Re: WebKit release cycle and dependency request

[David Bolter <dtb gnome org>]

Hi Alp,

Thanks very much for this detailed information. I have a couple of 
questions inline regarding accessibility:

Alp Toker wrote:
> You may already have heard that the WebKit/GTK+ developers have been 
> exploring options for a release cycle. Here I'm going to outline our 
> plans in a little more detail.
>
> WebKit/GTK+ is a community sub-project maintained mostly by GNOME and 
> GTK+ developers. It's implemented directly on top of GTK+, GLib and 
> GNOME libraries and provides lightweight web viewing and editing 
> features as well as being the basis for complete web browser 
> applications. It supports the latest web standards and offers good 
> performance and memory usage characteristics on the desktop and in 
> mobile devices.
>
> As a result of the productive collaboration with the GNOME project and 
> after consultation with the GNOME board and release team, we've decided 
> to implement a stable 6-month release cycle that matches the GNOME 
> schedule, effective immediately, targeting the upcoming 2.24 release.
>
> I'm also taking this opportunity to request an external dependency for 
> GNOME and to poke Ross about including WebKit in the Mobile Platform 
> (not much happened since it was proposed in June).
>
> Module versioning
> =================
>
> The package name is webkit-1.0. Shared objects and headers are named and 
> versioned according to GTK+ platform and module guidelines.
>
> API/ABI stability
> =================
>
> The API is currently "slushy" so we'll make a few tweaks to the loader 
> API (as requested by the Epiphany developers) and add more features 
> before freezing for 2.24. In the past we've taken care to fix 
> applications directly in GNOME SVN following API changes made in the 
> development cycle.
>
> Once stabilised, we'll follow a policy of additions only, with old 
> symbols marked deprecated in gtk-doc.
>
> Documentation
> =============
>
> There's a coding guideline requiring all functions, properties and 
> signals to be documented with gtk-doc so the documentation situation is 
> pretty good.
>
> Furthermore, public API changes are expected to be accompanied by a 
> rationale and "cooling off" period allowing the community to study them 
> before they're reviewed and go in so there's usually a trail describing 
> why things are the way they are.
>
> GDK targets
> ===========
>
> WebKit works with all platforms and windowing targets supported by GDK 
> and provides the same stable GObject API everywhere. (Windows support is 
> still in development but not far off.)
>
> Language bindings
> =================
>
> WebKit bindings are available for Python, C#/CLR, Vala and Perl.
>
> Some of the bindings cover not just the GObject API but also provide 
> integration with the browser engine. WebKit is designed to be extensible 
> using any supported language via DOM access and bi-directional runtime 
> integration -- "extension" or add-in systems aren't limited to JavaScript.
>
> Mobile
> ======
>
> WebKit/GTK+ is the default browser engine in the OpenMoko and Poky 
> mobile Linux distributions. There's ongoing work to develop WebKit/GTK+ 
> for the Maemo platform and a couple of other upcoming mobile GTK+ 
> deployments yet to be announced. Ports exist to over a dozen devices 
> including phones, e-paper readers and set top boxes.
>
> Accessibility
> =============
>
> In the last few weeks we've started to look at formal accessibility 
> support for document navigation and manipulation. The first WebCore 
> patches have landed and we intend to provide AT-SPI accessibility for 
> the 2.24 release. This is partly in response to requests from the 
> community and Yelp developers.
>
> Informally, WebKit is already quite accessible -- content can be 
> navigated and manipulated using only the keyboard and can be scaled for 
> easy viewing.
>
>   
Is there any accessibility support work happening for DHTML web 
applications? Is Apple working on that support in-house or is there open 
source collaboration?

Please note:
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7138 "Implement tabindex for all 
elements, enabling accessible web apps"
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12132 "Implement ARIA to enable 
dynamic web appliations"

Very important to get these issues resolved for the modern web :)

cheers,
David


> Security
> ========
>
> We're fairly open about fixing and publicising security issues and 
> there's now a process for confidentially reporting issues and 
> disseminating alerts. We're establishing channels with Linux 
> distributions planning to ship WebKit/GTK+ soon. (If your organisation 
> needs to be on this list, you can reply in private to this mail or use 
> the security list.)
>
> Applications
> ============
>
> Epiphany recently switched to WebKit and requires the dependency. I 
> believe other applications in the platform and desktop set have WebKit 
> on the roadmap. Some other (GNOME and ISV) users are listed at 
> <http://trac.webkit.org/projects/webkit/wiki/ApplicationsGtk>
>
> A note on project maintenance
> =============================
>
> While we work closely with the Apple and Trolltech WebKit teams it's 
> worth keeping in mind that the WebKit/GTK+ team is autonomous -- we 
> decide what features we ship and we set our own goals. In making this 
> announcement we'd like to invite the GNOME community to get more 
> involved in that process.
>
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