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Lead developer Zack Rusin revealed in his blog that a layer in the desktop will be capable of running most widgets as they are use nothing more than HTML and Javascript code. The fact that Apple's WebKit rendering engine is based on KDE's Konqueror browser also helps. However those that also employ Cocoa and/or Applescript will remain the preserve of Mac users.

AppleXnet comments that this may well be another example of Apple inadvertently creating a new standard.

'A prior example would be Rendezvous messaging in iChat; this is now available in Gaim, Trillian, and other IM programs,' Eoban writes. 'We wouldn't be surprised if, sooner or later, runtimes for Dashboard widgets also appear in GNOME or even in Windows, if not from Microsoft, but a third party.'

Meanwhile Safari developer Dave Hyatt has announced that SVG support has been added to developer builds of WebKit which are available from webkit.opendarwin.org.