[webkit-dev] RenderArena: Teaching an old dog new tricks

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On Nov 15, 2012, at 2:16 PM, Chris Evans <cevans at chromium.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 11:49 AM, Geoffrey Garen <ggaren at apple.com> wrote:
> On Nov 14, 2012, at 3:19 PM, Chris Evans <cevans at chromium.org> wrote:
> 
>> A first step might be to make it a platform define. For the Chromium platform we'd leave the define "on" -- there are some nice security properties we get from having the RenderObjects in their own spot. I'm happy to go in to more details if you want, but it's similar (although not identical) to the blog post linked by Brendan regarding Firefox.
>> 
>> Not all WebKit consumers need weight things the same way as the Chromium port of course, but at least for us, the security win outweighs any quirks of RenderArena.
> 
> r-
> 
> Don't do this.
> 
> Ok, no platform define for RenderArena. There's also an implicit r- on removing the thing, though, as we'd regress security(!!) and performance. Seems we're stuck with the thing.

I don't think anyone is asking for immediate removal. At the very least we'd need a way to get the same performance - this has also been clear. Your new info also highlights the security benefits, and we'd have to address that too. Perhaps as we explore ways to improve robustness against use-after-free attacks for other, non-render-tree objects, we will find a solution that would be as effective as RenderArena even for renderers.

Regards,
Maciej

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