Quote:
Originally Posted by ata
Make OmniWeb open-source.
There's not much money to be made in web browsers anymore, and OW currently seems to be a fairly low priority to the developers, but I think it would thrive in the hands of the community.
At the moment, Camino and Safari seem to be the zippiest web browsers (in both page rendering and general interface responsiveness), but both are somewhat under-featured, and the latter is not open-source; Firefox is bulky and rather un-Maclike in its look and feel; Shiira looked promising but it seems to be dead, and its last release still feels like an alpha. In terms of features, OmniWeb is far ahead of Camino and Safari, and about on par with a rather plugin-overloaded Firefox, but obviously much better integrated and designed. But it has some long-standing deficiencies, and it's not very extensible. Opening it up could solve those fairly quickly, and I think it could make a comeback as a very viable alternative to today's more popular Mac browsers.
|
The community approach is not a good idea especially considering the "community supporter" type of psychotic people who has taken over various great open source projects.
A hint about my feelings about open source on OS X: There are 3 channels I got banned from on a famous IRC network and all 3 are projects I have donated to.
What about the "kitchen sink" or "feature creep"? What about the bugs never fixed because the developer never thought of importance? E.g. Firefox not having colorsync support for YEARS, no less. Or printing scandal which even exists on 3.x version?
I think Omni does a huge favour to open source community already by releasing all their state of art frameworks for free and open source.
When I purchased Omniweb, it was the only remaining payware browser besides iCab. Do you know why I chose to pay? Because it is developed by professionals and supported by professionals.
I think this explains why Omniweb should stay in its own way:
"“Usually this level of functionality can only be found in the geekiest of open source web browsers, if it can be found at all. Finding it in a proper Mac OS X application from a respected developer with a proven track record is like finding a perfect 1/10,000th scale replica of the Eiffel Tower in a box of crackerjacks. Then the tower transforms into a tiny robot and makes you lunch.”
John Siracusa - Ars Technica"