[webkit-dev] Porting Gtk+WebCore

[Kimmo Kinnunen]

Hi,
I understand there might be interest in hosting Gtk+WebCore under 
opendarwin, possibly merging some changes back to the real WebKit. I 
think this is quite good idea.

Does anybody have any ideas how should this proceed? There's not much 
change in the core that could benefit WebKit on OS X. From other 
platforms' point of view, there's probably the ARM fixes, some linux 
compilation fixes and maybe Gtk+ KWQ.

Status of the Gtk+WebCore:
  - JavaScriptCore 413
  - WebCore 145.1

  - Running on Linux (x86 and ARM), FreeBSD, using Gtk+
  - Proof of concept support for Cairo
  - Runs also on Win32 with Gtk+ (VC6 I believe), no GDI image renderer
    though
  - Lots of crashes, mostly from our Kit-side.

The problem ofcourse with the Gtk+WebCore project was that there's no 
platform to integrate in, so every service, like networking and 
graphics, come from assorted libraries.

Still, porting WebKit to other platforms has questions that puzzle me:

The build system seems to completely rely on OS X. Is there any plans to 
use makefiles, autotools or something? From OS X developer point of 
view, I'd speculate that the whole hassle with autotools is pretty 
inferior to what you got there.. If there was a multiplatform WebKit, 
what kind of infrastructure would there be?

KWQ side of WebKit is also heavliy OSX dependent. Any ideas how to make 
this different? Especially refactoring the bridge and generalizing the 
KWQ widgets to support Carbon, Gtk+, Windows widgets needs a bit of thought.

I think the main issues are defining how the WebKit portability project 
relates to the Apple's WebKit. Anyway, I can happily help porting the 
Gtk+WebCore. It'd be great even if the project was just hosted at 
opendarwin, because then it might attract more people actually working 
on it.

Kimmo