NetSurf Society Report 2011-2012
by Michael Drake
Thanks to the Secretary and Treasurer for their continued work in
these roles this past year.
Year in review
==============
Over the last year we have made two releases (NetSurf 2.8 and
NetSurf 2.9), as well developing NetSurf's supporting libraries.
We made progress on our goals for NetSurf 3.0, including advancing
LibDOM to the point where NetSurf can use it.
NetSurf
-------
With NetSurf 2.8, support for HTML Frames was moved into the core
of the browser. This enabled Frames for the first time in several
front ends, in addition to simplifying the front end requirements.
It also included a new image cache and support for deferring image
decode until images are required. This enabled more optimal
resource use and faster page load times.
NetSurf 2.9 contained many optimisations, including improvement of
multitasking, faster URL handling, fetcher and cache optimisations,
and faster CSS selection. These combined to make it our fastest
release ever, at rendering pages, in spite of it doing far more to
support a wider set of web standards than early versions of the
browser.
Aside from the releases, recent development on trunk has included
the port to LibDOM and the inclusion of a JavaScript interpreter.
Project libraries
-----------------
In the last year, effort has been put into our core libraries.
LibCSS has been improved substantially. These advances have
included the addition of support for certain features of CSS3,
many optimisations and fixes.
LibDOM has been developed to the point where NetSurf has been
ported to it. This is the major requirement for NetSurf 3.0.
Some work remains to optimise LibDOM and to fix various issues
including HTML forms.
As yet, none of the core libraries' APIs are considered fully
stable. This means they have not reached "release" versioning
(i.e. 1.x) in this period.
Going forward
=============
The main plan for NetSurf's development since NetSurf 1.x has
been shared widely before. Here it is again:
| 1. New HTML parser (hubbub)
| 2. New CSS engine (libcss)
| 3. New DOM implementation (libdom) < We are here now
| 4. New layout engine
| 5. Add JavaScript support < Also working on this
|
| [1] was introduced with NetSurf 2.0
| [2] was introduced with NetSurf 2.5
| [3] is intended for NetSurf 3.0
| [4] is intended for NetSurf 4.0
| [5] is intended for NetSurf 5.0
The next 12 months
------------------
NetSurf is almost fully working with LibDOM. There are two main
regressions that need fixing before NetSurf trunk becomes
satisfactory. HTML Forms need fixing and there is a performance
regression due to LibDOM's handling of DOM events.
It will be ideal if we are in a position to release NetSurf 3.0
with LibDOM in the next year.
Beyond these fixes, there are many areas of the DOM that remain
unimplemented.
The recent work to add a JavaScript interpreter can be continued.
In order for useful JavaScript support, it is necessary to support
dynamic changes to document layout. This will require updates to
Hubbub, and a rewrite of the layout engine.
The most important goals for the project at the moment are:
+ Designing and writing the new layout engine.
(Has to handle dynamic document changes for JS to be much use)
+ Making the core a library.
(Routinely sought-after by front end and core developers alike.)
Progress on automated cross-compilation and also automated testing
will be of great value to the project.
There are many other ideas on the Development Plan wiki page:
http://wiki.netsurf-browser.org/Development_Plan
Thanks to everyone involved in the project for their contributions over
the last 12 months!
--
Michael Drake (tlsa) http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
10 years, 11 months
Netsurf AGM, 2012. Minutes
by Daniel Silverstone
# Attendance
* Daniel Silverstone
* Rob Kendrick
* Vincent Sanders
* Chris Young
* John-Mark Bell
# Absentees
* Michael Drake
# Chairman's report
Chair was absent and could not make his report
# Secretary's report
The society articles remain unchanged for this year. Since neither of
Sven nor Ole have contacted the secretary to request membership, the
membership of the society stands at:
* Michael Drake
* John-Mark Bell
* Daniel Silverstone
* Rob Kendrick
* Chris Young
* Vincent Sanders
* François Revol
* Steve Fryatt
# Treasurer's report
This is a summary of the society's financial status as of 2012-06-16.
## tl;dr
The sole source of income since the last report (2011-03-27) has been
the takings from sales of NetSurf at the Wakefield 2011 and 2012 shows.
All outgoings have been in the form of reimbursements for
project-related activities or show stand bookings.
As resolved at the 2010 AGM, the society will now pay up to 15 pence per
mile for mileage.
## Detail
Balance carried forward: 1456.01
Income:
2011 Wakefield Show sales 195.00
2012 Wakefield Show sales 265.00
Expenditure:
Michael Drake -- train tickets:
EDB->WKF->EDB Wakefield 2011 (50.00)
EDB->WKF->EDB Wakefield 2012 (70.00)
John-Mark Bell:
368 miles RDG->WKF->RDG Wakefield 2012 (55.20)
Lunch Wakefield 2012 (11.85)
Rob Kendrick:
CDR singles & jewel cases (25.19)
Vincent Sanders:
Lunch Wakefield 2011 (12.49)
Wakefield 2012 stand (40.00)
Remaining Funds: 1651.28
## Notes
Rob Kendrick and Vincent Sanders' payments are pending treasurer's
receipt of account details.
# Git conversion report, pitfall avoidance and planning
The conversion script is in place and functioning on the Pepperfish
server. The currently published interrim repositories stand at r13965
and are published to the gitweb instance on:
http://git.netsurf-browser.org/
Various tweaks to the repository set were made thanks to assistance
from Michael Drake and others.
Daniel wrote a git-testament script and did the various makefile
tweaks to ensure that portion of the build system will move over.
Various gitignore files were also added to the SVN in preparation.
## Issues and remaining work
The remaining primary issue is that of the shared build system we have
for our libraries. An amount of discussion was had regarding this,
both on IRC and on the mailing list. We will need a decision to be
made on this before the conversion, else we will not be buildable at
all come July.
Daniel has undertaken to provide a 'git cheat-sheet' so that
developers will be able to transition with a little pain as can be
achieved. However full instructions won't be available until we
resolve the above point.
It is possible that initially we won't have the commits list
operational. Daniel is working on this, but it may take a touch
longer than the stated transition date. We will still have CIA
support at that time, although the bot may need a tweak or two to show
nicely in-channel.
Changes will have to be made to Ohloh and other sites to ensure they
track our project effectively going forward.
Please keep discussion of these (and any other git related issue) to
the mailing list if appropriate.
## Commit access
The following society members have NOT supplied ssh keys and thus will
be without direct commit rights after the conversion unless they
supply keys in the meantime:
* John-Mark Bell
* François Revol
* Steve Fryatt
In addition, Ole Loots has supplied keys and will continue to have
commit rights despite not being a society member.
# Committee election
We have received nominations and seconds for the current committee and
no others. Thus the vote is simply aye or nay for the status-quo.
Unanimous vote for the status-quo.
# A.O.B.
## Status on the libdom conversion
Chris Young asked for a status-report on the libdom conversion.
John-Mark indicated that forms are still to-do and that he has
approximately no time to tackle them. Daniel asked if John-Mark would
at least write a few notes on what there is to do, so someone else
could try and tackle it. John-Mark thinks that
http://wiki.netsurf-browser.org/LibDOM/MinimalSubset covers the
majority of it. And that in summary there is a "ton" of form-related
nodes to be implemented and that form association needs sorting out.
Form gadgets need building during box construction and then attaching
to the relevant DOM node. Daniel offered that if it wasn't sorted by
the Debian BBQ, he and Vincent could work together to see what can be
done.
## Javascript support
Vincent says that the JS support is 'coming along nicely'. He spent a
bit of time wandering off looking at jsapigen, but its bindings are a
tad 'special' so may not be appropriate.
--
Daniel Silverstone http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
PGP mail accepted and encouraged. Key Id: 3CCE BABE 206C 3B69
10 years, 11 months
Git conversion status, 2012-06-16
by Daniel Silverstone
The conversion script is in place and functioning on the Pepperfish
server. The currently published interrim repositories stand at r13965
and are published to the gitweb instance on:
http://git.netsurf-browser.org/
Various tweaks to the repository set were made thanks to assistance
from Michael Drake and others.
Daniel wrote a git-testament script and did the various makefile
tweaks to ensure that portion of the build system will move over.
Various gitignore files were also added to the SVN in preparation.
## Issues and remaining work
The remaining primary issue is that of the shared build system we have
for our libraries. An amount of discussion was had regarding this,
both on IRC and on the mailing list. We will need a decision to be
made on this before the conversion, else we will not be buildable at
all come July.
Daniel has undertaken to provide a 'git cheat-sheet' so that
developers will be able to transition with a little pain as can be
achieved. However full instructions won't be available until we
resolve the above point.
It is possible that initially we won't have the commits list
operational. Daniel is working on this, but it may take a touch
longer than the stated transition date. We will still have CIA
support at that time, although the bot may need a tweak or two to show
nicely in-channel.
Changes will have to be made to Ohloh and other sites to ensure they
track our project effectively going forward.
Please keep discussion of these (and any other git related issue) to
the mailing list if appropriate.
## Commit access
The following society members have NOT supplied ssh keys and thus will
be without direct commit rights after the conversion unless they
supply keys in the meantime:
* John-Mark Bell
* François Revol
* Steve Fryatt
In addition, Ole Loots has supplied keys and will continue to have
commit rights despite not being a society member.
--
Daniel Silverstone http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
PGP mail accepted and encouraged. Key Id: 3CCE BABE 206C 3B69
10 years, 11 months
Secretary's Report, June 2012
by Daniel Silverstone
The society articles remain unchanged for this year. Since neither of
Sven nor Ole have contacted the secretary to request membership, the
membership of the society stands at:
* Michael Drake
* John-Mark Bell
* Daniel Silverstone
* Rob Kendrick
* Chris Young
* Vincent Sanders
* François Revol
* Steve Fryatt
--
Daniel Silverstone http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
PGP mail accepted and encouraged. Key Id: 3CCE BABE 206C 3B69
10 years, 11 months
NetSurf Society Financial Report
by John-Mark Bell
NetSurf Society Financial Report, June 2012
===========================================
Overview
--------
This is a summary of the society's financial status as of 2012-06-16.
The sole source of income since the last report (2011-03-27) has been
the takings from sales of NetSurf at the Wakefield 2011 and 2012 shows.
All outgoings have been in the form of reimbursements for
project-related activities or show stand bookings.
As resolved at the 2010 AGM, the society will now pay up to 15 pence per
mile for mileage.
Detail
------
Balance carried forward: 1456.01
Income:
2011 Wakefield Show sales 195.00
2012 Wakefield Show sales 265.00
Expenditure:
Michael Drake -- train tickets:
EDB->WKF->EDB Wakefield 2011 (50.00)
EDB->WKF->EDB Wakefield 2012 (70.00)
John-Mark Bell:
368 miles RDG->WKF->RDG Wakefield 2012 (55.20)
Lunch Wakefield 2012 (11.85)
Rob Kendrick[1]:
CDR singles & jewel cases (25.19)
Vincent Sanders[1]:
Lunch Wakefield 2011 (12.49)
Wakefield 2012 stand (40.00)
Remaining Funds: 1651.28
Notes
-----
1. Payment pending treasurer's receipt of account details.
10 years, 11 months
Patch: remove FreeMiNT exception from framebuffer/Makefile.target
by Ole
Attached is a patch which removes an exceptional case in the
Makefile.target from framebuffer frontend.
1. The case is not needed.
2. The official SDL framebuffer target does not work for big endian
machines, so there is no sense in
trying to ease the build.
Greets,
Ole
10 years, 11 months
NetSurf Society membership and AGM, 2012
by Daniel Silverstone
Greetings.
This mail is to establish the society membership (and thus voting rights) and
to indicate the AGM for 2012 along with asking for any business to be brought
up at the meeting.
Last year's society committee consisted of:
Michael Drake, Chair
John-Mark Bell, Treasurer
Daniel Silverstone, Secretary
Last year's non-committee membership consisted of:
Rob Kendrick
James Bursa
Chris Young
Vincent Sanders
François Revol
John Tytgat
Steve Fryatt
By constitutional point 2.1, anyone who has committed code in the past 12
months (or had code committed on their behalf) is eligible for membership of
the society. By point 7.2, anyone ceasing to qualify to be a member of the
society is automatically removed from the list.
Since we're aiming to get the society membership calculated based on the date
of the AGM, I will be considering commits to the repository from r12198 which
was late on the afternoon of the AGM 2010.
James Bursa and John Tytgat are therefore removed from society membership, and
the following people are eligible to join the membership:
Sven Weidauer (swdr)
Ole Loots (mono)
If Sven or Ole want to attend the AGM and be able to vote/raise issues then
they should contact me directly (not on list) to indicate such as per
constitutional point 5. A simple "I wish to be part of the NetSurf Society"
type statement will be sufficient.
The AGM this year is to be held on June 16th at 14:00 UK time (which will be
13:00 UTC). As with previous AGMs it will be held on the NetSurf IRC channel
and as such will be open for all to attend. Please do not actively say
anything in-channel unless you are part of the membership of the society
however. (We may moderate the channel for the duration if necessary).
The agenda will be finalised and sent out on or before the 9th of June. If
you have any business to add to the normal agenda then please contact me and
let me know.
We also require nominations and seconds for committee positions. I personally
nominate Michael to remain as Chair and John-Mark to remain as Treasurer.
Nominations and seconds should be sent to the list in response to this message
such that we can all see what is going on. Nominations will close when the
finalised agenda is sent out.
Regards,
Daniel Silverstone
Secretary, NetSurf Project Society
--
Daniel Silverstone http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
PGP mail accepted and encouraged. Key Id: 3CCE BABE 206C 3B69
10 years, 11 months
Reviewing for Git switch
by Daniel Silverstone
Hi,
I have been reviewing things for the git switchover. The sooner people get
their SSH keys to me, the sooner we can test for interesting hosting hiccoughs
like the one chris_y showed up.
If you think there's a hosting feature you'd like, visit Gitano's trello
board[1] and add a card if there's not one already. If you need to be invited
to the board, let me know. I don't know how public access works on Trello.
There's two niggles I'm trying to resolve ready for the switch.
The first is ignores. You may have noticed a spate of .gitignore adds
recently. They're me trying to get all the appropriate ignores sorted before
the switch for at least the core components. I've also added git testament
support into the SVN.
There's one big issue we need to decide upon though. That of 'svn:externals'.
Git has its own equivalent of svn:externals called 'submodules'. We use
externals for one main purpose (bringing in the shared build infrastructure in
all the libraries).
Currently we convert tools/ as a single repository (so buried inside it is the
makefiles).
I see three possible solutions to the issue.
1. We abandon externals.
- Mandate a checkout of tools/ alongside lib<foo> (shared among all libs)
- Every project using an external to the build system instead gains
A symbolic link (build/makefiles) to ../../tools/buildsystem/makefiles
- The tools/ tree needs that doing to all its sub-tools.
2. We convert tools/ to a set of repos, one for each subsection
- Every project currently using an external changes to a git submodule
referring to that new repository
3. We convert tools/ to a set of repos, one for each subsection (2)
- Every project currently using an external changes to a subtree merge.
Simpler than an external to clone, more complex to change/update.
My personal preference is for 1. It would also mean we could start to load
tools/ up with loads of handy utilities etc for developing with NetSurf. The
checkout of tools/ is a tad over 1MB currently, including the git history for
it. By comparison, a checkout of nstools is 2.2M from SVN and the current
checkout set I have here for SVN netsurf carries 1.4M of build/makefiles/
I have successfully (by dint of prototyping point 1) build a NetSurf/GTK from
the temporary git conversions.
D.
--
Daniel Silverstone http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
PGP mail accepted and encouraged. Key Id: 3CCE BABE 206C 3B69
10 years, 12 months
My public key
by Michael Drake
Attached.
--
Michael Drake (tlsa) http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQClCztEfkEtApBYVhnsXj6UmAi5mKS3YDRHdoVMMs8XtDCFR2e3ogo6qH9KKNsnDM14B3lTCvarZW+3Kz4ULpfxZSyEJjq4Q3RVt6W3rs0eI/yGcttBI1ldevEDU/C+8h5t2ES5SLq/0GJIQy9mRjfKBBQgeg4k6tQ8YH6y5H+qnCFAIexZOOUqJ5LWVGgo1IsjlHTJb9HNc/nvLpmGFDRLiOGVE5U2mzRQXNkHgIssFb/Ke+pdHD3rSc4SuAZmxRRbXhOpjZ0Muyps99bNLoRihBNMdac/R1ARzttASap+rbjC9XXg/ob5r80tnG+n8fv7i+CG5HwDKRf3p2BK5nUX mike@ubuntu
10 years, 12 months
