Update 6 from OS/2 VOICE/BWW QT/browser funding campaign
- Details
- Written by Roderick Klein
- Category: VOICE
Dear OS/2 community,
As summer is more or less over (we hope you enjoyed your holidays!), we would like to recall the ongoing efforts to port the current Qt 5 framework to OS/2! During the summer break we have not collected that much money over the last 2 months. Most likely this was caused by the vacation period.
10 months ago the Dutch OS/2 VOICE foundation (referred as “VOICE”) teamed up with bww bitwise works GmbH (referred as "bitwise") in order to make Qt 5 a reality on OS/2.
Why Qt 5?
We already ported Qt 4 to OS/2 and it is an ongoing story of success. Qt 4 enabled us to have numerous applications that were easy to port to OS/2 because Qt is a platform independent framework from ground up. Just think of Quassel, PSi, VirtualBox, qpdfview, SMplayer and many more. The latest version we have at netlabs.org is version 4.7.3 and it is showing its age.
“bitwise” has already started to tackle the job and a lot has been done already. You may monitor our twitter feed or hook directly into our github repository in order to see what is being done right now. The goal is to repeat the success story of Qt 4 on a more modern basis.
And there is a bonus…
We had to acknowledge that Firefox has become more or less undoable for us, from version 52 onward. Why? Please, read this article, it fully covers this topic http://articles.os2voice.org.
Now what about the bonus? A significant part of Qt 5 is QtWebEngine and that is the basis for many Qt-based web browsers (most notably, Falkon which is a new name for QupZilla). QtWebEngine uses Chromium, an open source web engine used by Google in their very successful Google Chrome web browser. The current plan is to port Chromium as part of QtWebEngine. But later this port may be used standalone, e.g. to port Google Chrome to OS/2 (if Google ever makes Chrome itself open source).
The leap from version Qt 4.7.3 to version 5.11 is a huge one. But we are on track: 25% have already been done as described in this roadmap.
And that brings us to the next item:
Good software does not grow on trees. Unfortunately not.
Both Herwig Bauernfeind and most notably Silvan Scherrer make little to no money from "bitwise" and work by and large for free. However “bitwise” is a commercial company driven by 3 OS/2 enthusiasts.
The 3rd “bitwiser”, Dmitriy Kuminov, is not in the position to work for free. Dmitriy works as a full time developer and unlike Silvan and Herwig, Dmitriy has to make a living from that. And driving a company brings costs for many kinds of stuff that has to be provided in order to make it run.
Dmitriy now works fully on the Qt 5 port. The goal is to get it going and provide it for free to the community.
That said, "bitwise" is not the manufacturer of ArcaOS and is not affiliated with Arca Noae LLC. Both companies are strategic partners, but beside that they are completely separate companies.
Therefore, we encourage all members of the OS/2 community to support us:
* You can buy your license of ArcaOS or subscription via the "bitwise" online shop.
* You can make a direct donation via the OS/2 Paypal donation button:
Another new way to sponsor BWW monthly is by using Patreon. Each month you donate an amount you decide.
This is a statement that was jointly written by the Dutch OS/2 VOICE foundation and bww bitwise works GmbH.
Best regards,
Roderick Klein & The "bitwise" team
Dutch OS/2 VOICE foundation Silvan, Herwig and Dmitriy
Update 5 from OS/2 VOICE/BWW QT/browser funding campaign
- Details
- Written by Roderick Klein
- Category: VOICE
Here is finally the 5th update of the VOICE QT 5/browser funding campaign. Sorry for the long delay again some private issue's
with the health of a family member required some attention . So where do we stand ?
The porting of QT 5 has began and the first part of what was outlined in the roadmap is finished.
A total of 5000+7825=12825 US Dollars were collected.
The funding campaign from Sigurd Fastenrath on os2.org collected a total of 4430 Euro.
OS/2 VOICE has currently spent the money in the following way:
Development for May and June have been paid with an amount of 4000 US Dollar per month.
To fullfill Sigurd his campaign OS/2 VOICE sponsored 1650 Euro. This was done, because the orginal target was set to
4250 Euro. And when the target would not be reached the whole campaign would have been withdrawn with no money collected. This money was directly send to bww bitwise works GmbH (hereinafter called BWW).
The people at BWW would like to thank everybody for sponsoring/donating. However as you may understand we need more money for this big project to keep moving forward. The current Qt version 4.7.3 we have on OS/2 (to be found as rpm at Netlabs) shows it's age and a lot newer applications need Qt 5 as a requirement. That's the version BWW is porting right now. There are several reasons this is such a large project. The most notable is that Qt (Qt 5) envolved a lot since version 4.7.3. In summary why Qt is important and usefull for OS/2 (ArcaOS): Qt makes software development smarter. It is a powerful plattform neutral framework that makes it easy to bring many applications to OS/2 that were written for various other plattforms. Right now we have more than 270 Qt based applications and with Qt 5 even more can be ported.
What BWW does in the background when working on major ports.
We (OS/2 VOICE and BWW) try to make all OS/2 users aware of what work is being done to keep software ports created. Next to major projects such as Firefox and Qt BWW maintains a total of over 260 projects for OS/2 which are distributed via Netlabs RPM. To get a better understanding of what BWW does, please look at the presentation SIlvan Scherrer he gave at Warpstock Europe 2018. Dmitry Kuminov (the main developer at BWW) also gave a presentation at Warpstock Europe 2018.
It gives a better idea what massive amount of work BWW has to do to keep a lot of applications on our favorite operating system running. What Dmitry explained is that porting software to OS/2 is sometimes a very labour intensive process because certain libraries need to be ported first. Some libraries (DLL) we do not have on OS/2 or we have older versions and they need to be updated. This is why porting applications to OS/2 can take longer or even a lot longer.
We need your donations
100% of your donation will go to BWW. All information in these postings has been jointly written and approved with BWW.
Previosly OS/2 VOICE did not have a Paypal account. If you want you can now donate with Paypal directly to VOICE. We found a way to make administration easier for our treasurer. This is especially convenient for people living in the European Union. If you want to send a wire transfer please visit the ourwebsite for details.
But you can of course also donate via the Arca Noae website. This is handy if you want to make a donation in US Dollars. I
New web browser for OS/2 update 4, with roadmap!
- Details
- Written by Roderick Klein
- Category: VOICE
The new browser funding campaign from OS/2 VOICE for bww bitwise works GmbH (hereinafter called BWW), has so far collected $12,650.00.
The following roadmap is provided by BWW . The roadmap estimates where made after research was finished in March of 2018. Please note that estimates are a best effort estimate and no work has been done on QT for a few years. It might go faster, but it might take longer to finish the project. BWW might encounter issue's along the way that may result in the project taking longer. As mentioned in update number 3 we are moving towards a QT based browser. And the QT libraries are a mayor step in this process! QT libraries make up about 90% of a QT based browser.
The table below lists the project milestones and estimated time frames for each milestone. Note that the order of subtasks with is not necessarily chronological as some components intermix so that they should be worked on in parallel.
| Task | Estimated time: |
| 1. Port qtbase submodule This consists of the following parts: |
12 months |
| 1.1. Port basic tools This includes qmake, moc, uic, rcc and some other console tools. |
1 month |
| 1.2. Port Qt Core Basic classes like file and console I/O, various utility functions. |
2 months |
| 1.3. Port GUI (excluding OpenGL) Classes for basic 2D drawing in desktop windows and GUI application management. |
3 months |
| 1.4. Port Qt Network Only IPv4 parts will be ported to OS/2 due to the lack of IPv6 support. |
1 month |
| 1.5. Port Qt SQL This includes porting a number of SQL drivers (mysql, sqlite). |
2 weeks |
| 1.6. Port Qt Test | 2 weeks |
| 1.7. Port Qt Widgets This module contains the most code for the qtbase submodule and requires most effort. Not all classes of this module are to be ported to OS/2 due to limitations of the platform. |
4 months |
|
2. Port qtwebengine submodule This includes porting not only Qt wrappers for Chromium but also individual Chromium components such as Skia and much more. |
6 months |
The total time to reach the primary target is estimated at 18 months.
You can buy sponsor units for the project here: https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/os2-voice-browser-sponsorship/
Of your donation 100% goes to BWW. BWW has developed software exclusively for OS/2 since 2012 and has made mayor contributions to providing free downloadable software to the OS/2 community. But they need your support!
For people want know more about this project you can download the PDF here. The status of the port can be followed on the following URL from BWW. This page is currently empty (5th of May 2018), but will soon contain more information about the status. The reason OS/2 VOICE started collecting funding before the project is being started is because we need a lot of money.
Currently BWW is working to wrapping up Firefox 45 so its stable enough for a final release. This browser is being finalized so we have a stable browser until the new QT browser is finished.
Browser funding campaign update 3
- Details
- Written by Roderick Klein
- Category: VOICE
Here is update number 3 for the OS/2 VOICE browser funding campaign. To be clear the development work will not be performed by OS/2 VOICE. OS/2 VOICE just collects the funding and sends 100% of your donation to bww bitwise works GmbH (hereinafter called BWW). Sorry for the delay in giving no updates for such a long time. I have moved to a new apartment in the last couple of months and have a new job. Also a close family member has been having serious health issue's. Taking away time from this volunteer work.
As of this writing we collected $12,650.00 (this excludes the funding being raised on os2.org).
There have been some misunderstandings in the OS/2 community about this funding campaign that I would like to clear up.
* While the sponsor money is collected by OS/2 VOICE and its called the VOICE browser funding campaign. I have tried to be clear that all the development work is done by BWW. All technical information came from BWW and was discussed with Dmitriy, who is responsible for the Qt 4 port and the current Firefox for OS/2 port among others. Also all funding will be transferred to BWW.
* There is nothing secret or weird happening on this funding campaign. Before the funding campaign was started October 2017, it was discussed with Herwig Bauernfeind from BWW. The whole idea of this funding campaign was for a change to start collecting money early and not to late when Firefox begins to run out of track. Its extremely time consuming to keep Firefox running on OS/2. Everybody at BWW was extremely busy and Herwig appreciated the help from VOICE to perform a funding campaign.
* Another point that was made is, that its unclear in which direction this funding campaign will move. Ongoing research has been done by Dmitry from BWW. When the funding campaign was started it was clear, that Firefox will need the RUST compiler after Firefox 54. To port this compiler is possible but it will need a lot time. We also looked at Pale Moon, which could have been a valid path. But even there it's uncertain, that RUST will not be needed at one point.. It ended up that a Qt based browser made the most sense. But this conclusion was reached *after* the funding campaign was started.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9C6Hs-_Ung at 19:28.
The whole point is that this funding campaign was started as early as possible to collect money. People which have doubts about the funding campaign could have asked me privately, but I never received any emails from *anybody* asking me for more information about the funding campaign. Some of the concerns that have been expressed is, if BWW is capable of porting Qt 5.9? The truth is, that the current situation with OS/2 is nothing new compared to lets say 10 years ago. IBM stopped funding OS/2 and organizations like as Mensys and Netlabs stepped into that part. Mensys used to sell sponsor units for Netlabs and BWW. I did manage most of these funding campaigns.
Also BWW has been porting software to OS/2 since 2012! Herwig and Silvan have *always* asked for more funding.
The main reason Java and Qt are running behind is because most of the development time is used for the Firefox port.
The estimated time to port Qt 5 varies from 9 to 12 months. So the question that comes up is: can it be more accurately estimated? The answer is no. We are currently at Qt version 4.78 for OS/2 and the unknown factors will show up as development moves on.
* One other question, that was also asked is what browser version would be selected when a Qt browser is ported.
Chromium seems possible, but we also have other Qt browser. The choice of the browser was and is not that important and can't be done until Qt 5 is ported. As we want to port the best browser by then. And in the end it's the engine (backend) which counts and not the GUI (frontend). And 85% to 90% of source code is Qt based code anyway.
The developer Dmitry from BWW wrote further about the browser options with QT:
"Also, I would clarify which browser options we have in case of Qt 5. The first option is provided by the qtwebkit submodule which uses a special version of the Apple's WebKit engine. This submodule is deprecated in Qt 5.6 but it still builds with Qt 5.9 and some patches. The second option is provided by the newer qtwebengine submodule which uses the Chromium browser project's engine. This engine is more powerful and has better conformance to the modern Web standards so it's the primary target of the Qt 5 roadmap. The WebKit-based submodule is a fallback option (and it's faster to port as it uses only Qt classes, while the Chromium engine has a number of external dependencies). "
* Another question that was raised is why was 10.000 Dollars set a target. The historical funding campaigns done by Netlabs
and BWW also just set the first target to reach. The total cost will be much higher, around 40.000 Euro at least.
While I can understand people do not like sponsoring a project of which the outcome is uncertain. Having worked in the OS/2 community on eCS, Warpstock events for close to 20 years I can only say one very simple thing. Uncertainty has always been part of using OS/2, eCS and ArcaOS in the sense that a small group of people are doing the work.
I hope this answers some of the outstanding questions. So while we reached our first goal. Lets see if we can collect more.
You can buy sponsor units here: https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/os2-voice-browser-sponsorship/
Best regards,
Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE