Nokia acquires Trolltech

Trolltech is the company behind Qt Toolkit that powers many of the GNU/Linux user interfaces such as KDE has been acquired by Nokia. It makes a large foray for Nokia into Linux world. It is expected that Trolltech acquisition will help Nokia complete its mobile phone transformation to Linux Platform. But it will also have an impact into Linux PCs as KDE remains a popular. Other technologies that Trolltech had contributed to include KHTML.

The Linux Mobile space is crowded with three serious contenders: Nokia, Access (who owns PalmOS), and Google with its Android Platform.

Open Source Code Bombs

Various companies have been getting benefited from open source technologies while they build their product, but not all of them are doing enough to contribute back to the original open source project.

E.g. Meraki and Fonera created their firmware by modifying OpenWrt and building their custom code on it. They have also complied with GPL terms by releasing source of their code on their site. Note: I have never tried to use their provided code and build firmware, but people have reported various level of success (Indicating that the procedures are for Hard Core Geeks only - no muggles allowed, documentation is sketchy).

This also occurs with other technology such as GPS, where TomTom and Dash both have created GPS devices based on Linux. They have released open source portion of their code as downloads available from their site including modified Linux Kernel and various utilities.

Apple also did same when they used KHTML and created WebKit. They released occasional  Code Bombs for modified KHTML.

So what is it that they don't do right now?

What they do not do is, they do not contribute the code to the original project. They release the modified source code, but it remains separate as it was forked. It does not get merged into original code. The issues it creates are listed here:

1. It is left to open source community to explore the code bomb and extract, merge, retrofit the changes into original code.
2. It is left to open source community to identify missing pieces as sometimes the code does not provide details into where the code was taken from, and what was changed.
3. Sometimes open source community and the vendor who forked starts moving the code to two entirely opposite directions making it very difficult to merge the code.
4. Software company gets an advantage as so they have visibility into Original Code, changes they have made and changes made to original code by open source community for their next release, but this does not get passed to community.
5. They just make it harder for community to merge the code into main tree.

I wish that they would also make effort to merge their changes into original  projects, there by keeping original projects relevant to real world applications and updated.

What is the next big thing in the Browser Wars?

People would probably miss next big thing in the browser wars, as it is happening quietly. But it is import to notice it right now. It is called as WebKit.

• What is WebKit? It is the engine behind Apple's Safari Browser, Dashboard, Mail and everything else that Apple uses.
• Then it is proprietary? It is Open Source, and it is based on KDE's KHTML and KJS libraries.
• Why did Apple not update KHTML itself? Apple did what all big and powerful companies do to implement faster solutions based on open source technologies. They forked the code (copied and modified the code as they wanted without getting open source community involved in the process) and then opened source code of the fork.
• Would that not kill KHTML? Well, it does not help KHTML much, considering that all the improvements Apple created would not be part of KHTML itself. But, there are some efforts on bringing those changes into KHTML without breaking it. It may eventually kill KHTML if KExplorer and other tools to use WebKit in place of KHTML engine (as there are efforts to do so and also here, it may survive only thru its descendants. )
• Why is it important? There are few reasons.
  • Growing influence of Mac OS X.
  • Growing influence of Apple Safari (now it is available for Windows and also used on iPhone) - Mobile Phones
  • Nokia's S60 Platform forked WebKit to create its own browsing engine - Mobile Phones 
  • Google's Android uses WebKit based browser - Mobile Phones
  • GNOME's Epiphany browser has switched to WebKit from KHTML.

The next place where people would view a web site is not laptops or PCs but the mobile phones. And the browser on the mobile phone is going to define how the websites of future will be shaped and it looks like WebKit is in the center of it.