iconara
Registered
So Apple has released a web browser. And a fast one. Great. And it's opensource? Great!
But wait a second.
Something seems not really right here.
Aha. Safari is NOT open source. But two of the frameworks it links to are... that's nice. But not that nice. Both WebCore and JavaScriptCore are nice things to be able to use some day. But what about the application, what about Safari itself?
Apple may say that they like the open source movement, but just as long as it's providing them with free code. When it comes to sharing their own, the only go half-way.
KHTML, which WebCore is built on (and JavaScriptCore too, I assume) is licenced under the GNU Library (or Lesser) General Public Licence. That licence makes it possible to use code in proprietary applications, unlike the regular GPL which requires applications using GPL'ed code to be GPL'ed themselves (GPL is sometimes described as a "viral licence" for obvious reasons).
Had KHTML been GPL'ed Safari would have had to be GPL'ed too. Now it proprietary. I want that code so badly. I want to tinker with it, make a fullscreen button (like there was/is in Explorer for Windows) and other things, but now I can't.
I don't know if I should be glad that Apple has made a stunning browser, or mad because they have used the open source community for their own purposes. Now it's a mix between the two. I'm writing this in Safari, and I started loving it five minutes after I used it the first time. But I'm very disapointed with Apple for not making the whole application open source.
Theo/Iconara
But wait a second.
Something seems not really right here.
Aha. Safari is NOT open source. But two of the frameworks it links to are... that's nice. But not that nice. Both WebCore and JavaScriptCore are nice things to be able to use some day. But what about the application, what about Safari itself?
Apple may say that they like the open source movement, but just as long as it's providing them with free code. When it comes to sharing their own, the only go half-way.
KHTML, which WebCore is built on (and JavaScriptCore too, I assume) is licenced under the GNU Library (or Lesser) General Public Licence. That licence makes it possible to use code in proprietary applications, unlike the regular GPL which requires applications using GPL'ed code to be GPL'ed themselves (GPL is sometimes described as a "viral licence" for obvious reasons).
Had KHTML been GPL'ed Safari would have had to be GPL'ed too. Now it proprietary. I want that code so badly. I want to tinker with it, make a fullscreen button (like there was/is in Explorer for Windows) and other things, but now I can't.
I don't know if I should be glad that Apple has made a stunning browser, or mad because they have used the open source community for their own purposes. Now it's a mix between the two. I'm writing this in Safari, and I started loving it five minutes after I used it the first time. But I'm very disapointed with Apple for not making the whole application open source.
Theo/Iconara