
Google Overtook Apple In WebKit Code Commits - vladocar
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/02/06/google-apple-webkit/
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ellyagg
"For the first time this season, Pittsburgh made more rushing attempts than
Denver. Now, the usual caveats apply, Denver might make significantly more
yards per carry, for example. But, nevertheless, this graph clearly shows that
Pittsburgh had more rushing plays."

What constitutes a commit varies between organizations. More than that, look
at the area under the respective graphs. Apple has already made a HUGE number
of commits. Presumably they've achieved many of their strategic aims. Google
has barely scratched the surface, if we're to believe that raw commit numbers
matter at all.

Apple's trend line is going down. Should I infer from that that Apple no
longer cares about Webkit?

Apple doesn't commit to Webkit as a public service. They also don't commit as
a race against Google. They'll commit precisely as needed to achieve their
business goals. There is nothing interesting implied by the relative numbers
of commits between Apple and Google.

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statictype
Its interesting in the sense that it's rare to see many relatively large and
competing companies actively making commits to the same open source project.

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mtsmith85
I really hate to see TechCrunch giving credence to the notion that the number
of times someone commits to a given codebase is somhow representative of the
actual contribution to the project. Granted, the author does say: "The graph,
while it shows commits, doesn’t weigh more important ones versus less
important ones." but he then goes on to say that "[the graph] does clearly
show that in late 2009, Google surpassed Apple as the company that now
contributes the most (again, in terms of commits) to the project." Ignore the
parenthetical, and it feels like the author is ignoring the issue: commits
does not equal code quality.

After all, and I know that I'm over simplifying the point, (I think this is
safe to say) but didn't Apple build out most of the core functionality -- the
rendering engine, while what has been going on for the past couple months to a
years is just adding features and extending what the base browser is? You
can't determine that type of input based on commits alone.

Edit: Clarify core functionality.

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litewulf
Sort of.

Remember that WebKit comes from the KHTML/KJS work, so they had a rendering
engine capable of taking webpages and rendering them to some degree from the
start. Compatibility is loads better now than it used to be, but the web looks
substantially different now than it used to as well.

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hrabago
It's good that they clarify that this is only commit counts. I guess I'm not
too surprised since Google, as a newcomer (relative to Apple), surely has a
whole set of features and ideas it wants to implement that Apple hasn't
considered before.

In fact, the source blog explains that a lot of the work had been to make
WebKit work better with Google web apps.

[http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/10/going-u...](http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/10/going-
upstream.html)

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cloudhead
I see this more as a testament to the greatness of open source. Who cares who
contributed more commits? What to take out of it is that open source prevails,
even in a competitive environment — it makes me feel hopeful about things.

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tel
_a very interesting graph: one that shows the number of code commits to
WebKit_

Except the graph is of commits/day, not overall commits. This means even less
than the way TC wants to advertise it. Integrate the lines and it'll be a long
time before Google touches Apple's contributions in the way this story
implies.

In fact, TC's coverage is flat dishonest by stripping any mention of scale and
then zooming in on the overtake point. It's never any surprise to conclude
that TC is sensationalist lying, but when they post numbers it casts hard
light on the truth of the matter.

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dbz
Only one thing comes to mind.

[http://badusure.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/08/featuresbyver...](http://badusure.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/08/featuresbyversion-thumb.png)

(google image)

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MikeCapone
Now that we've established that the number of commits only gives us limited
information about the contribution of various people/groups, can anyone
familiar with the webkit codebase give us a "state of the union" about who's
actually improving Webkit most these days?

What have been some of Google's biggest contributions in the past 6 months?
Apple's? RIM's?

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mahmud
Give me commit access and I can overtake them both with a tight 'for' loop.

