mass over quality doesn't work either -- just because you have 500,000 monkeys pounding away at 500,000 terminals doesn't mean your software is going to be 500,000 times better. So tell me, how does the OSS model "work" as a replacement for responsibility? It doesn't -- and likewise, there is no way anyone is going to tell me otherwise. I've had over 10 years of dealing with OSS, and it saddens me that in that time, the lack-of responsibility from OSS authors has spread like a disease, rather than diminished. On proprietary systems: Every proprietary system has it's place. The majority of products you use today, even things as simple as the pencil, are proprietary. Copyright laws, patents, and things like the DMCA (which, FYI, I am not entirely a fan of, but do not believe in standing against it) ensure that peoples' and companies' proprietary developments remain that way. With proprietary development comes the responsibility that OSS lacks. In this case, Apple's proprietary systems have been a source of love-hate relationships with not only their consumers, but potential consumers as well. I myself purchased one of the brand-new 15" iMacs when they came out, and was thoroughly disgusted with the amount of bugs in OSX (so much that I ended up using OS9 instead). I was also disgusted with the fact that 45 days later, Apple released Jaguar -- and expected consumers to pay for the bugfixes. Then they released updated versions of their Powerbooks (moved from just DVD readers to DVD writers), but would not let customers return their recently-purchased products to get what was now better but cost the same. Then comes in the release of the 17" iMac, and the 17" Powerbook supporting Firewire2 and 802.11g. It hasn't even been a year since Apple last released a similar system -- yet they were expecting everyone to upgrade, and those who had fallen for the first batch essentially got fucked. Apple's OSX software is taking a new approach to everything -- keeping the proprietary hardware aspect, while opening up to new ideas. OSX is what *IX systems running XFree86 have STRIVED to be for, gee what, 15 years now? Let's face it: X Windows is absolutely disgusting to look at, and it's even worse to set up (AccelX was the only software package -- commercial, mind you -- which made it easy). This is where Microsoft Windows wins out. However, Apple's OSX is essentially the best of both worlds: a gorgeous GUI combined with a stable and efficient BSD back-end. As an OSS advocate, you should be quite aware of how threatening OSX is. As far as Windows goes, I really have no problem with it's "closed-source" mentality. I use the product, I enjoy the product, and the majority of the world uses the product. How can I lose? I can't. Besides, do I really want to sit around sifting through MILLIONS of lines of C++? No one does -- and I mean *NO ONE* (not even the government ;-) ). Likewise, I don't want to sit around sifting through 500 lines of C code of some *IX application who's author now lives in Tonga on a boat with no electricity, etc. etc... Summary: It never ceases to amaze me how zealous OSS advocates are, even when it comes to their own community. They're just as bad as the zealots on the opposite end of the spectrum. OSS would hold more ground if its software authors were to take more personal responsibility for their authored software. OSS, to me, *IS* Microsoft. I hope that analogy makes sense (think about it for awhile). Recommendation: Try opening your mind a little to new ideas. If Apple was out to Proprietize The World(tm), they wouldn't have bothered submitting a diff in the first place. And try to remember that Free is ***NOT*** always better.

Re: Another POV - mac.zooks - 2003-01-15

Even "non-profit" organizations have to make a profit in order to survive. Everything that is produced has a cost. If costs are not recovered, for whatever reason, or are squandered, then bankruptcy ensues. Most of the time, that means going out of business -- sooner or later. Is NetZero free? Not anymore. Is Yahoo mail free? Less and less as time goes on. And the mighty AOL is falling from grace within the very conglomerate it consumed because of falling revenue on it's own part. Didn't a dot.com bubble burst in the not so distant past ?? I am no fan of the way great power is wielded by large corporations. At the same time, reality dictates: Open source can not equal absolutely free source, otherwise, it would cease to exist. There are far more devious companies and CEO's than Apple and Jobs which could be marketing "open source" material. Just remember which one is the monopoly-- which one has maneuvered a settlement where as much as 2/3 of the settlement can boomerang right back into that monopoly's lap. Be thankful for small favors.

Re: Another POV - Does it Matter - 2003-01-16

I think you must be one of the most delusional zealots I have seen yet. I don't even know where to begin with the flaws in your thinking... Let's start with you belief in open hardware. Guess what? There is no such thing. What do you use as a definition? You think just because you buy some cheap ass motherboard from Tawain and throw an AMD processor in it that it is open? Guess what. They are all companies. Yep that's right the kind that makes money. You think that they don't give some of your money to some other patent holders? Guess what. All Hardware is patented and someone collects royalties. No such thing as an open hardware platform. OK, you say I can by Intel like processors from someone else. In the PPC world there are mutliple suppliers. You can actually buy PPC machines from different vendors and run any number of OSes on them including BSD and Linux. Pretty much open as far as I can see by your definition. All hardware is provided by companies. There is no benevolent hardware company doing it for the community. And you know what? WE like it that way. That way when we buy our Apple machines they actually work as a completed product not just a motherboard and a collection of parts thrown together. If you hold such a desire for open hardware, what open hardware car do you drive? You know, the kind that you can throw any engine under the hood and well, I like that seat and steering wheel over there. Guess what? They don't make them that way. No real completed product works that way. Where is your open hardware refrigerator? No, you are just coming down to the decision of which company to send your dollars to. Some of us think Bill has enough of it. So given your list of 3 items above all computer companies are bad because they are all proprietary (meaning they are all making money, and you might want to check webster for a definition of proprietary). Well I guess you can build an abacus in your garage, better start working on that Linux port.

Re: Another POV - Roberto J Dohnert - 2003-01-16

What the hell are you smoking ? This is not a bad day for KDE or free software. We finally have the backing of a major company sending in code and its protected by the GPL. There is nothing bad about it. Do you even understand the concept of free software ? Apple is more open source and compliant than Lindows is. I dont see you trolling their boards making complaints. The fact is even with GPLed software Apple did not have to release the source code to the public. They could have put a price tag on Safari made you buy it and they would have only had to give you the source code to webcore if you requested it. Hell I can fork KDE make my own version of it release the source for the base that falls under the GPL BSD License my changes and charge for it. Apple made a very good choice in KHTML and they are complying as much as they need to and throwing the KDE team a few bones while doing it. The only complaints I see are from the Mozilla team which are pissed off and insulted because Apple didnt choose Gecko.

Re: Another POV - John Randolph - 2003-01-20

>I think this sucks. Yeah, well: who asked for your approval? -jcr

Re: Another POV - JCR daddy - 2003-01-21

Real intelligent comment, John. Maybe tomorrow you can try growing up.

Re: Another POV - ac - 2003-01-21

John must be tired of Mike Hearn's mozilla propaganda too.

What is the problem? - Karikalan - 2003-01-10

KHTML is open source and everyone (yes, that includes commercial companies that sell proprietory hardware and software) can use it, as long as they play by the rules. Apple used it in Safari, and from all indications - has played by the rules. From all indications, KHTML developers received a lot of bug fixes from Apple developers. In less than 2 days, there are about half a million more people using a KHTML based browsers increasing its visibility, and recognition. There should be no litmus test for any user to use open source software as long as they fulfill license requirements. Other considerations, IMO, are personal. Karikalan

end users view - user from greece - 2003-01-12

lets see this from the end users view. i like linux. i like the idea of free software but not most of its childs. i like the idea that there shouldnt be any proprietary code. i love the idea of one or two companys NOT having control over the platform that most users use. i am not stuck whitout a choice in oses. id drop any that wouldnt fulfill my needs. BUT!! i also hate the idea of everything being free. who will organize the whole thing? who will keep it working all together? a group of voluntiers who will with a clear and inocent mind coordinate all this? i dont think so. this would be worst than gates or jobs or anyone controlling a major amount of users. at least we know what we have to face. but the other way around it would probably be even worse. theyd go crazy. 10? 100? 1000? peolpe in control of what drives the world (and that is info and its medium - computers ) it would be the same. they are just people. so i'd prefer to see microsoft, apple, ibm ,... and the free software community fighting for ever so we could have a balance. so let them use free code if that keeps the fight going on. btw. a hard fact for which you are propably goin to hate me. the world DOES NOT give a shit if software is free or not. they want support they want the frikkin software to work. we end users dont pay for it anyway but bussiness does. so until you start providing support for all thigs GPLed ( which isnt humanly possible )and user friendlines ( im not talking about UIS and $hit im talking about istallation, about the dependency hell we got goin on in the linux world) stop bitchin and go write some A' quality code which history has proven the free software community is able to make ( e.g. konqueror ). sorry for the bad english.

the above reply goes to mikes "Another POV" - user from greece - 2003-01-12

sorry...

Not Fair. - Visitor - 2003-01-12

Mike Hearn is unfair to Apple. He does not seem to understand that many users prefer proprietary platforms. There are two things that have to be distinguished here: 1.) what an OS does (function) and 2.) how it does it (implementation). I believe that it should be clear to everyone what an OS does, but that the implementation need not be disclosed. The difference between M$ and Apple is that Apple complies with 1.) and M$ does not. No proprietary platform is a threat if it's functionality is properly disclosed because other platforms can work towards implementing the same functionality. The problem with M$ software generally, and IE specifically, is that it's functionality is "secretive" and bizarre. By basing their web browser on KHTML, Apple has made a great step in complying with 1.). This is especially important because WWW is such a mess. Sincerely, Visitor P.S. Thanks to all for making Safari possible. It was one of the best Christmas presents ever. Many celebrated Orthodox Christmas on January 7th. It's so nice to finally have a Mac OS X browser which properly renders pages containing text written in the language of at least one large group of people who was celebrating Christmas the very day Safari was unveiled.

Re: Not Fair. - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-12

[ He does not seem to understand that many users prefer proprietary platforms. ] Most users of the road network would prefer not to have no-parking zones - what individuals want is not always what's best for all of us. [ The difference between M$ and Apple is that Apple complies with 1.) and M$ does not. ] Hardly. Microsoft has massive and 95% complete documentation on all their APIs available at MSDN, we use it extensively when developing Wine. Apple may well have an equivalent, but to say Microsoft does not document it's stuff is an insult to them. Not everything is documented 100%, in particular the Office file formats are not, but then Apple are equally as bad at this (iPod on disk database format, AppleWorks formats, Sorensen Codecs etc). [ No proprietary platform is a threat if it's functionality is properly disclosed because other platforms can work towards implementing the same functionality. ] In theory correct. In practice if a platform is available royalty free for reimplementation by third parties and if the culture is to encourage such implementations (the W3C requires at least 2 interoperating implementations for a spec to move to Recommendation status) then it's probably not a proprietary platform. In the case of Apple, it is in fact impossible to reimplement the functionality without getting immediate lawsuits from Apple. They have demonstrated this quite clearly already, and of course the amount of effort it'd take to catch up and stay caught up with MacOS is phenomenal. Wine is just about managing to not fall behind at the moment but it's still a long way from being a full reimplementation of the Win32 APIs. The "culture" of MacOS is to disallow competing implementations, to make it hard for people to produce them and finally MacOS is not developed in public forums which are open to all. Therefore MacOS is in fact a proprietary platform, despite the existance of (some) documentation.

Re: Not Fair. - Joe Millionaire - 2003-01-14

<but then Apple are equally as bad at this (iPod on disk database format, AppleWorks formats, Sorensen Codecs etc)> I'll give you the iPod argument and AppleWorks but Sorenson codcs aren't Apple's fault - Sorenson is a company - bitch them out, but Apple had to pay them for the license to their codecs. Additionally, Society reclaiming the right to its technology is a noble goal, but you might as well start bashing AT&T, Sprint, The Gas Company, Electric Company and Water Company - infrastructure has to be built by someone.

Re: Not Fair. - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-15

[ Sorenson codcs aren't Apple's fault - Sorenson is a company - bitch them out, but Apple had to pay them for the license to their codecs. ] Sure. But why do they still use them, when MPEG4 is a better codec anyway? Digital video has been around for yonks, they're not obliged to use sorensen. [ Additionally, Society reclaiming the right to its technology is a noble goal, but you might as well start bashing AT&T, Sprint, The Gas Company, Electric Company and Water Company - infrastructure has to be built by someone. ] Good point, but AT&T were in fact found to be a monopoly and broken up, dunno about Sprint (not american). Utility companies are often state owned, and when they aren't at least there's some semblance of competition, although often it's a bit of a facade. That's a different problem entirely though.... Sure infrastructure has to be built, but so far we've managed OK with most of the rest of our infrastructure, that's either ended up being a free market with competition (mostly) or government owned. Computer platforms aren't either of these things and as I prefer (1) to (2)......

Re: Not Fair. - Christopher Blomquist - 2003-01-26

[ Sure. But why do they still use them, when MPEG4 is a better codec anyway? Digital video has been around for yonks, they're not obliged to use sorensen.] MPEG4 is not free.

Re: Not Fair. - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-26

It is however significantly more open than Sorensen.

Re: Not Fair. - Christopher Blomquist - 2003-01-26

[In the case of Apple, it is in fact impossible to reimplement the functionality without getting immediate lawsuits from Apple. They have demonstrated this quite clearly already,] Source? [Wine is just about managing to not fall behind at the moment but it's still a long way from being a full reimplementation of the Win32 APIs.) Yes, but i'm sure that the WINE project is not implenting MS code in their project? [ The "culture" of MacOS is to disallow competing implementations, to make it hard for people to produce them and finally MacOS is not developed in public forums which are open to all. Therefore MacOS is in fact a proprietary platform, despite the existance of (some) documentation.] Again, give us examples.. OS X is indeed a proprietary platform except for the CoreOS (Darwin BSD), the webbrowser, CDSA, CUPS, Open Directory, OpenPlay, Rendezvous, HeaderDoc, DarwinStreaming Server, X11 and of course the Chess.app ;) That's the difference between MS and Apple. Apple is no opensource company, but the fact that they are using opensource widley in their OS cannot be misstaken.

Re: Not Fair. - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-26

[ Source? ] See the numerous people who have attempted to make an Aqua style theme and got sued. Mac apps are built around the idea that they'll be run in an aqua environment, so you have to emulate the gui exactly to run mac apps on other platforms. An L&F isn't legally protectable, but they do this anyway. [ Yes, but i'm sure that the WINE project is not implenting MS code in their project? ] Hmm? Wine is a reimplementation of lots of MS code yes. [ Again, give us examples.. ] IOKit, CoreAudio, Carbon, Cocoa, Quartz, Aqua, desktop tools, applets, interface builder etc. Note that BSD was already open, the Safari web browser isn't open source in fact (only khtml is, which was already open source), CUPS was developed originally for Linux so was already open source, X11 and Rendezvous are protocols etc... Microsoft use BSD code in Windows as well you know, does that make Microsoft an open source company?

Re: Not Fair. - Christopher Blomquist - 2003-01-27

[ See the numerous people who have attempted to make an Aqua style theme and got sued. Mac apps are built around the idea that they'll be run in an aqua environment, so you have to emulate the gui exactly to run mac apps on other platforms. An L&F isn't legally protectable, but they do this anyway.] See the numerous of pepole who in fact include Aqua in themes and apps (like AquaFix and Max Rudgrens Apple is Lazy, OrborX for Xwin) that are not being sued. Apple sued pepole in the begining of Aqua for market reasons. Yes, that sucked. I think so also. But now, nah don't think you will get sued.. The net is swarming over with Aqua themes and Icons.. Anyways i don't know what GUI widgets has to do with the discussion. Apple have Guidelines for implenting GUI in Aqua. Becuase you don't want an consumer desktop os to have diffrent GUI widgets and shortcuts in every app. If you having a hard time to port an OS X app to another OS simply becuase of the GUI. I hardly think you will have any experience of porting OS X apps to other plattforms. [Hmm? Wine is a reimplementation of lots of MS code yes.] Reimplementation. Thats totally different than in fact using MS code directly from MS.' [IOKit, CoreAudio, Carbon, Cocoa, Quartz, Aqua, desktop tools, applets, interface builder etc. Note that BSD was already open, the Safari web browser isn't open source in fact (only khtml is, which was already open source), CUPS was developed originally for Linux so was already open source, X11 and Rendezvous are protocols etc... Microsoft use BSD code in Windows as well you know, does that make Microsoft an open source company?] Desktop tools? What are these? The finder? Build your own finder. You are missing the point here. Don't compare to MS. Apple is not an open source company and they never will. But they do build their OS around lots of Opensource software and implentations. MS use some BSD code in Windows, but they don't build thier OS around it. That's the power of open source. Companys and OSes that are not Open source can benefit of Open Source and then give back to the community. It's not exclusive to GNU OS. Then finally it's up to you what you want to run. Gnu OS Linux, QNX, OS X, WinXP, FreeBSD or something else.. Do remember that everyone is not thinking the same way you do.

Re: Not Fair. - Mike Hearn - 2003-01-27

[ But now, nah don't think you will get sued.. The net is swarming over with Aqua themes and Icons.. ] Who knows? Bit risky legally. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. [ If you having a hard time to port an OS X app to another OS simply becuase of the GUI. I hardly think you will have any experience of porting OS X apps to other plattforms. ] It's not just the GUI, it's all the other APIs too. Actually the hardest part of writing cross platform software is the GUI system, because they are so complex and there is so much of it. Wine has to reimplement all the Windows common controls, there are many, and they aren't even using copyrighted artwork! It still takes forever, a drastic measure for sure. [ Desktop tools? What are these? The finder? Build your own finder. You are missing the point here. Don't compare to MS. Apple is not an open source company and they never will. But they do build their OS around lots of Opensource software and implentations. ] Yes, finder, shell (menu bar), dock, applets etc. So? This is the core of my issue with this. It doesn't matter how much Apple use open source code. They have the same aims and use the same methods as Microsoft do to lock in their customers. Using open source code is not in itself a good thing, never has been, never will be. Open source volunteer based development is simply a good way to take on the huge amount of work necessary to create an OS and all the apps. [ Then finally it's up to you what you want to run. Gnu OS Linux, QNX, OS X, WinXP, FreeBSD or something else.. ] Well no, to a large extent it's not up to me. Sometimes I have to use Windows at work, because I need to use apps that do not exist on Linux and won't work in Wine. I'm being forced to use something against my will. I'm lucky, at least I can use Linux most of the time. Many many people cannot even do that. So to pretend that anybody can choose is wrong, often they can't. Apple know this, and are trying very hard to force people to use their products, even if they don't want to. Where did the Windows version of Logic Audio go? Oh, Apple pulled it, so all the logic users must now buy macs or abandon the product and lose all the music they wrote (closed file formats). Do you see why I am against Apple? It matters not how much open source code they use, the sort of company they are is plain to see.

Re: Not Fair. - Christopher Blomquist - 2003-01-27

[what individuals want is not always what's best for all of us.] So used the Chinese Communist party say.. [AppleWorks formats, Sorensen Codecs etc] Apple Works is dead. Sorenson Video is not from Apple. Finally.. What this thread is all about. Do you think that Apple using KHTML is hurting the Open Source community?

Just downloaded safari on my neighbors machine. - a.c. - 2003-01-13

The speeds are better, less memory, and far less processor. I also like the google bar up top. Nice, very nice.

Safari Downloads Top 500,000 - IR - 2003-01-14

Safari Downloads Top 500,000 Friday January 10, 12:37 pm ET MACWORLD EXPO, SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple® (Nasdaq: AAPL - News) today announced that users have downloaded more than 500,000 copies of its new Safari(TM) web browser since the free public beta was posted on Apple's web site (www.apple.com) on Tuesday, January 7 http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030110/sff035_1.html