[webkit-dev] Regarding WebKit Support Libraries

[Brent Fulgham]

On Feb 17, 2008, at 10:25 AM, Mike Emmel wrote:

> A obvious reason to have this available is it makes it easier to  
> support
> new standards or get around show stopper bugs in closed libraries.

I major point in its favor is that it allows several platforms (Qt,  
GTK, and win32 [modulo non-redistributable Apple libraries]) to use  
the same source base reducing effort and avoiding replication of  
common bugs.

To my mind, this is as much an engineering/design issue as it is a  
philosophical one.  If I wish to use WebKit in my Windows application,  
I have no choice *but* to create a solution that removes CoreGraphics  
and CFNetwork.  It seems wise to share this effort between platforms,  
and for better or worse that seems to indicate libCurl.

It's very unfortunate, as I'm finding that the existing Windows logic  
has deeply-rooted assumptions that various CFNetwork features and data  
types will be available, turning what seems like a small project into  
major drudgery.

-Brent