Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

I think there's a problem with performance in Sailfish generally, it's not browser specific, and shouldn't be Qt specific. Per the browser performance testing I did on the Jolla & Nexus5, FireFox running inside Alien Dalvik VM on the Jolla is faster than any browser on the Nexus5 running Sailfish (SD800 is miles faster than SD400 in Jolla), let alone SF on the Jolla. This shouldn't happen. I tested UP performance on the Nexus5 too ... it also uses Qt, QML and libhybris for hardware adaption. If there are inherent issues with them, then they'd suffer too. However, Octanev2 results for Ubuntu Phone's default browser are faster even than any browser running in a fast, lightweight AOSP based Android ROM on the same phone (vastly faster already than Nexus5 w/ SF). So there shouldn't really be a reason why Sailfish is so slow, if UP can do it. It looks like SF has a hard time loading the CPU properly. Maybe task scheduling is broken or poor? Did the testing in April, nothing has changed with 1.1.7 as I tried it last night; was hoping that as 1.1.7 supposedly carries a lot of the technical underpinnings for v2.0, they might have done something. I'm sure Jolla have been aware of it forever, and I did pass the results on... but they've never acknowledged the issue or added potential improvements to the new roadmap - mainly I suspect because it differs from the narrative that SF is fast, efficient and lightweight (something that couldn't be further from the truth ATM with RAM hunger and poor performance) ... or maybe they don't know how to fix it / what the cause is.

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

Er, but why not? Mozilla is a group founded long ago to build a web browser, and up to this day still centered around their web browser. I would expect their code to be quite performant...

If I've got this right, UP is using "oxide" for their web engine, and oxide is based on chromium. Therefore, UP is using Google's engine for its web layout; which, again, should provide a superior browsing experience.

And, again, this is also what Qt themselves have recently done -- pretty much given up on their existing webkit engine, and gone with Chromium. If/when Jolla migrates to the more recent versions of Qt, their browser should hopefully better match Ubuntu Phone and other chromium-based systems...

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

You're really clutching at straws here.

Sailfish Browser is based on Gecko? Please insert your new excuse here.

If Webkit on Qt has been so abandoned and is so poor, and Gecko so great (though not as fast as Chromium), then why are the (deprecated) versions of Qt Webkit used in WebPirate & WebCat still (much) faster than the (much newer Gecko build) Sailfish Browser?

Also, UP's browser gets better results in OctaneV2 than either Chrome or Opera (Chrome based) in lightweight AOSP Android builds on the same (Nexus 5) phone ... and the UP port for N5 is a community Alpha (like the SF N5 port).

Anyway, anything that significantly loads the CPU in Sailfish tends to cause the app to hang, freeze or badly slow down long before 100% CPU utilisation is reached ... this shouldn't happen.

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

Really, all I'm trying to say is that the current Sailfish browser code probably isn't as good as its competitors. Which, I think, is what you are saying as well. My only addition is that I believe that Jolla is not focussed (and should not be focussed) on trying to create the fastest possible browser; that's a job better left in someone else's hands. I want them to concentrate on the underlying OS, and on growing their business. A good browser is important to a good mobile device experience, but someone else can create that app; Jolla doesn't have to do it themselves...

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

Just because code stops being worked on doesn't mean it immediately "rusts" like metal would. It'll still compile and work the same way it did the last time (unless something changed underneath it).

In addition, there's a few more important things to keep in mind there:

• The number of people working full time on QtWebkit (when it was "alive") was something like 5-6x the number of people working on the Sailfish browser full time.
• QtWebkit has a much longer history than the Sailfish browser: it was released initially alongside Qt 4.4, in 2008. The Sailfish browser UI was initially started on in February 2013[1], later released at the end of the year with the Jolla phone. The Gecko work it uses dates back quite a long time, but has changed UI architecture a number of times, so it is also quite new on the side of platform ports.
• QtWebkit also shipped in a multitude of finished "products" (the N9 being the most prominent talked-about example here, but I've worked on a few others, and heard of a lot more in addition) over those years, compared to Sailfish's grand total of one (so far).

[1]: https://github.com/sailfishos/sailfi...8cd9e22fc47e98

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

Fun factoid for historians who didn't bother to look it up themselves: the initial skeleton of the browser used QtWebkit :-)

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

Amen!

I have always considered default applications bundled in the OS a proof of concept and a free bonus (or burden, depending on whether they can be easily removed - and that includes them staying removed after an OS update, nudge nudge wink wink).

The OS developer's effort is best placed in developing the OS. It is the application developers whose job it is to make bigger, better, faster, more featured applications, including browers.

Of course, the OS needs to attract those application developers first. Therein lies the biggest challenge ;)

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

http://blog.qt.io/blog/2015/12/18/in...-term-support/

Seems to be too late for Jolla or maybe not?

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

Too late in what way? This just seems to make Qt 5.6 even more appealing as the next target, as it will remain both stable and supported for quite some time to come...

Re: QT5.6 (Dec15) to be Long Term Support - implications for Sailfish?
 

Jolla could have done with that a year ago. Does this mean that finally there's a possibility of a decent range of permitted libs in the harbour?