Apple open-sources JavaScript framework

I’m surprised no one has pointed to this yet, but Apple quietly made its core JavaScript framework source code available on June 13, as noted on this mailing list. The source is available for download here.

It looks like they’ve based the core on the kjs JavaScript engine in KDE, which explains why it’s being released back to the community. The announcement also indicates that Apple hopes to get the framework into a public CVS tree soon, to allow other developers to make contributions.

This is pretty significant. If JavaScript becomes a robust system framework like Java and Cocoa (and AppleScript), it will add to the stable of languages that developers can use to write native Mac OS X applications. Of course, developers have had a form of JavaScript access to Windows (using JScript) since Windows 2000…
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