On June 7, 2005, Safari developer Dave Hyatt announced on his weblog that Apple was open sourcing WebKit (previously, only WebCore and JavaScriptCore were open source) and opening up access to WebKit’s CVS tree and Bugzilla tool. This was announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2005 by Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet.

WebKit – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I give Apple a hard time about their current App Store model which requires approval by Apple as the ultimate gatekeeper.

One thing often overlooked is that they open sourced webkit years ago. Webkit is the layout engine for Safari and is now being used for the PalmPre and Android’s browser.

That openness is a big deal and good for everyone.