[Sugar-devel] python webkit DOM bindings - help needed

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

hi folks,

as you probably know i completed an initial version of webkit python
DOM bindings back in november 2008, and have been maintaining them
ever since.  i began the process of getting them accepted into the
main webkit svn repository and, to say that i kinda messed that up
would be an understatement of the first order.  so - if you've been
counting on pywebkitgtk and webkit getting python DOM bindings
"officially" fairly soon, i'm really sorry, but it's not happening.

the only way it's going to happen is if i'm not communicating directly
with the webkit gtk maintainers, whose behaviour has been a weird
mixture of technically first grade help alongside shockingly
disrespectful attitudes which i will not describe, here.

what that means is that if you are in any way counting on using
pywebkitgtk to any degree of sophistication in OLPC projects (i.e.
more than "just a browser", such as being able to respond to DOM
events etc.), you should consider helping out with the "submission"
process of the patches that make up the webkit gobject bindings.

perhaps i am assuming a level of interest that does not actually
exist, for which i apologise in taking up your time.

but, given that there is the distinct possibility, as described by
brendan from the mozilla foundation a couple of weeks ago, that as
XULrunner focusses its priority on performance over-and-above all
other considerations and responsibilities, python-xpcom will just ....
drop off the map, entirely (thus making hulahop entirely useless, and
taking the OLPC browser with it), i thought that pywebkitgtk with DOM
bindings would be a good replacement to take over from it.

so - if this _is_ something that is of interest to the OLPC project,
in the absence of any other initiatives (which i would be delighted to
see), i've started a write-up for people wishing to begin
contributing, here:

http://wiki.github.com/lkcl/webkit/helping-with-16401master

once again i apologise for letting you down, by driving the webkit
developers absolutely insane and beyond their ability to cope with
this initiative, and also if i have misjudged the strategic importance
that pywebkitgtk represents i again apologise for taking up your time.

l.