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Konqueror Passes the Acid2 Test Too
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:39 AM
from the anything-you-can-do dept.
from the anything-you-can-do dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A month after Safari , and after a lot of controversy, Allan Sandfeld Jensen announced today that Konqueror passes the Acid2 test too. Half of the patches could be merged from Apple's Webcore, the rest needed to be rewritten from scratch."
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IT: First Look At the ACID3 Browser Test 104 comments
ddanier writes "Now that all major browsers have mastered the ACID2 test (at least in some preview versions), work on ACID3 has begun. The new test will focus on ECMAScript, DOM Level 3, Media Queries, and data: URLs. 100 tests will be put into functions each returning either true or false depending on the result of the test. The current preview of ACID3 is still missing 16 tests."
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Konqueror Passes the Acid2 Test Too
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Acid2 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Acid2 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Acid2 (Score:5, Informative)
basically it's a rigorous test that ensures that a browser has all the goodies that web developers have been lusting after forever.
Re:Acid2 (Score:4, Interesting)
When all popular web browsers do a decent job of rendering Acid2, web developers can use the features that have been promised for years, but have never been delivered by browser makers. Having Safari and Konqueror display Acid2 correctly gives the other browser manufacturers added incentive to implement the needed CSS2 features.
Re:Acid2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Acid2 (Score:5, Informative)
It does both. I've seen this misconception stated a few times now, it's just wrong.
The Acid test is not just a test for error handling. Error handling is something that is defined by the CSS 2.1 specification (and earlier specifications). In order to test full CSS compliance, they need to include errors as part of the test. This does not mean that all the test does is error handling, merely that it is one of the things the test does.
Re:Acid2 (Score:5, Funny)
Kick to the pants. (Score:1, Insightful)
It's amazing what people can do when sufficiently motivated.
Re:Kick to the pants. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's amazing what people can do when sufficiently motivated.
THIS sort of thing is EXACTLY what the khtml devs were complaining about. Yes, Apple does the bare minimum the LGPL requires with Webcore but the khtml devs accepted that.
The point these guys have been trying to get across over and over and over and over (repeat several thousand times for the extra dense) is that when Webcore can do something that khtml cannot IT IS NOT LAZINESS ON THE PART OF THE KHTML DEVELOPERS. WEBCORE CODE CANNOT JUST BE DROPPED INTO THE KHTML TREE. Webcore directly uses OS X features. That is one problem. The code bombs Apple drops periodically have inadequate documentation as to why some changes were made and not others.
Webcore at this point is a khtml fork that is about two years old. The khtml devs might as well be asked to merge Gecko code for all of the similarity they have at this point.
stacking the deck (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, if you read the email exchanges, you see Apple engineers discussed the patch tarballs and actively assisted khtml developers when they asked for reasonable things (ie, not access to internal Apple revision control systems). KHTML devs did not reveal this (to my knowledge) in their "open letter" this cooperation, which is quite a bit more than the LGPL. The LGPL requires you make the patches available- that's it. Apple sent them, discussed them, provided help interpreting them, did work by proxy, etc.
This is a logical fallacy called "fallacy by omission", and the specific technique employed was called "Stacking the Deck".
What becomes apparent is that the KHTML team doesn't like that Apple is doing everything they should be, getting commended for it, and that the work (supposedly) wasn't useful to them (we see now that's not the case, as half the patches were easily applied).
If integrating half of the patches only took a month or two, guess what- it wasn't nearly as impossible as the KHTML team made it out to be, and the code wasn't nearly as useless as they portrayed it to be.
WEBCORE CODE CANNOT JUST BE DROPPED INTO THE KHTML TREE. Webcore directly uses OS X features. That is one problem. The code bombs Apple drops periodically have inadequate documentation as to why some changes were made and not others.
The second is irrelevant because of the first; they're also unrelated, though you imply them to be compounded. It's not Apple's responsibility to turn over Webcore, or convert the code to use something besides Webcore. They're not allowed to sit on that code, they HAVE to provide it.
Second, they've provided several of what you've referred to as "code bombs", which is one step ahead of a company that would just provide them with ONE tarball; they're sharing work progressively, and have an active dialog with the khtml team.
Webcore at this point is a khtml fork that is about two years old.
And your point would be what? The LGPL doesn't say "help integrate old code". It doesn't say, "only fork recent code", or "don't fork code at all". It doesn't say "provide changelogs". It doesn't say "provide the project coders with access to your internal revision control systems and corporate network". It doesn't say ANY of that! EVER! PERIOD!
I'm sorry, but this whole thing has left me very embarrassed for the open-source community, and left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. Apple IS one of the better companies as far as contributing to open-source, they've brought open-source technologies to more desktops than anyone else, they've come up with some truly unique technology which they've provided source for- and they still get kicked in the teeth.
A lot of companies are looking at how Apple was treated, and thinking, "geez, Apple did more than just send tarballs, and they got pretty beat up for it." Question: do you think this will encourage or discourage companies to do work on open-source projects?
Re:stacking the deck (Score:4, Informative)
The khtml devs beef is with fanbois who think that khtml should have new Webcore features an hour or two after Webcore gets them. When the khtml people try to explain why matters are bit more difficult than that then the fanbois throw around terms like "lazy", "unresponsive", and "kick in the pants".
Apple's behaivor has zero to do with the point I was trying to make.
Re:stacking the deck (Score:4, Informative)
Re:stacking the deck (Score:4, Informative)
That's not apparent at all. You're simply showing that you don't read the kde dev's blogs and hope people reading this won't bother either and just take your word for it.
What? How do you know how hard these people have been working over the last two months? You really sound like a manager type to me. These people mostly do this work in their spare time. They have real jobs too. They don't work on this 9-5. Saying "it only took a team of x y months to do it" is completely meaningless.
Hahaha.
Read that sentence again and tell me it's not the absolute definition of an apologist talking.
And nobody has ever said that it does. Only people like you trying to craft strawman attacks have ever brought this up. The grandparent doesn't say this, the KDE devs don't say this.
First of all: hahaha
Second of all: if they are getting kicked in the teeth, it's not the kde devs doing the kicking. The original blog post was aimed at clueless fanboy posters posting things.. not unlike what you've just posted. NOT at Apple. This one blog post was then blown out of all proportion by slashdot and people making strawman statements to try and spread their propoganda.
Ironic, no?
Re:Kick to the pants. (Score:5, Informative)
When Konqueror doesn't follow Safari's new feature within 4 hours, don't blame us. When Konqueror finally follows Safari's feature list, don't automatically praise Apple, either.
It's not like Apple is giving out some drop-in patch, but that's OK. That's their right. Sometimes we take their patch, but sometimes we write things from scratch. When we'll use Apple's code, we'll be slow because of the way they produce their patch, not because we're lazy.
Apple is OK for me, but please stop bashing our laziness while praising opensource-friendliness of Apple. That hurts.
Have you forgotten what free software means? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, let's be clear. Apple does ALL AND EVERYTHING that the LGPL requires. Implicit in your statement is the suggestion that free software can be free if it includes tacit, implied promises not to fork and to satisfy its authors with all its changes. That suggestion is flagrantly inconsistent with the notion of free software, in any sense.
Fundamental to the notion of free software is that its authors cannot limit the rights of others to access and modify the software. Forking is not a problem with free software, it is a feature.
Ordinarily forking *is* a problem for the community, when the initial developers are adequately satsifying the needs of the community as a whole and working well with others. But this is not always the case. Sometimes politics, legitimate and petty, and aesthetics, legitimate and ludicrous, gets in the way of good agile development. When that happens, the community may well be better served by a fork.
Apple and the Konqueror clan were not working well together, but both had important and significant constituencies to serve. It was either going to work or not, but neither Apple nor the clan "owned" this free software. In its feral state, BOTH were free to decide by what methodology development of their respective trees will proceed, what features the code will have and what will be the quality of that code.
Darwin (no pun intended) takes care of the rest.
Evolution by forking is not the preferable state of nature, but it happens when it needs to happen. And people will abandon what is useless and use what is important.
If, someday, there is actually a need to harmonize this code, it will be harmonized. Otherwise, it may well be for the best there was a fork. The problem that it is difficult to harmonize advances in one tree into another is salient, but it is not due to any malfeasance of anybody. Apple WAS FREE to do what it would with the code. And glory be for that... So, too, is the Konqueror clan, and glory be for that.
The remaining whines in the message are puerile. Don't like the doco or the coding style? Its free software, change it. Don't like the way others are working on the code? No problem, ignore them, and use the free software of the existing code. Got a feature you need? Great. Code it up. Don't want to? No problem, but why are you posting your gripes HERE?
Apple has a free software realationship with the K-clan. K-clan could work with them or not, and vice-versa. If it doesn't work out, so be it. The code is out there. It was built the way it was built, and people may use it or not. Nobody has a gripe, because it is free software -- if you don't like it -- change it.
Glad to see it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Congrats Konqueror team!
I wonder if anyone is working on a Windows port of this?
Konqueror (Score:2, Redundant)
It worked out well for everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it really matter what Apple's motivations were? The end result is that Open Source development has helped both products.
Re:It worked out well for everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
The Konqueror team don't have access to the Safari code, at least not in a form they can use. Apple do have access to the KHTML code in a usable form though, the KDE guys make sure it's available in the right way for everybody.
Does it really matter what Apple's motivations were? The end result is that Open Source development has helped both products.
Clearly it does matter what their motivations are, this always matters. It means in future open source projects will know what's coming when Apple decide to get "involved".
As to whether it helped both products, well of that I'm sceptical. A key KDE developer has very publically burnt out on KHTML because of Apples actions and worse, because of the community of Apple fanboys who switched the blame around onto the KDE people. After starting out optimistic he's now bitter. I'd say that's a pretty huge loss.
Meanwhile, Apple got the code to a rendering engine for free and gave back little to nothing. It's like TransGaming all over again.
Re:It worked out well for everyone (Score:4, Interesting)
stop distorting facts (Score:4, Insightful)
Actions speak otherwise- half the patches integrated according to the article.
It means in future open source projects will know what's coming when Apple decide to get "involved".
Yes. They can expect to get regular tarballs, participation of senior team leaders, active dialog on public mailing lists, and assistance of Apple engineers in interpreting the tarballs.
(No, seriously. Go read the archives and look at the discussion that follows when Apple sends in a code base. The "burnt out guy" whines. Another developer or two actually get to work and look at the code, start talking to Apple engineers, etc. An Apple engineer says "let me take a look at that" and a little bit later, comes back as promised with an answer and help.)
After starting out optimistic he's now bitter.
Optimistic is a funny word. He seemed under the impression that Apple was obligated to provide changelogs, access to internal revision control systems, etc. He also got upset when he realized that Apple had forked code. It sounds like he had unreasonable expectations, and when Apple said "I'm sorry, we can't do that" or "I'm sorry, we're not allowed to do that", he threw a hissy fit.
The Konqueror developer in question also used a logical fallacy called "Stacking the deck", a kind of fallacy-by-omission. He did not discuss any of Apple's assistance provided to developers on the mailing list, and repeatedly asserted that Apple was meeting "minimum" requirements of the LGPL, when in fact Apple was doing more.
That is why he got burned. Not because of actions on Apple's part- and your insinuation that Apple is to blame for the actions of its "Apple fanboys" is absurd. You're distracting from the core issue- that the developer used fallacies to promote his version of the facts. Sadly, few people bothered to actually read the mailing list exchanges.
Apple got the code to a rendering engine for free and gave back little to nothing
Again, you're distorting facts. Apple gave back all the code it was obligated to, and participated in an active dialog. If half of Apple's patches were integrated within less than a few months, that's a lot more than "little to nothing". Question- how long would it have taken the KHTML developers to become Acid2 compliant without the contributions by Apple? And if the patches were so worthless, why did they "waste" time and effort if writing their own stuff from scratch would have been more productive, as was implied if not outright stated by khtml developers?
Re:stop distorting facts (Score:5, Informative)
The developer in question was not mad at Apple per say, they were doing what was required. He was mad at people thinking Apple was doing something useful for KDE/khtml. Apple was not making things useful for KDE, but they were fullfilling all their obligations.
Once he spoke against those non-Apple, non-KDE people, those people tried to deflect the blame to Apple. Apple to their credit realized how the publicity was hurting them and changed their ways.
Once again, the KDE devs were not mad at Apple. They were disgusted because of being unable to get something useful, but not mad. They were mad at people who thought without checking that Apple was doing something useful.
IE, when? (Score:5, Funny)
And only then, we could design web sites using today's CSS features. Oh, not today's, 5 years ago's but it will still be a revolution.
Re:IE, when? (Score:5, Interesting)
Acid2 tests a lot of corner-case mis-constructions of CSS, and tests that the browser handles the cock-up in the prescribed manner. It doesn't actually test that _correct_ CSS is handled correctly.
Its a good test, but its NOT a full CSS compliance test.
Re:IE, when? (Score:4, Informative)
We'll also expect you to hold your breath doing this excercise on a live webcam, so we can see you turn blue in the face.
The acid2 test consists of perfectly valid CSS2.1, HTML 4.01, SGML, RFC 2396 and RFC 2397. It tests some basic, and some not-so-basic aspects of these specs.
Re:IE, when? (Score:4, Informative)
This is incorrect.
The W3C implemented a change in procedure between the times CSS 2.0 and CSS 2.1 were published. What used to be called recommendations are now only candidate recommendations until they are widely implemented.
Ian Hickson, who is on the CSS working group and employed by Opera, says this [hixie.ch]:
Only a month behind (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless KHTML receives extra resources (in money, developers, etc.), I fear that they may be left behind Mozilla and Webcore.
Re:Only a month behind (Score:5, Insightful)
iCab (Score:1)
http://frederic.bezies.free.fr/blog/index.php?200
way to go OS X browsers
Does Firefox pass it? (Score:1)
I wonder how meaningful the Acid2 test really is?
Osho
Re:Does Firefox pass it? (Score:5, Informative)
Summary of article (Score:1)
That's easy (Score:5, Funny)
Opera will be next me thinks (Score:4, Interesting)
Safari does what? (Score:2)
Open KHTML Info Page Launched (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder... (Score:2, Funny)
Well done! (Score:1)
Good for everyone (Score:2)
I'm not going to get into the politics of Safari vs. KHTML. It matters (to me) less how standards compliance was achieved than that it was.
Don't understand the Acid 2 test. (Score:1)
The "first browser" to pass (Score:2)
Good show! (Score:2)
Now hopefully Apple pulls the CVS'd version of KHTML, and bases their next release of Safari off if it, and the cycle can continue.
KHTML wiki (Score:2)
Firefox (Score:1)
Re:Any more news on GPL violating? (Score:3, Insightful)
Konqueror guys didn't like the patches from apple.
Looks like they could handle these patches, though! good for them.
jeff