Epimetheus

WebKit and Safari.

Just a note to point out that Safari is based on open-source software. Its core, WebKit, is completely open-source -WebKit.org

The Safari UI that Apple wraps around WebKit isn’t. Not that it matters so much. Browser UIs are just a surface — the most obvious and visible parts of browsers. But the biggest and by far most important parts are hidden below — kind of like an iceberg. Those parts are the engines that handle parsing and rendering of HTML and CSS (and SVG and other things), as well as engines for Javascript/DOM handling. Those are the parts that really matter. If those parts suck, wrapping a slick UI around them is kind of like slapping lipstick on a pig.

WebKit is a very active project, and the WebKit developers are doing a lot of interesting and important work. Example: Just yesterday, David Hyatt (one of the principal WebKit developers and, actually, the original creator of Firefox) checked in support for CSS “box shadows” - Box Shadows

And a couple weeks back, he checked in support for “text-stroke”, which is a way to add an colored outline around letters - Text-stroke

It’s unfortunate that many users seem to think that Firefox is the only open-source browser — the single browser to use, at the exclusion of all others. The part of the “Spread Firefox” campaign that promotes Firefox as a better alternative to Microsoft IE is a good thing. But to the extent that it works to promote Firefox as being an absolutely better browser that people should use to the exclusion of other browsers that have their own merits (Safari/WebKit, Konqueror, iCab, Opera), well, that’s not such a good thing.

Signed
–Mike