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Author Topic: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?  (Read 20717 times)

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Offline ferrellsl

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Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #29 from previous page: November 16, 2018, 11:04:07 PM »
unfortunately
@wawrzonif there were 5000 active amigaos4 users
there aint that many. certainly there aint that many donors. you will probably should consider yourself happy if you will find a few hundred donors in the whole amiga community, including all offshoots. thats the reality of the situation.

@ferrellsl
Quote
Don't take the earlier comments personally.  They're just still a bit angry over the TimberWolf/Firefox debacle.
im not angry. i have not even supported this bounty as it was clear to me where it was going from the start with. im just actually trying to provide some context within which such a project could be approached.

@wawrzon
My comments were not aimed at you specifically.  I was replying to NinjaCyborg and forgot to put the @NinjaCyborg at the top of my post.  You've done a good job as far as context goes and I agree with you.  And there are others who are rightly cynical when someone out of the blue shows up here and wants to undertake such a huge project via crowd sourcing, and the cynicism showed in their comments.  I was going to write a smart-alec response myself to NinjaCyborg until I noticed how few posts he has made here.

Based on the number of posts by NinjaCyborg when he started this thread (less than 50) one can assume that he's not been actively following such Amiga events as Timberwolf or even OS4 for quite some time, if at all. So I can understand why he got his feelings hurt.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2018, 11:10:08 PM by ferrellsl »
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #30 on: November 16, 2018, 11:34:01 PM »
@nbache
if you can program, and that for a living, you are aeons ahead of me. there is always a way you can make yourself useful to an extent. if you have time and motivation. but i bet you know it.;)
 

Offline Hans_

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #31 on: November 17, 2018, 02:02:25 AM »

  • UI - here's a thought, what about using the existing AWeb UI but replacing it's rendering engine and JS library?
Why AWeb? Are you aware that we already have a (now rather dated) WebKit browser called Odyssey? IMHO, it would make more sense to use that. In fact, wouldn't it be a whole lot cheaper to improve Odyssey instead of starting from scratch and using AWeb's UI?

Here's the GitHub repo. I think I linked to the main one, although I'm not 100% sure. You can ask kas1e about the AmigaOS 4 port.

Odyssey basically needs a big WebKit update. It could also use some miscellaneous fixes (e.g., fix memory leaks) and enhancements (e.g., the video player really should use composited video, and we have GLES2 so WebGL should be doable). A Javascript JIT would also be great, although I see that you've already put that one aside. I thought there was a PowerPC Javascript JIT out there already, but I can't remember what the project's name was.

Hans
http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more. Home of the RadeonHD driver for Amiga OS 4.x project.
 

Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #32 on: November 17, 2018, 09:42:47 AM »
@Hans_ not ruling anything in or out, was trying to have a sensible discussion until a couple of arseholes hijacked the thread. - Thanks for bringing it back on topic by the way - OWB is so out of date it's probably not just a case of updating the engine. But we'd investigate it for sure. Remember - we have an existing up to date WebKit/JSKit engine port that runs on embedded PowerPC systems with few dependencies on OS provided libs, that we can potentially use. As for suggesting the old AWeb UI, it's as good as any, it was just a thought. Since having a proper Amiga UI is preferable to say, the way the NetSurf-SDL version handles the UI.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2018, 10:20:49 AM by NinjaCyborg »
 

Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #33 on: November 17, 2018, 10:07:50 AM »
@ferrellsl I have been off the scene for over 15 years it's true, though I followed the news enough to know about TimberWolf, NetSurf, OWB and OS4 drama. This account is new, because I have long since lost my old ones and associated email addresses. I have been cynical of the Frieden brothers since ~2003, the reason there has not been a 68K update of Python in all that time is because the Frieden brothers refused to share the changes they made to Python for OS4 back to me to include in the 68k build, despite building upon my work. Since I had plenty of non Amiga things to do at that time and since they put me off from contributing further, I didn't.

Now I have time to spare and the release of 3.1.4 reignited my passion for Amiga, and the contacts I have from years working in the operating systems world put me in a position to be of use. But, whether we do something or not really depends on whether the community deserves it, or it just going to keep flinging turds at each other.
 

Offline Hans_

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #34 on: November 17, 2018, 12:00:10 PM »
@Hans_ ... OWB is so out of date it's probably not just a case of updating the engine. But we'd investigate it for sure. Remember - we have an existing up to date WebKit/JSKit engine port that runs on embedded PowerPC systems with few dependencies on OS provided libs, that we can potentially use. As for suggesting the old AWeb UI, it's as good as any, it was just a thought. Since having a proper Amiga UI is preferable to say, the way the NetSurf-SDL version handles the UI.
Ah, okay. OWB also has a MUI based UI, which might be easier to use than AWeb seeing as it was built to use WebKit in the first place.

Whatever you use, it would be great to have an updated browser.

Hans
http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more. Home of the RadeonHD driver for Amiga OS 4.x project.
 

Offline Spektro

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #35 on: November 17, 2018, 01:35:56 PM »
I work with a team of professional webkit porting experts. Wondering if there's any interest in raising a fund to pay for them to port WebKit to OS4 (OS3 is probably a stretch even on a vampire, partly because of RAM requirements and partly because Cairo lib and some others are not available)
Sounds good! If the project takes off, I wish the porting team will make a web datatype, too.
 

Offline cgutjahr

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Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #36 on: November 17, 2018, 01:45:49 PM »
until a couple of arseholes hijacked the thread.
I like that you're making it very clear you're the wrong person for the job. That makes things a lot easier for the rest of us - if you actually appeared to be well prepared, sensible and polite, it would be a lot harder for us to convince the remaining faithful to be more cautious about sinking another shitload of money into financing this month's crazy daydream. Thank you.

Quote
As for suggesting the old AWeb UI, it's as good as any,
No, it's not. It doesn't even do Tabs.

If you want to go ahead with this, please choose somebody else for doing PR first - given the type of language used in this thread you're obviously not qualified.Next, come up with a number more precise than "five digits" - since you keep talking about "paying them", I have a hunch any further discussion will be pointless once that number is stated publicly.

Should you actually clear that hurdle, you could start your project by analysing what went wrong with the previous attempts of porting a browser: three failed Firefox attempts, Sputnik, OWB/Odyssey...

Then (and only then) you're properly equipped to enter forums and yell at bystanders because they're not showing you and your "team of professionals" enough respect.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #37 on: November 17, 2018, 03:41:52 PM »
we have an existing up to date WebKit/JSKit engine port that runs on embedded PowerPC systems with few dependencies on OS provided libs, that we can potentially use.

thats convenient starting port. you will have though to consult the existing odyssey sources anyway, as they already contain not only endian/ppc but also system specific integration for all amigalike platforms (morphos, os4 and aros) with the exclusion of the genuine os, but morhos and aros apis follow the genuine quite closely, so it shouldnt be impossible to support that too. it would be wasteful to sompletely start over if you can adopt existing implementation, even though i know webkit code changed a lot in the meantime as i have been diffing it to see for myself.

Quote
I have been cynical of the Frieden brothers since ~2003, the reason there has not been a 68K update of Python in all that time is because the Frieden brothers refused to share the changes they made to Python for OS4 back to me to include in the 68k build,

yeah, this seems to be the usual experience in this context. speaking of 68k you will certainly have to add few patches to even get it to compile for this target, not to speak of cmake lists and such. ppc ones wont be enough, but for this you can also consult the odyssey sources i and hans have been linking to.
 

Offline nbache

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #38 on: November 17, 2018, 06:33:48 PM »
Ah, okay. OWB also has a MUI based UI
Not just directed to you, Hans, as others have also used the names casually: For most OS4 users, OWB normally refers to the Reaction-based port made by Jörg a number of years ago, while Odyssey refers to the MUI-based port from Fab's MorphOS Odyssey, maintained on OS4 by kas1e.

Just to avoid confusion, if possible :-).

Quote
Whatever you use, it would be great to have an updated browser.
Most definitely!

Best regards,

Niels
 

Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #39 on: November 17, 2018, 06:46:33 PM »
@cgutjahr LOL get over yourself
 

Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #40 on: November 17, 2018, 06:57:46 PM »
@Spektro The datatypes system is not really sophisticated enough to support a proper web datatype, for example inline images was part of the AmigaGuide spec, but never implemented, as it can only cope with data file at a time, no child data files. Datatypes is also missing data stream and progressive rendering support that makes it unsuitable for us with a browser compared to simply embedding the raw codec libraries. Admittedly it's not very Amiga like to have duplicate code, but it's what every other system does and we certainly can't rely on the OS getting 21st century features anymore. BUT what I was thinking was as follows:
- an architecture that makes both the web engine and the JS engine available as separate entities (imagine being able to use Javascript for rexx scripts)
- a web browser that obviously embeds the two
- a light quickviewer suitable for previewing files, that again just embeds the web engine. This would meet your 'datatype' need for use with workbench, DOpus etc.

This is what webkit is architected for, like how it works on the Mac between Safari, the system WebView and the Finder QuickView. It would make it possible to have Electron which in turn is what many popular apps like Slack and Skype are now built with.

This even leaves it open to other browser UIs if you don't like the default one.

As for 68K support, I already mentioned while it would be great to be able to do, the combination of missing dependencies like cairo, lack of recent version of GCC, and the need for 200MB+ RAM would seem to rule it out.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2018, 07:00:57 PM by NinjaCyborg »
 

Offline gregthecanuck

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Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #41 on: November 18, 2018, 01:43:15 AM »
I like the ideas being floated - an embeddable browser engine would be cool.

With a project of this potential size I would recommend identifying the biggest hurdles to success. Work from the largest to the smallest unknown/uncertainty. No need to get 80% of the way and then start tackling the hard parts that everyone has avoided. I would suggest doing some of this homework before the big push for funding.

Work with a sprint model with multiple deliverables. Sprint duration is typically 2 to 4 weeks. Take baby steps and you will quickly identify potential project-destroying issues sooner rather than later. This may be difficult to reconcile with a bounty-style funding model.

I own/manage a team of developers and we routinely follow these two basic tenets and so far all of our projects come out reasonably close to expectations. We have so far avoided disasters which seem to plague the industry from time to time. Our project costs range from <10K to >100K and this model has served us well for many years.

It also helps to have an experienced, mature team. It sounds like you have that so that is a large contributor to success.

Cheers!





« Last Edit: November 18, 2018, 05:42:27 AM by gregthecanuck »
 

Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #42 on: November 18, 2018, 07:33:06 AM »
@gregthecanuck
I completely agree. The purpose of my original post here is to gauge whether it's worth pursuing before spending time and money on the initial risk mitigation and proof of concept work. Out in the real world, I am a published author on the topics of lean/agile software and project risk management. And I was once commissioned by Mozilla to investigate porting Firefox to Symbian OS. The Firefox code was a dumpster fire at the time (it was heavily refactored in recent years). So I'd like to think I know what I'm doing.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2018, 08:44:33 AM by NinjaCyborg »
 

Offline Spektro

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #43 on: November 18, 2018, 08:56:58 AM »
@NinjaCyborg
Ok. What I was thinking of was an easy way, for hobby programmers like me, to embed html/web content in my application. I thought a web datatype or a BOOBSI gadged would be the way, but apparently not.
 

Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #44 on: November 18, 2018, 09:43:37 AM »
@Spektro totally agree a way to embed the engine would be a priority and the browser itself should be architected in that way. Datatypes are probably not the right way to do it based on my deep knowledge of OS3 and shallow knowledge of OS4 but BOOPSI might be simply because BOOPSI is pretty bare bones as it is. I can imagine a child type of the reaction window.class that implements a webview window as one possible approach.