
Does WebKit face a troubled future now that Google is gone? - tambourine_man
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/does-webkit-face-a-troubled-future-now-that-google-is-gone/
======
general_failure
Yet another article full of FUD and speculation. If this, if that, maybe this,
maybe that. Seriously, please. Someone reform the media industry for me. Are
there any startups here doing this?

Back to the article. WebKit won't allow hooking in random JS engines. Allowing
this slows things down because many DOM access optimizations can be achieved
by assuming a specific engine. This is totally reasonable thing. People who
are complaining don't contribute to the project at all and are just armchair
critics.

Same goes for this web developer who is complaining on webkit-dev. He is an
arm chair critic. Apple is talking about removing a feature that no one is
stepping up to maintain. CSS variables is not a _standard_ and not close to
being a standard and that is the key. If it was, Apple won't be removing it.

I don't know whats worse - armchair critics or media creating whole articles
based on speculation and armchair critics.

~~~
widdershins
>Are there any startups here doing this?

These kinds of articles generate more pageviews than boring, measured, and
technically correct articles, so presumably if there were startups doing what
you suggest, they wouldn't be doing very well. Media sensationalism stems from
human nature, so it's not an problem I see being solved any time soon.

~~~
CodeCube
So what about boring, measured, and technically correct articles ... with
crazily sensational a/b tested titles :P but seriously, I wouldn't have a
problem with a sensational title, if the actual article itself does a good job
of arguing for or against said title.

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glasshead969
I am disappointed by this article coming from ARS, a site I have huge respect
for. The article ignores parts of conversation and chooses the ones which
suits its narrative. Developers were concerned about leaving unmaintained code
left in the tree, which was previously only used by chrome. If you follow the
thread devs were more than happy to keep it as long as someone maintained it.
And finally that's what happened. Either way discussions like these are common
in Open source project , any project as a matter of fact, but to spin it like
this is simply manufacturing a story for page views.

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mmariani
Puff piece, a.k.a link bait.

Anyone that goes through the discussion threads from which this article
originated from will see developers cordially debating about pertinent
engeneering topics regarding the future of the project. Nothing more.

I personally think both projects will thrive as a result of this fork.

------
richardwhiuk
The root problem seems to be that Oracle and Samsung want WebKit to continue
allowing Nashorn and V8 integration without actually providing any developer
resource to the problem.

~~~
tambourine_man
Nope, it's worse than that.

[https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-
dev/2013-April/024...](https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-
dev/2013-April/024491.html)

[https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-
dev/2013-April/024...](https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-
dev/2013-April/024484.html)

------
doe88
I think this may not be the easiest path (at least short-term) but I would be
Apple I would only actively maintain my own JS engine but I would also try to
make a nice abstraction for others JS engines, i.e. what Google chose not to
do. Maybe it wouldn't be ideal for short term performances, but community wise
and future wise it would be a great choice I think. Sadly I don't think this
is the path Apple is going to take.

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jfoutz
As with all headlines that end with '?' the answer is no.

~~~
solox3
In this case, the link is scrotal, like you suggested.

However, Betteridge's Law of Headlines was proven wrong by Betteridge himself.
For example, "What was life like opposite Thatcher?" cannot be answered by the
word "no".

~~~
kyrias
It can, most people would just feel like it didn't make sense.

------
tambourine_man
This divorce is going to be painful.

~~~
moomin
I'd say it's a bit more like Google walking out and leaving Apple with the
kids. I doubt Apple will be able to sue for maintenance.

~~~
DannyBee
Given that Google offered repeatedly on the mailing lists to help remove any
code/features that webkit no longer wanted, i don't see how it's like that at
all?

~~~
cube13
And how does that help with maintaining the current functionality that Google
engineers are supporting? Presumably, the code that the Webkit team wants to
remove is the interface with Chrome/Chromium. That's the easy part, in the
grand scheme of things.

The hard part is getting new people to pick up the features and functionality
that was being worked on by people who have moved to Blink. That's going to be
a huge challenge, especially for features that were half implemented.

~~~
DannyBee
Sorry, but people and companies come and go from open source projects all the
time. You act as if this is not the typical happening in an open source
project. Just because it happens to involve a large company, or a well known
project, doesn't change anything.

Either the project will find/attract new contributors to support those
features, or it won't. If it doesn't, it generally means it wasn't going to
stay viable.

Plenty of companies left GCC and left features unmaintained. They either find
new maintainers, or get removed, and the project moves on.

This is the life of an open source project. It's not like a divorce at all.
It's like a large collaboration where people are free to leave at any time.
When people leave, either the collaboration absorbs the loss, or it doesn't.

~~~
tambourine_man
_Sorry, but people and companies come and go from open source projects all the
time._

Yes, bad things happen all the time. Frequency doesn't turn a bad thing good
though.

~~~
DannyBee
Uh? It's not necessarily bad or good for a company or person to leave. It all
depends on whose perspective you are using (and i'm not talking about either
the company or the project). Sometimes things are bad for one project, but
good for an ecosystem. Or the reverse.

Folks who started EGCS, including a company worth of folks, left GCC to do so.
Was this bad for GCC? Most people with gut reactions thought it was "bad".

It certainly ended up improving the state of the world, and in fact, later
turned out very good for the GCC project because it got a _much_ better GCC
out of it.

Basically, I think you may need a little perspective here.

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kmfrk
This is one of my favourite things about Hacker News; it allows you to take a
peek at an article you assume is clickbait, before you give them the hits and
traffic they might be angling for.

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lnanek2
Google used to contribute to Firefox before Chrome and Firefox is still alive,
although more people use Chrome and IE now so it lost its popularity.

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michaelwww
It's telling that no one is asking "Will Google be able to go it alone without
Apple's help?

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amputect
No

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ttrreeww
I expect WebKit to have similar fate as KHTML actually...

~~~
mitchty
I doubt it entirely. WebKit has been around since 2001, and given Apple is the
creator and primary users, it will stick around.

