this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The core of Safari (WebKit) is open source. If it weren't they'd be violating the GPL license of KHTML.
Ah, admittedly I don't know much. Could another browser build on it like Chromium or Firefox?
Yep, check Orion browser
Smaller browsers built on webkit do exist; see 'Epiphany', 'surf', 'luakit', and 'Nyxt'. Qt's web component used to be based on webkit as well, though they've switched to Blink (Chromium).
Unfortunately, none of the browsers listed above are 100% sufficient to replace Firefox. They all rely on GTK bindings on webkit, which has its own quirks; and none have support for webextensions.
Yes! In fact, Chromium was originally a fork of WebKit, as WebKit was a fork of KHTML. In both cases the codebases have diverged quite significantly though.