khtml: kde, apple, nokia, .. adobe!

quick recap: khtml began as a kde project because we needed something open source, light weight, easily integratable and friendly to hack on. no such thing existed (and i'd argue no other such thing exists to this day) so several kde developers picked up this enormous task and proceeded towards success. some years later, apple picks it up and uses it to make webkit. several blunder later that mar feelings of good will, efforts emerge to make the community process work better because we all win if that happens. and then nokia steps up and starts using it, porting the code to a third platform. finally, this year project unity starts in an attempt to erase the divides that grew between various forks. that brings us to today more or less...

.. which is when i read about "apollo" from adobe which is, in their words, a "rich internet application" creation tool for desktop apps. in other words, browserless web apps you can run on the desktop. it supports flash, html and javascript in any mix you'd like and is cross-platform (windows, mac thus far; i'm hoping to see free operating systems added to the mix in the future).

and guess what they use for the html/javascript bits? yep, webkit. why? here's a quote from the faq that asks this question:

"We had four main criteria, all of which WebKit met:

1. Open project that we could contribute to


2. Proven technology, that web developers and end users are familiar with


3. Minimum effect on Apollo runtime size


4. Proven ability to run on mobile devices

While the final decision was difficult, we felt that WebKit is the best match for Apollo at this time."

the first and third requirements are some of the exact issues the kde developers were motivated by originally as well, and the other two requirements are a testament to the success of their (and those who have since joined) efforts.

perhaps one of the most interesting bits of apollo is that it shows webkit running on microsoft windows. woah! we all knew it was possible, but now it is a reality. with adobe stating they wish to work directly with upstream i wonder how long before this code hits webkit's svn for general usage?

i also wonder who else (and on what platforms) is using khtml?

update: ok, posting before 08:00 and without coffee is not good for the spelling and grammar ;) having fixed that, i also emailed one of the people at adobe quickly and that resulted in them adding mention of kde to the faq's. =)

update2: i was sent a link to this blog entry which notes that maccontrol (hey, an all-lowercase name, i like them already! ;) are using webkit for the interface on their ipod-looking remote control device. anyone else know of other users of webkit? =)