[webkit-dev] Replacing Cairo in WebKit with Skia

[Yusuke Suzuki]

Nice, this sounds really good.
Cairo performance was one of the limiting factors in WebKitGTK, and adopting some libraries which can use GPU is great improvement.
One of questions is, should we rename WinCairo to something different? (Like, Win, or WinSkia).

-Yusuke

> On Feb 2, 2024, at 6:49 AM, Carlos Garcia Campos via webkit-dev <webkit-dev at lists.webkit.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi WebKittens,
> 
> At Igalia we have spent some time exploring different options to
> replace the Cairo 2D rendering library in the GTK and WPE ports (we
> even tried rolling our own library). Recently we decided to try Skia
> and we have successfully integrated it in the WPE port. Right now we
> can compile WebKit with Skia linked statically, as part of the CMake
> build, and run a number benchmarks. This has allowed us to compare the
> Skia GPU and CPU renderers with the existing Cairo one in different
> devices.
> 
> The results are very promising: benchmarks are faster than Cairo's CPU
> rendering, specially with Skia's GPU renderer. The improvement varies
> for each device, but in any case it is already clear that the change is
> a net positive on every configuration we have tested. Additionally, the
> integration in the build system is well isolated: importing Skia under
> Source/ThirdParty there is no need for any additional dependencies,
> patching Skia has not been needed, and the changes in WebKit are
> limited to code from the WPE port.
> 
> After talking to teams from Google, Sony, Apple and RedHat during this
> week, everyone thinks using Skia will be a great improvement for the
> GTK, WPE, PlayStation and WinCairo ports. Therefore, we would like to
> start upstreaming what we have to the WebKit repository and continue
> the work there.
> 
> Points we need to consider:
> 
>    - Skia is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause “New” license, which
> should be compatible with WebKit's.
> 
>    - The Skia source tree would add about 170MiB to the repository
> under Source/ThirdParty. For the sake of comparison, libwebrtc weighs
> 367MiB and ANGLE 73MiB.
> 
>    - We plan to update Skia frequently following Google's
> recommendation. We have already agreed with the Skia maintainers to
> stay in contact and will explore integrating an automated system to
> test updates. We have also discussed Skia's security policy with
> Google, and we will have a procedure in place to incorporate security
> fixes, the latest when we start making releases using Skia.
> 
>    - We cannot promise a timeline at the moment but expect refactors
> in the GTK and WPE ports after the initial integration. We have big
> plans for rearchitecting the rendering pipeline to better take
> advantage of GPUs, and we hope we can get rid of some complex code
> while at it.
> 
> Please let us know if you have any questions, we plan to do this job
> sooner rather than later if there are no objections. We are very
> excited about this move since we really think it will be a great step
> ahead for the non Apple ports of WebKit, allowing the project to grow
> even bigger and stronger.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> - The Igalia team
> 
> -- 
> Carlos Garcia Campos
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