[webkit-dev] Announcing new port: Nix

[Luciano Wolf]

Hi Anders,

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 3:10 PM, Anders Carlsson <andersca at apple.com> wrote:
>
> On 13 sep 2013, at 01:58 em, Hugo Lima <hugo.lima at openbossa.org> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Antonio Gomes <tonikitoo at webkit.org> wrote:
>>> So will you advocate your users to use your external GitHub version or
>>> the one in
>>> WebKit?
>>>
>>> Please consider not being half upstream.
>>
>> It wont be half upstream, but the github repository will be for
>> example a fallback for a working bleeding edge Nix just in case of
>> WebCore changes that break Nix on webkit.org. We can also push things
>> first there then on webkit.org if a faster development pace if needed,
>> as all Nix developers use git this also means that experimental
>> feature branches will exists on github repo too (don't tell me about
>> create svn branches).
>
> Please correct me if I’m misunderstanding this, but:
>
> - You are OK with WebCore changes breaking the Nix port
> - You are going to have a “stable fork” of Nix in another repository (GitHub).
>

I see github usage just as lab to try experimental stuff inside
branches. That said it means it is far from being a "stable fork" - it
goes into the opposite direction: a place to have experimental
branches and tags without messing WebKit's main repo.


> If this is the case, what benefit does having the code upstream provide to the WebKit project as opposed to having it live out of tree and upstream changes that are of high value to the WebKit project itself. Note that I’m not against the Nix port, but maybe this would be a good way for a port to “prove" that it’s worthy of being upstreamed. I don’t remember when the last port was added to WebKit, but I’m pretty sure it was many years ago and the project has changed significantly since then.
>
> (I’m also a bit confused about why the Nix “Platform” layer needs to live in the WebKit repository - we don’t have Windows or AppKit headers in the repository and I don’t understand why Nix is different).
>

We were following Chrome steps and since they left the project just
our code (and one GTK related file) remain there. One option would be
to refactor and move things to sit into more suitable places under
webkit2/nix API directories.

> Thanks,
> - Anders
>
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Cheers,
Luciano