Safari: Apple's open source spat shocker

Two years into its Safari web browser, Apple has proposed dumping open-source rendering engine KHTML in favour of its own code base to resolve compatibility conflicts.

In an email seen by CNET News.com, a leading Apple browser developer suggested that architects of the KHTML rendering engine - the heart of a browser - consider abandoning the KHTML code base, or "tree", in favour of Apple's version, called WebCore. KHTML was originally written to work on top of KDE (the K Desktop Environment), an interface for Linux and Unix operating systems.

Apple engineer Maciej Stachowiak wrote in an email dated 5 May: "One thing you may want to consider eventually is back-porting [WebCore] to work on top of [KDE], and merging your changes into that. "I think the Apple trees have seen a lot more change since the two trees diverged, although both have useful changes. We'd be open to making our tree multi-platform."

The suggestion, which KHTML developers said they were unlikely to accept, comes as Apple tries to quell rising dissatisfaction among the original architects of KHTML. Two years after hailing Apple as a white knight, those developers are calling the relationship between their group and the computer maker a "bitter failure".

In a conflict some call emblematic of what can go wrong when corporations embrace open-source projects, developers are airing longstanding gripes against Apple, accusing the computer maker of taking more than it gives back to the open-source group.

Apple declined to comment for this story. But Safari engineer David Hyatt did acknowledge KDE complaints in his blog, defending the scope of recent patches and soliciting suggestions on improving Apple's relationship with KDE.

"For what it's worth, the patches I posted... are not solely KHTML patches," Hyatt wrote. "What do you think Apple could be doing better here?"

Paul Festa writes for CNET News.com