In the beginning, there was KHTML and it was good. Then Apple decided to use that rendering engine for its own browser, and it was good. Then the two codebases forked and diverged, and it was not so good. The open source community didn’t like how Apple was handling the whole situation. As time has gone on, more and more interested parties are opting for WebKit over KDE’s KHTML code. The killing blow for KHTML may have been Trolltech’s devision to roll it into Qt, the API and framework that KDE uses to develop their software.
KHTML will be maintained for some time, but WebKit is the future. With Safari, the iPhone, and other WebKit based browsers on the rise, it’s continued growth is a big positive for the web browsing public at large. While Firefox and Gecko have made serious inroads into Internet Explorer’s overwhelming majority marketshare, having two specific engines that web developers code to still isn’t ideal.
The more fractured the web browser market is, the more importance is placed on standards than coding to the browser itself. I’ll begin to feel good about the web when we have three strong web rendering engines (ok, Opera can gain some marketshare too).
The title of the commentary and the contents do not match up. Where is it in the contents that the KHTML fork will merge with the WebKit fork?
It seems to me WebKit won out in popular appeal and KHTML will simply be abandoned in the near future. The more appropriate title would have been: "KHTML soon to be abandoned in favor of WebKit"