[dot] Nokia Engineers on KHTML, Collaboration and aKademy

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1129483687/

From: Philip Rodrigues <phil at kde.org>
Dept: connecting-people
Date: Sunday 16/Oct/2005, @12:28

Nokia Engineers on KHTML, Collaboration and aKademy
===================================================

   So, you have KDE on your desktop and laptop systems, you've heard
that Apple uses KDE components for its web browser Safari
[http://www.apple.com/safari/] and you've tried Konq/Embedded
[http://www.konqueror.org/embedded/] on your handheld. But did you know
that KDE could soon be making its way into your mobile phone? At aKademy
[http://conference2005.kde.org] in August David Carson and Deepika
Chauhan from Nokia presented the work they've done in integrating KDE
components into the latest version of the company's mobile phone
software.  I recently caught up with them to ask about the technical
side of their work, why they chose KDE components and their experiences
of aKademy.
  David and Deepika at their talk in Malaga
[http://static.kdenews.org/danimo/davidanddeepika.jpg]
     Can you describe briefly what you're working on within Nokia?

     We are working on the Series 60 Browser application for the S60
platform. The Series 60 Platform [http://www.series60.com/] is the
software platform that runs Series 60 devices, which are also called
smart phones. The Series 60 Platform consists of a user interface for
interacting with the device's data and software, and programs (Series 60
applications) that provide advanced phone functions such as messaging,
the calendar, browsing, etc. The Series 60 Platform runs on top of the
open Symbian OS operating system. In addition to existing applications,
users can also install additional applications.

     What technical challenges do you face in that work?

     Mobile devices are constrained by ROM, RAM, network latency and
bandwidth, display, input mode, and less powerful CPU as compared to
desktop world. We need to make some changes to take into account these
constraints. The code execution behaviors which are correct in the
desktop world do not always work well on mobile device.

     To give an example, in browsers Javascript needs to be executed at
the point that it is found in the markup, resulting in blocking the
parser. External Javascript files take a much longer time to arrive at
the client over GPRS. In the worst case scenario, the consecutive
multiple external javascript references cause the requests to go out
serially. Similar problems are encountered in CSS processing since
rendering blocks on external CSS. We do not encounter these problems
when the Javascript and CSS are inline.

     What parts of KDE are you using to help you achieve your aims?

     We are using WebCore and JavaScriptCore components from Apple's
Safari Browser which are based on KHTML and KJS components respectively
that were developed by the KDE community.

     Why did you choose KDE over the competition?

     We have been developing a proprietary browser for Series 60. We
found that we have been focusing a lot of resources on dealing with
issues like rendering and script execution - issues that have already
been dealt with by open-source components. We decided that since
browsing is a complex technology, we should not re-invent the wheel. We
started investigating the available open-source solutions and decided to
go with a KDE-based solution for primarily 3 reasons:

 Series 60 devices are constrained by ROM/RAM. WebCore/KHTML and
JavaScriptCore/KJS provide rendering engines that use very small RAM/ROM
footprint. That was really a clincher for us. WebCore/KHTML and
JavaScriptCore/KJS provide a very clean architecture enabling easy ramp
up of resources. WebCore/KHTML and JavaScriptCore/KJS are very fast. The
startup time and general performance of the browser is quite good.
     How do you see the relationship between the KDE project and your
team at Nokia developing?

     We would like to find a model where we can collaborate with  the 
KDE community focused towards browsing related solutions.

     More generally, where do you think mobile technology is going in
the near future, and what part will open source software like KDE play?

     With the advent of faster networks and more capable mobile devices
we expect to see a lot of development in the mobile software area. We
hope that in the future the KDE community will be interested to look
beyond desktop software and considers taking on projects in the mobile
software space. We see Nokia's new open source browser as a good project
to spark the open source community's interest in mobile software
applications.

     What was your experience of aKademy?

     We had a great time at aKademy, and we got much more out of it than
we ever anticipated. We came to aKademy since we wanted to thank the KDE
community for the great components created by them that form the basis
of the future Series 60 browser, meet some of the contributors in
person, and share with the community our experiences of building a
browser around WebCore/KHTML and JavascriptCore/KJS. The conference gave
us a better understanding of the working model of KDE. We hope that we
can work together with KDE on the mobile browser.  We have observed a
lot of excitement among developers in contributing to the mobile
applications and we hope the community can bring their innovations to
the mobile platform.

     Many thanks to Deepika and David for taking the time to talk to me.