Retirement from Arora
Benjamin Meyer
In 2009 RIM acquired TorchMobile which was the company I was working for. Due to the fact that I would be working on the WebKit library at RIM, RIM legal outlined various things I could/couldn't do on Arora. At the time I thought this would be less of a problem than it turned out to be. Development slowed and while today I merge in a patch here and there into Arora for all intents and purposes I have stopped developing Arora. For me personally the join of Arora was to push QtWebKit to its limits, to bring a WebKit browser to Linux, show that you can really have a multi platform app with Qt, and have fun. With the rise of Chrome and the fact that Chrome now runs on Linux (which I even helped get initially working :), being forbidden from contributing to Qt (Nokia and RIM are not exactly buddies), and not being allowed to develop any feature that didn't exist on another browser, the fun of Arora was zapped. What does this mean for the future of Arora? I am not sure, but so far no one has stepped up and said they want to keep it alive. Perhaps the QtWebKit devs want to take it over, or the Haiku devs or one of the various manufacturing companies (Arora was put on 30K TV's in Korea). If someone does come along and start taking over maintainer ship i'll transfer ownership of the GitHub account and the GoogleCode project, but with my retirement from the project there is a good chance that Arora might stay frozen where it is now.
I am proud of what Arora became. It is a decent solid browser with clean code. The development process worked well with only a few commits in the entire history that broke the build and the majority of components having unit tests and or manual tests. The best illustration of the code quality has to be when I discover code I originally wrote for Arora in other browser projects. Arora might have been missing features that FireFox or Chrome had, but the features it had were stable and worked. Which isn't to say it had no features, opensearch, click 2 flash, adblock, fast startup, translations, native theming, are just a few. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and made Arora what it is today I hope to work with you on future projects.
-Benjamin Meyer
Daniel Kahn Gillmor
> I am formally announcing my retirement from Arora.
Thank you for all your work on Arora, Ben! I never used Arora as my
main web browser, but it has been very helpful for me (as someone who
works on both client-side software and web development) to have another
clean, functional, effective browser in my toolkit.
Regards,
--dkg
Arpit
secondary browser.
Randolph Dohm
I am formally announcing my retirement from Arora.
I have stopped developing Arora. and not being allowed to develop any feature that didn't exist on another browser, the fun of Arora was zapped.
I am proud of what Arora became. The best illustration of the code quality has to be when I discover code I originally wrote for Arora in other browser projects. ..that FireFox or Chrome had, but the features it had were stable and worked. Which isn't to say it had no features, ... adblock, ..
I hope to work with you on future projects.
-Benjamin Meyer
Dear Benjamin Meyer,
A Browser is the most used App for Everybody in the internet. You made with your going ahead with Webkit and Qt such a great contribution, Geckoo has been made faster, small c++ browser project had you and Arora as a role model for their development and third open source has been pushed. I wish linux on mobile phones would have suche a great contribution, meego at nokia never seems to come out. It is a pitty. But for the Browser colleagues, it is something to be proud of and it´s a great contribution to. See.. for me it is not important to have this or that feature, it is more a view to the environment, systemical (not systematical) environment influences are so powerful, and you have been contributing to it. I still wounder, how you made so much code and feature true in the short time and build a community to support Arora. I played araound with a colleague project Dooble Web browser http://dooble.sf.net and made one icon theme for it. Unfortunately nothing more I can do in c++, but the Adblock feature I would like to see as well in this ongoing browser, maybe you or someone wants to support this followup colleague as well with the adblock feature.
As dooble is as well open source, we are one. Dunno if Arora will be maintained by others, as for some long time now currently no substantial commit has been done. Making 80:20 is the pareto optimum and the last 20 % is really hard work, which might be only interesting, if something new can be developed (see above your wish to creat new things). The current compile of dooble web browser shows, that a password is needed to open the browser, and then bookmarks and history URLs are present. Great thing, if not someone else is taking this idea before the dooble release is done soon, it will be worldwide the first browser which starts with a passwordpromt. Maybe I can talk with the developers, if someone wants to add he addblock feature to dooble. Same for this mailinglist, would you as the list admin agree to subscribe the members of the arora mailinglist as well to the dooble browser mailinglist? or, if someone is interested now, the link is here: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dooble-team Maybe it makes sense to merge/do*u*ble it for synergies and colleagues-ness. I believe with you in Open Source - and not in Brands. compare it with the cycle of life: the ideas and sense and values live on with and in our children. Same for open source, the code will go to others for inspiration and copy and integration. At the end of our life we have to leave the house, if we believe in recarnation or not. Maybe the brand Arora is dead as a project, if the project leader ends up and noone really wants the last 20 percent to maintain. but the ideas and the open source code will live forever and lives on, as approach or a text lines. Qt Webkit Browser, Firefox, Chrome, Dooble, Safari, Opera, KMelon and Konqueror.. all are with Arora, if they are open source or at least to allow the free web read for the users..
You ask for next projects, what do you have in mind.. we can work on. any idea about a p2p websearch in c++ like www.yacy.net ? or a simple c++ interface and node for it? maybe you want to blog in a few months, what ideas you have.
Until that, enjoy the summer and come back with some great ideas for most users of the web, e.g. a messenger ..
Regards and thanks for your lead of/to modern browsing.
Randolph
mariuz
On Jun 20, 5:31 am, Benjamin Meyer <b...@meyerhome.net> wrote:
> I am formally announcing my retirement from Arora.
>
> In 2009 RIM acquired TorchMobile which was the company I was working for. Due to the fact that I would be working on the WebKit library at RIM, RIM legal outlined various things I could/couldn't do on Arora. At the time I thought this would be less of a problem than it turned out to be. Development slowed and while today I merge in a patch here and there into Arora for all intents and purposes I have stopped developing Arora. For me personally the join of Arora was to push QtWebKit to its limits, to bring a WebKit browser to Linux, show that you can really have a multi platform app with Qt, and have fun. With the rise of Chrome and the fact that Chrome now runs on Linux (which I even helped get initially working :), being forbidden from contributing to Qt (Nokia and RIM are not exactly buddies), and not being allowed to develop any feature that didn't exist on another browser, the fun of Arora was zapped. What does this mean for the future of Arora? I am not sure, but so far no one has stepped up and said they want to keep it alive. Perhaps the QtWebKit devs want to take it over, or the Haiku devs or one of the various manufacturing companies (Arora was put on 30K TV's in Korea). If someone does come along and start taking over maintainer ship i'll transfer ownership of the GitHub account and the GoogleCode project, but with my retirement from the project there is a good chance that Arora might stay frozen where it is now.
please add me to github and google code with the rights to do releases
and code merges
https://github.com/mariuz
Also later we can talk about the domain and details
> I am proud of what Arora became. It is a decent solid browser with clean code. The development process worked well with only a few commits in the entire history that broke the build and the majority of components having unit tests and or manual tests. The best illustration of the code quality has to be when I discover code I originally wrote for Arora in other browser projects. Arora might have been missing features that FireFox or Chrome had, but the features it had were stable and worked. Which isn't to say it had no features, opensearch, click 2 flash, adblock, fast startup, translations, native theming, are just a few. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and made Arora what it is today I hope to work with you on future projects.
pitty that qt is quite slow in some places compared with chrome
but is a great example of what you can do with webkit and qt : full
featured browser that sometimes is better on new devices (haiku)
hint : arora is compilable and works on android (using necessitas)
I wish it had some of the features from native android browser but
that is worth working on in future (one example i love the navigation
with the keyboard from android)
TonyBrowning
(supported by Red Hat) Linux Kernel operating system and let me advise
you that Arora is the best, fastest, very lightweight (especially
while manuvering around in Facebook) free cross platform browser I
have ever located on the web and also why I am now using as my # 1
browser. For an example, using Fedora 14, Arora is the only browser
that I can sign directly into and compatible for Windows only version
is the no download that works from your web browser> address of
http://express.paltalk.com/ . (and all the features works) But since
I'm using Linux and if i'm using Firefox, Galeon or Konqueror web
browsers then I have to sign into Paltalks Linux/Mac version at
http://paltalk.com/express and also know of a work-around to get in to
paltalk express at that. Arora works perfectly with ALL my other sites
and searches. Excelpt 4 small flaws while in Facebook which are, if I
comment or like on someones post, Arora displays and accepts my
comment or like but then sends me to a blank page that address reads
http://www.facebook.com/ajax/ufi/modify.php .But Arora will work
excellent when comments or likes are made on Sponsors, peoples profile
pages and while viewing pictures or sometimes if I keep hitting the
back arrow. 3rd flaw is while viewing peoples pictures the page is to
large and can't see the bottom to comment or like but when I hit the
minimize tab then I can view the scroll arrows, scroll down to leave
comments or likes. Last flaw is Arora (express.paltalk), Galeon,
Konqueror browsers (paltalk/express) have all stopped fully loading
the Paltalks, works with ones web browsers. I can only enable Firefox
to fully load Paltalk Express if I start a YouTube video while Paltalk
is loading, sometimes that works.
Heck yeah, If you wish to give up Arora ownership of the Git-Hub
account and the GoogleCode project by all means sign it over too me,
will you Ben? !!! -) Gone now to try and fix the 4 flaws, have any
suggestions Ben? Or retired forever from Arora?