WebKitGTK+ as an external dependency

[Xan Lopez <xan gnome org>]

Hello,

the aim of the Epiphany team is to make 2.28 our first WebKit release.
For this to happen we need to replace our external dependency on Gecko
with WebKitGTK+, so consider this a request to do so.

In the post 2.26 module decision discussion (see
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2008-November/msg00115.html),
where WebKitGTK+ was rejected, the two major perceived problems that I
could see were accessibility support and the lack of releases or other
means of communicating the progress of the project. Let me give you an
update on those issues.

On the accessibility camp, I am sponsored by Igalia to spend as much
time as needed in the 2.28 scope (or beyond) to make WebKitGTK+ meet
all the specified requirements. I've finished and merged most of Alp's
pending patches mentioned in the November 2.26 thread, and thanks to
the help and support of Joanmarie and Willie Walker we have identified
many new issues that we have either already fixed or that we'll
continue working on. You can see the meta-bug recently opened by
Joanmarie to track all the forthcoming a11y progress here:
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25531. As Niels Bohr used to
say prediction is very difficult, especially about the future, but I'm
confident that the a11y situation by 2.28 will be satisfactory for
everyone.

On the topic of releases and project visibility:
 - We have created www.webkitgtk.org, where we put our tarball
releases and documentation.
 - We have been releasing snapshots of the development branch twice
per month since March, starting with 1.1.1 and up to 1.1.6 last week.
They are all available in the project page. We also have a NEWS file
(http://svn.webkit.org/repository/webkit/trunk/WebKit/gtk/NEWS) where
you can see a summary of the changes for each release, plus regular
blog posts by Gustavo and myself.
 - We'll keep releasing bi-weekly snapshots until 2.28, when we'll
release a (probably numbered 1.2.0) stable version. In the future, we
aim to keep making one stable release every 6 months, in sync with
GNOME.
- We have quite a few regular contributors now, plus two more WebKit
reviewers in the team (Gustavo and myself again), so I think the
community has grown both in size and health in the past months.

I'd like to end the email by requesting feedback from all the module
maintainers that are considering a switch to WebKitGTK+, in light of
the idea proposed by the Release Team of making a general switch from
gecko to webkit in all modules at the same time: have you tried the
latest releases? Are your needs covered by now? Please reply to the
list with any issues you might have or features you might need (or
even to say that all is fine), so that we can address any problem
earlier rather than later in the cycle.

Cheers,

Xan