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My impression was that one of the primary drive of having Safari on Windows back in the day was to get more users exposed to WebKit and to gives developers on w

by icefox 14y ago

My impression was that one of the primary drive of having Safari on Windows back in the day was to get more users exposed to WebKit and to gives developers on windows a way to test there sites. With Google Chrome on mac/windows/linux that seems to be a much more solved problem, not to mention all those old "windows devs" have an iphone now.

MatthewPhillips 14y ago
I don't know about you, but testing on Chrome and assuming it will also work on Safari is far from "good enough" for me.
- darklajid 14y ago
  I've never been a Safari user, on any platform. Can you tell me if Safari on Windows was a reasonable way to test for Safari compatibility - or was it too far off from the 'real thing' so that you really test 'Safari on Windows or devices that weren't turned on for years' if you run it on a Windows based dev machine?
  - msbarnett 14y ago
    To give you an idea: Safari on Windows was pretty often criticized for having ported over the entire OS X font rendering engine (so it looked pretty wildly out of place on Windows), but that was part of what made it a fairly accurate rendition of what it looked like under OS X. There were still discrepancies even then, sadly.
    - Kerrick 14y ago
      That font rendering engine was the main reason I used Safari for Windows for so long. I absolutely love it.
- masklinn 14y ago
  On the other hand, testing on Safari/Windows did not ensure it'd work flawlessly in Safari/OSX (still a whole lot better than taking Chrome as a good enough approximation though)
  - andrewfelix 14y ago
    So true. Ran into a few Mac Safari issues that weren't visible in Windows. I now run a Mac VM to test, which has the added benefit of an iOS emulator.
ditoa 14y ago
I often wonder if Apple knew Google were working on their owner WebKit based browser? Safari was pretty pointless with the release of Chrome IMHO. It was never a very exciting browser.
- icefox 14y ago
  Safari for Windows came out in summer of 2007, Google Chrome came out in September of 2008. Granted Chrome development started in 2006ish which was probably around the time Safari for Windows started. By the time Safari for windows was released those in the WebKit community knew Google was up to something, but didn't know a timetable, any details etc and from discussions they tossed out the first version so when Safari for Windows was released perhaps Google Chrome as we know it today was just starting. Looking at it from a business perspective or even just a 2006 perspective Apple's move makes a lot of sense. Edit: Some of my memories are a bit fuzzy about what was going on exactly when in relation to everything else so feel free to correct any mistakes in the above.
- bhousel 14y ago
  Apparently, Google, Apple, Nokia, and RIM all submit patches to the Webkit project. Google's contributions have surpassed Apple's in recent years.. Edit: I did a little more digging, and it looks like Chrome did start out as a (not very) secret project for a few years. I'm not sure when they started submitting their own patches to Webkit-core (as required by LGPL?), but they did maintain their own fork of webkit until 2009.
  - krakensden 14y ago
    They're not required to submit patches, only release code to people you've distributed binaries to. So before Chrome was released, they didn't have to release anything.
    - dspillett 14y ago
      > So before Chrome was released, they didn't have to release anything They did. While LGPL doesn't mean you need to release all your project's code to users if they request it, it does mean you need to release any modifications of the parts covered by the LGPL. They didn't have to release the changes in any way that made them easy to reintegrate with the mainline version, but they did have to release them somehow if requested to do so by a Chrome user. Even the full GPL doesn't require you to automatically release your code back to the original source, it only states that you must provide the source to the people you distribute your product too if they request that you do.

by icefox 14y ago

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

I don't know about you, but testing on Chrome and assuming it will also work on Safari is far from "good enough" for me.

darklajid 14y ago
I've never been a Safari user, on any platform. Can you tell me if Safari on Windows was a reasonable way to test for Safari compatibility - or was it too far off from the 'real thing' so that you really test 'Safari on Windows or devices that weren't turned on for years' if you run it on a Windows based dev machine?
- msbarnett 14y ago
  To give you an idea: Safari on Windows was pretty often criticized for having ported over the entire OS X font rendering engine (so it looked pretty wildly out of place on Windows), but that was part of what made it a fairly accurate rendition of what it looked like under OS X. There were still discrepancies even then, sadly.
  - Kerrick 14y ago
    That font rendering engine was the main reason I used Safari for Windows for so long. I absolutely love it.
masklinn 14y ago
On the other hand, testing on Safari/Windows did not ensure it'd work flawlessly in Safari/OSX (still a whole lot better than taking Chrome as a good enough approximation though)
- andrewfelix 14y ago
  So true. Ran into a few Mac Safari issues that weren't visible in Windows. I now run a Mac VM to test, which has the added benefit of an iOS emulator.

ditoa 14y ago

I often wonder if Apple knew Google were working on their owner WebKit based browser? Safari was pretty pointless with the release of Chrome IMHO. It was never a very exciting browser.

icefox 14y ago
Safari for Windows came out in summer of 2007, Google Chrome came out in September of 2008. Granted Chrome development started in 2006ish which was probably around the time Safari for Windows started. By the time Safari for windows was released those in the WebKit community knew Google was up to something, but didn't know a timetable, any details etc and from discussions they tossed out the first version so when Safari for Windows was released perhaps Google Chrome as we know it today was just starting. Looking at it from a business perspective or even just a 2006 perspective Apple's move makes a lot of sense. Edit: Some of my memories are a bit fuzzy about what was going on exactly when in relation to everything else so feel free to correct any mistakes in the above.
bhousel 14y ago
Apparently, Google, Apple, Nokia, and RIM all submit patches to the Webkit project. Google's contributions have surpassed Apple's in recent years.. Edit: I did a little more digging, and it looks like Chrome did start out as a (not very) secret project for a few years. I'm not sure when they started submitting their own patches to Webkit-core (as required by LGPL?), but they did maintain their own fork of webkit until 2009.
- krakensden 14y ago
  They're not required to submit patches, only release code to people you've distributed binaries to. So before Chrome was released, they didn't have to release anything.
  - dspillett 14y ago
    > So before Chrome was released, they didn't have to release anything They did. While LGPL doesn't mean you need to release all your project's code to users if they request it, it does mean you need to release any modifications of the parts covered by the LGPL. They didn't have to release the changes in any way that made them easy to reintegrate with the mainline version, but they did have to release them somehow if requested to do so by a Chrome user. Even the full GPL doesn't require you to automatically release your code back to the original source, it only states that you must provide the source to the people you distribute your product too if they request that you do.