[webkit-dev] Announcing new port: Nix

[Pokrzywka, Romain]

>> As it was pointed in the first email of this thread and by Hugo's
>> email, Nix "targets whoever wants to have a hardware accelerated
>> WebKit2 port on UNIX-based devices, with a minimum effort".
>
> Yes. I read that email. Then I asked who "whoever" was, and the answer was "nobody".
>
> My position is simply this: Every port has a cost, so every port needs at least a prima facia explanation of its corresponding benefit.
>
> If the NIX port is what gets you guys excited about WebKit, and the end result is a great implementation of WebRTC, that's great.
>
> But, six months from now, if the NIX port still has no adopters, and the only activity it brings to WebKit is the occasional rude email from Ossy, that's not so great.
>
> Geoff

We at Sony Network Entertainment, for one, have an interest in adopting the Nix port in the near future (timeframe is within the next 6 months). As we see it, there is currently no other platform providing a clean and lightweight integration with good support for hardware accelerated graphics and WebKit2 API on top of barebones POSIX environments, such as embedded/mobile Linux platforms. 

Actually, there may be one other alternative, and it is called Blink. Except that AFAIK Blink doesn't have an off-the-shelf integration path with non-X11 platforms on Linux (however I couldn't find recent info on that, might be the case now). So the way I see it the Nix port could give an edge to WebKit on  the Embedded Linux scene as well as POSIX platforms where X11 isn't available, or at least keep WebKit up to par with Blink as an option for those platforms.

I'm not saying the integration has to happen tomorrow, but I'm at least advocating an open-arms attitude to it. This might very well end up as one of the few remaining platforms not cannibalized by Blink/Chromium. In my eyes this is a compelling answer to the question "how does it fit the purpose of the WebKit project?".

Regards,


--
Romain Pokrzywka
Sr. Software Engineer - EXDG - Platform
Sony Network Entertainment Intl.
400 2nd St. - Suite 200
San Francisco, CA 94107