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.