Collaboration and Rivalry In WebKit 44
An anonymous reader writes "An unconventional article on the development of the WebKit project was just posted to the arXiv. Those guys data-mined the WebKit source-code change-log with Social Network Analysis. They claim that even if Apple and Samsung fight each other with patent wars in the courts, they still collaborate in the WebKit community. The report provides a different perspective from the Bitergia WebKit analytics. Some interesting polemics regarding Apple, Google and Nokia participation in the WebKit project are also highlighted in the paper. There are some nice figures capturing collaboration and rivalry in the WebKit community."
Freedom is not a "problem". (Score:5, Insightful)
The near-absolute freedom one gets with BSD code, including the ability to create incompatible closed-source forks, is in no way a "problem". It is is the most beautiful and powerful thing about the BSD license. It's what makes the BSD license superior to other licenses, such as those in the GPL family, that go out of their way to put numerous impediments and barriers in place to limit freedom. Freedom is to be embraced, not limited. Freedom is what allows great things to happen. Freedom is what allows superb software to be created.
Lots of companies fight and cooperate all at once (Score:5, Insightful)
The programmers contributing to Webkit from Apple, Google, and Nokia have probably never met, or spoken to, any member of the legal departments of those companies. The lawyers do their thing, and the programmers do their thing. The programmers don't care about the lawsuit, they just want to make a great rendering engine! It's not at all far-fetched for big companies to sue each other, and cooperate with each other, all at the same time.