A years-long marriage of convenience that linked Google and Apple browser technologies is ending in divorce.
In a move that Google says will technologically liberate both Chrome and Safari, the company has begun its own offshoot of the WebKit browser engine project called Blink. Initially it uses the same software code base that all WebKit-based browsers share, but over time it will diverge into a totally separate project, Google announced today.
The move marks the end of years of direct WebKit programming cooperation between the two rivals. WebKit is an open-source project, meaning that anyone can use and modify the software, but previously Google and Apple were all contributing to the same code base. With Blink, each company will go its own way, working separately to add new features and to support new Web standards rather than being able to capitalize on the other's work.
Major "forks" in open-source projects can be divisive and bitter, though a certain collegiality among Web programmers seems likely to forestall that negative outcome in the case of Blink. The pains of forking WebKit into Blink are worth it, argued Linus Upson, the Google vice president of engineering for Chrome.
Google parts ways with Apple over WebKit, launches Blink | Internet & Media - CNET News
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