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XFree86 Fork Gets a Name, Website
Piethein Strengholt writes "Today the Xfree86 fork is a fact. A new project has started and is located at: xouvert.org. Xouvert has been started due to the corporate structure and the slow development of XFree86. They hope to reduce the risk to XFree86 of incorporating new drivers and features."
...how the hell do you pronounce it?
Note that this is not xwin.org... I browsed the xwin website a while ago (Keith Packards project) and people there have been complaining about how that project seems dead, while something should start happening. I applaud the effort of these guys.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Drop the network transparency, make it run framebuffer and XFree is obsolete on desktop.
It seems that this group wants to push the envelope of features in X. Why not just do something like the Linux kernel numbering? e.g. 2.4 -> stable, 2.5 -> testing. Then, people could make a decision as to if they wanted to run the bleeding edge in an attempt to use new features. It'd also save the hassle of building for 2 graphics systems, and merging patches between the two code bases.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
I think XFree has been lacking a lot of things for a long time, like true alpha blending between windows and such. Aside from things like the Render extension, this is a project that really hasn't gone much of anywhere in several years. Getting the features we need into the window system itself would position Linux much more prominently on the desktop.
If they're trying to include useful third party contributions, they could do worse than include NX, a revolutionary new compression and proxying technology that makes it possible to run an X session over a 9600 modem at a useable speed. But I didn't completely understand their policy on licences (the NX infrastructure is GPLed, whereas X is under the MIT licence).
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
"ouvert" means "open" in French.
By doing release early, release often, we hope to reduce the risk to Xfree86 of incorporating new drivers and features.
Translated: By doing release early, release often, we should be able to produce a window system that is buggy enough to rival Windows 95a.
"They hope to reduce the risk to XFree86 of incorporating new drivers and features" ????
Idea dislexia? Are they really trying prevent new drivers and features?
Heh, if that were the case, I suppose they could stop at their name change and say they're done:)
Reading the article title it sounds like the fork is named "website".
Perhaps it's *YOU* who should 'get it'.
Had you RTFA properly, you'd have seen the next line says
"All code that enters the project is under the standard X11 license, or compatible free license as specified by the Free Software Foundation."
See, that's not so bad, is it?
Seriously, I don't particularly like NDAs, but as long as the source code is 'free', then it's really not a problem IMHO.
David
On the first line of the page, it says: Xouvert is an experimental branch of XFree86.
Looks like you got what you wanted.
XFree is under the X License (fairly similar to the BSD license). There is currently no issue with making drivers that are binary only. The only place you can't put in binary drivers is the Linux Kernel (as it is GPLed).
Open source means that everything is in the open. No dirty links to binary-only libraries. You think that's OK? Then you're with the traitors, the conforminsts who are slowly, piece by piece, selling the greatest software ideology in the history, the best hope for truly free software out of the reach of the capitalist and oppressive corporate world, to the enemy.
Unless you're with us, you are selling the future of your fellow man to the money. How does that make you feel - traitor?
... From a marketing standpoint. That's it. It's hard to immediately discern how it's pronounced, it's got seven uneven letters, it's relatively long and it has no obvious immediate meaning or collection of related possible meanings based on the roots of the word.
...
So what if 'ouvert' is 'open' in French. I didn't know that. Lot's of people don't know that. Learning that doesn't make you go "ooooo, that's so cool". It just makes you go, "oh".
Open source projects, especially projects of any magnitude should try, from time to time, for some true open source marketing. Unfortunately, engineers, no matter how smart they may be at one thing, are frequently not as smart as they think they are at many things, and so they drop the ball in some areas. This is a decent example.
Of course, 'Vim' and 'Emacs' aren't exactly stellar examples of naming, either, but on the other hand they haven't had much success outside certain circles, and they're both pretty amazing editors. Someone might say that has more to do with their vertical learning curves compared to, for example, 'Word' but their names certainly didn't help
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
XFree86 is not an operating system. Neither is its fork, Xouvert.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Frankly, it may be worth jettisoning a lot of the XFree86 baggage and starting anew.
Y, an X Windows replacement, looks extremely well designed and this guy wrote a pretty complete implementation for his thesis.
Why not port the useful bits of X - like the hardware drivers - over to this already-established well-designed base instead of trying to hack XFree86 into something of similar quality?
(Well, the obvious answer, ``to keep the applications`` is fair enough. But a compatibility module wouldn't be too hard, and worth the benefit in the long run.)
I think for them to put out a good product, they should not hope to "release early, release often" but to "release quality, not quantity". Many projects have gone under because the products are buggy. If the developers always feel pressured to get lots of code out there very fast, they're going to be releasing buggy code that they never get time to fix.
www.sitetronics.com/wordpress
It's not an OS, it's an X server.
hey!
So I just checked out the IRC channel, and they emphasized that Xouvert is an experimental branch of X, not a fork.
My biggest worry about this fork was that the developers were going to announce a "practical" approach to drivers, one that would include non-free drivers etc.
From the website:
"All code that enters the project is under the standard X11 license, or compatible free license as specified by the Free Software Foundation"
Public mailing lists should have been the method of communication for the xfree developers right from the start. This is great news. The use of Arch as the version control system is iceing on the cake.
Ciaran O'Riordan
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I thought there was an exception for kernel-modules.
...You are over-qualified and under-paid. If we give you a raise, we will break the cosmic balance of the universe.
Before this project gets any further, how about a re-think of the choice of name. I'm rather tired of seeing projects with stupid, hard to pronounce / remember names derived from ancient mythological or pagan cultures. Just pick a nice, friendly, high-concept name, people! What was wrong with "Xwin"? Or how about "Xfree86-NG" (next generation) Or perhaps "OpenX11" even. (and drop the silly '86' part that is no longer relevant).
The Xouvert homepage states: "Xouvert is named after the ancient Babylonian goddess of open windows, wooden digging implements, and moonlight. A notorious ritual among the higher levels of Freemasonry has kept her memory alive until now. Xouvert, awake!"
Stuff like this is just asking to offend peoples' beliefs--especially those who see Freemasonry as an occultic religion. So I say again: lose the silly religious / pagan overtones.
I've often said that open source software projects need to do better or at least some marketing. Seemingly little details mean a lot.
For example, most commercially marketed software packages have web sites whose opening page clearly dewscribes the function of the software and then goes on to elaborate on what the software can do for you. Conversly, most open source project homepages start with a change log. Compounded by the fact that most have rediculous names that are not at all intuitive, many do not describe what the software does in a sensible fashion. Then worst of all they go on to compare their incomplete feature set with Windows, gleefully noting "Soon" or "In Progress" next to the missing feature.
You've got to put a marketing spin on your project if you want people to use it. Always highlight and stress its features and strengths. Never advertise its weaknesses. Don't compare the project to better or more feature rich works. If you must offer comparisons, compare the project with known products that are indeed inferior in quality or feature sets and use products that are generally well known ion the comparisons. Finally, and this is perhaps most important, bury the zealotry. DO NOT so much as imply that people should use your project because this other one sucks. If you must post this type of zealotry, save it for the developers page, somewhere that regular users should have NO reason to ever go.
XFree86 does seem a little bit bulky and slow to me. Like the Xouvert website said, it's going mainly towards stability rather than new features. Stability is all well and good, but you DO need fresh new features (or "new blood" as that site might say) every so often.
I'm not sure that the X source can legally BE forked (I know nothing about licenses), but even if it can, I'd rather have the Xouvert guys put in a brand new implementation using the same X protocol but much different code implementing it. It might be faster, and maybe even more stable (or easier to stabilize). Or maybe it'll go to hell because they can't code. Either way, it would still be a nice way to prove whether the fork was really necessary and worth it. There's another word I'm looking for but I can't remember what it is...
Just my two cents...
So would it be safe to say they are *overtly* trying to to draw a connection in the public's mind between the xouvert project and the Quebec separatists?
Because that was my first thought, dunno about anyone else...
Didn't you know? Sheesh...
Humor aside, this is a shining example of how open source alienates ordinary people.
Laws are for people with no friends.
With out that, its not X anylonger, and is pretty much braindead.
Framebuffer, sure that can be a nice optional feature, but you cant drop the network components or you kill it off.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If anything to see if someone has answers. That's interesting.
I guess the only question left is can the French write code as well as they fight?
Are you really that stupid?
I hope you're not being serious, because otherwise you might be the biggest loser in the world. What's the big deal about the NDA? It allows developers to get a look at the specs of certain pieces of hardware (i.e. video cards) and write drivers based on those specs that are open and free. Big deal.
Ok, try to follow this:
They hope to reduce the risk to XFree86...
Looks like they want to make something less risky to XFree86. I wonder what it is?
Ah. They want to make the incorporation of new drivers and features seem less risky to the XFree86 project. As in, "See XF86? We put all these features and drivers into our project. It's not so bad!"
If keithp isn't with the Xouvert project, I would be gravely disappointed. He's a great technologis, innovator and software writer (can't comment on his project organizational skills, though so joining a project instead of leading it might bet better).
Why? Its a stinking name. Who cares.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
touche
Something that i've seen a hot debate over before..
Many people have mentioned something along the lines of "X-lite"...
Bascially an X server that has been stripped of all the features that the "average" person doesn't use, such as running remote desktops over networks and things.
I hear so much complaints about how "X is so slow, buggy and internally is a total mess", etc. I've never personally had a problem with X, nor have i looked at the code myself, but it would be interesting.
Of course, the full-on XFree86 would still be available to all those who *do* want/need the extra features.
do() || do_not();
A number of Open Source developers out there need a good whack over the head with a cluestick. Goofy names are bad advertisement / publicity! What was wrong with "Xwin"? It's short, it's easy to spell, it's easy to remember, it's relevant to the project. I suggest a re-name, but with an open naming contest this time. "Xouvert" is about the worst project name I've seen yet. Even Ogg / Vorbis isn't as bad. At least it's easy to spell and remember. Worse yet, naming a project after an obscure occult reference is likely to be offensive to those of various religions.
You're an idiot.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
You sir, are a dumbass.
I'm guessing HURD is the only acceptable OS for you, because Linux, FreeBSD, and so on are way into the NDA stuff.
We plan to get out far more often. If I recall correctly, we are scheduled to invade ^h^h^h^h^h^h liberate Sweden in the later part of October. For far too long the people of Sweden have be living in an opressive society where they are forced to drive Volvos. The United States has heard the cries of the Swedish people and we will liberate you shortly, whether you like it or not.
Prepare to be bombed, I mean freed.
Get a date - there's plenty of possibilities out there! ;)
ok, I don't know what you did to her but if it means I have to make her cry I don't want to date her
If you've ever managed a reasonably large open source project then you know that making everything public from the beginning won't necessarily be a good thing!
You can't just dump some stuff somewhere on the net and then expect people to contribute. You have to prepare a lot of things, so that people can easily contribute without getting lost in the mess!
And I don't know who moderated you up but those moderators certainly didn't read the website. I quote:
"Sat Aug 16 00:59:49 PDT 2003 - You can't download anything yet. We have this website, XWIN is providing Wiki space, and Savannah is providing mailing list and bug tracking services. We are importing the Xfree86 source code into an arch repository right now; the current job is making a script to tag the source files every time a CVS checkout is done. The IRC logging bot still needs to be set up, and code written to archive the logs daily."
The website has only been up since yesterday! Accusing them for "keeping it secret" and shoot down their image is just stupid, when they've just started recently.
Hey, there's a good plan! Let's take SOMEONE ELSE'S TRADEMARK, like "XFree86" and slap some crap on it, like "OpenXFree86", or "XFree86-ng". Stupid kids today.
I'm sure if these people are masons they know better than to upset the old-boys-network like that, though.
All right ... so you don't seem to understand that if nVidia would give permission to some group associated with this project the right to take apart the detonators to make Xouvert work better with nVidia cards they'd probably want an NDA. Fact of the matter is that when working on anything open-source NDA's are looked down upon, but if you want to work WITH big business to get something usefull done, they're probably gonna insist for legal reasons.
Kleedrac
Sure we wang, can.
It would make more sense to pronounce it "zoh-vert", or the way the french pronounce 'ou' with a 'z' in front. Since when is OU an "oo" sound?
I'm sick of companies and people coming up with 'pronunciations' for their stuff that has no relation to the spelling.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Parent author speaks French. That can't be good.
Just send them over, the GNAA wants to talk with them.
I applaud this initiative. Might be what X needs to get back to life. A bit of competition always sounds like a good thing.
But if they are really serious at encouraging developpers to join this project, the first sensible thing to do would probably be to forget about the IMake crazyness that has been used for years by XFree86 and switch to something else for building the whole project.
Replacing it by the autoconf/automake mix would make the source tree much more appealing to potential developpers. And just to back up my claim, someone else also made the same comment on the xfree-xpert mailing list a few months ago:
(...)
[ I also hope that somebody with more drive than I have will some day decide that the X Makefiles are such a mess that they'd be willing to get rid of all that horribly broken imake crap and just fix them. What a broken build system! ]
Linus
(...)
Just my 0x02 cents...
Ahh..so the fork was created just seconds before the website then? And all the community input on how the project was to procede was done in the few short seconds between those two?
You're pretty fucking ignorant, aren't you?
this is fucking hot shit. i just about blew my load.
It doesn't matter whether the name "sucks" or not. Does it matter to users? No: they don't actually care! Heck, they shouldn't even have to care. All they should know is that it works.
Does it matter to distributors? No: if Xouvert is good, Linux distributions will include it, no matter whether the name "sucks" or not.
Does it matter to developers? I don't think they, they care more about the code and the openness of the projects.
So, where is the problem?
"Of course, 'Vim' and 'Emacs' aren't exactly stellar examples of naming"
Vi and Emacs are not popular outside the Unix commandline community because they're console apps, not because of their names! You can rename Emacs to "PowerEdit 2000" but it's marketshare won't change!
The name is certainly not the most important thing. Many people say that Ogg Vorbis will fail just because of it's name. And what do we see? More and more MP3 player manufactures are adopting Ogg Vorbis. And again: users don't care. If they can use the technology easily, they will, no matter the name.
they needed your approval, asshole? get back to geography class.
But the idea is not totally for us to work with Big business solely on their terms. The idea is to make a open system so good that the card manufacturers (ala nVidia) will be either have to release their specs without an NDA (or just under open terms) or just not participate. Improving upon X seeks to give US more leverage in Big Business. Of course... its kind of a catch 22 as we need more open specs before we can improve X and get that leverage...
And I prefer windows remote desktop. The only kind of GUI remoting that allows me to work using a frikkin 14 kbps modem and help out people on the other end of the globe by joining their UI session! Try that with your stinkin' X.
It goes through a user-space socket instead of using the kernel to access the AGP bus? That's a hoop.
Network-transparent window system libraries tend to have a few special cases that kick in when the display is running on the same machine that the apps are running on. I'd assume that a window system implementing something like X11's MIT Shared Memory Extension would let the app mmap() AGP memory in such a special case.
Will I retire or break 10K?
X, by itsself is NOT, i repeat NOT slow..
It is what runs on top of it, like some window managers, that can slow it down to a crawl.
It is not X that you have the issue with, though its a real common misconception, and needs to be corrected.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I want to know what Xouvert smoking when you came up with this name.
What is a "GUI refresh rate?"
It's related to the lag between dragging the mouse pointer down a menu and having the items highlight. It's related to dragging the scroll bar and having the view move smoothly. It's related to dragging a window and having both it and what's under it react smoothly.
3) Your driver does not support hardware acceleration
This is one of the major problems. Hardware vendors tend to expose too many of their trade secrets at the register level, and then they use this as an excuse not to release information to driver developers in Free window system implementation projects.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Even Microsoft understands the power of the 'remote desktop' sort of environment in the corporate world, and is pushing hard to reclaim lost market due to Citrix.
Agreed at home its of limited value for many, but those that think things such as network transparency, which is at the very foundation of the X protocol, slow things down, or bloat the server, are sadly misinformed.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I take Xouvert's non-disclosure policy to mean that a hardware manufacturer's NDA covers only the spec, not any source code derived from the spec.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This software doesn't really need to have a great name, a memorable slogan, or anything like this. I'm pretty sure that people choosing X-windows servers are not going to make choices based on cute names. Besides, I'm sure that the vast majority of people simply use the xserver that comes with their distro. So really, the most influential people here are going to be the people at redhat, SuSE, gentoo, etc. If they chance most Linux users will too.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The future lays in things like VNC. VNC is faster and you can even disconnect and keep your session alive. It might be slightly slower but way more convenient.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
To announce that they have nothing to offer, requires nothing. Better wait for something bigger, more enclosing and more organized to go public.
3d games don't use Xwindows. They use OpenGL usually, which is also network transparent. GL obviously proves that network transparency doesn't slow you down, but it also dosn't prove that X isn't slow.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It's quite possible, but impractical. Because a given kernel module tends to only load with the exact kernel it was compiled for, and linux kernels are quite heterogenous. THis is why you see companies like nVidia making a proprietary driver, but with an open-source wrapper that can be compiled for anyone's kernel-du-jour.
I'm sure your anonymous boycott will get the job done. Get back to us and let us know how it goes.
"Sufferin' succotash."
You have friends ?
Anything that wants to have a snowball's chance in hell to replace X is going to have to be network transparent, too.
Why does the wiki link off xouvert.org include the infamous goatse.cx picture? I can only hope its a hack, in which case they'd best fix it asap, but in either case, the name isnt the only marketing problem they have ^_^
arse
Tragek
Replying to your own troll shill with a troll shill? That's net.kook behavior.
Xfree86 has a development model that places a greater emphasis on stability than new features.
just great. now xwindows will be more like windows. yippee.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Every time the discussion about replacing X comes up, somebody mentions Fresco (formerly named "Berlin"). However, I haven't heard anything for a long time about that project, and the last news is from March. Anybody know what happened? Our are they just hacking away so hard that they don't have time to update the webpage...
....unfortunately the French has *officialy* nothing to do with the choice of name, which is, btw, taken from a godess...........
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
This doesn't look right: if you go to the xouvert web page at www.xouvert.org and follow the link to their wiki at the bottom of the page, you're lead to http://xwin.org:9673/xwin/Xouvert which, uhm, to put it mildly, doesn't look much like a wiki.
Once this project starts progressing and is deployed, will this be backwards compatible with current xfree86 libraries? Or will x based projects like Gnome and KDE have to rewrite portions of their code to make it work with this?
The pronunciation of the french word "ouvert" (which mean "open") is quite close to the english "Hoover".
So maybe there's a secret meaning behind this new name. Something like "we will get rid of all the dust in X".
I also use remote X, VNC and TSE in my house, but i would not consider myself anywhere near 'normal user'..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Links go to ASCII-art goatse pics. (Apart from the GNOME FUD which would in itself be reason enough to mod this guy down.)
let me be the first to give this project a usable name:
XO (pronounced: ex-oh).
ouvert is french for 'open'. ignore the prank the website is trying to play on you. i don't intend to add the french inflection 'zoovair' every fucking time i say it (much like i like my croissants to be crassandwiches). besides, the name XOPEN is already taken. so there you have it, folks. say it with: me XO is not Xfree86
Stuff like this is just asking to offend peoples' beliefs--especially those who see Freemasonry as an occultic religion.
Well, technically they're right. Occult simply means "hidden", since the Masons perform their rituals behind closed doors, that would make their practices and beliefs "occult" in nature.
So I say again: lose the silly religious / pagan overtones.
Did you complain about VIA/Cyrix's CPU naming scheme? They used names that were of Judeo/Christian/Islamic origin. In case you didn't know, many, MANY of the people working in the IT field (from programmers to network admins) are pagans. Most of the world is still free enough that these people can pay homage to their beliefs without fear of being burned alive.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
...just as long as it starts with "X"!
20 mil and I will! Learn Esperanto with 20M others.
Reduce the risk of new drivers and features?
Uhm, these guys don't WANT any new drivers and features?
Regards,
--
*Art
This makes perfect sense. Samba "forked" a while back, and the two projects continue to cross polinate one another. Folks still use Samba for their bread-and-butter file servers. Samba-TNG is really useful for domain controllers. Though admittedly, my PDC is straight Samba.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
'nuff said.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
I've tried, as many other have, i'm sure, to edit the front page of the Wiki, but to no avail---each time i edited it, the text was almost immediately changed back to the distasteful goatse page. Hopefully, the Wiki's administrators will attempt to shut down access to the offending user(s) so as to stop this nonsense.
20 mil and I will! Learn Esperanto with 20M others.
I agree completely that a common deficiency in open source projects is that the software is not described adequately for those who are shopping around for a solution. But the description of a piece of open source software ought to be as informative as possible. That means giving as objective as possible information about the strengths and weaknesses of the software. If softwareA is better at taskFoo, then the descriotion should say so. Perhaps it should also indicate whether the developers plan to rectify that weakness in the near future.
anyone look at it yet? these guys are gonna do absolutely nothing. This is a joke..
Will they use gdm for /etc/X11/XF86config, or will they take the sensible route to create a decent platform independant Xconfig? If they do create a decent sensible Xconfig that can quickly reconfig X all the more power to them. The ability to easily reconfig a flakey mouse would be great. What I hate about Redhat is that they took out good old Pico best of the easy to use editors, and have made installing to boot without X a pain in the ass. Jerks, and I have paid for RedHat in the past
never again though. Thank you I will stick to Slack. I hope someone does finally write a killer X configuration tool. Slack is still the best that remains close to sensible.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
I just blew my load reading your comment. You, Mr Anonymous Coward are one sexy bitch.
Come now, they're joking, of course. A joke that, after reading many posts here, seems to have fallen flat. To confirm, Google for goddesses--there is no xouvert on any list. But mainly, the tip off is the word ouvert itself.
So, failed joke aside, they did pick a "nice, friendly, high-concept name", as you define it. It's just not in English.
(my, i can't believe i'm defending the name of an open source project--derivative oss naming is a particular bete noir (er, sorry) of mine.)
(runs for ac cover)
Vi and Emacs are not popular outside the Unix commandline community because they're console apps, not because of their names!
...I use an Emacs winblows port (GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-msvc-nt5.1.2600)) as my primary text editor, and I dont use Unix, too (Well, ok. I have a linux box set up as a web/ftp server, but I dont telnet on it anyways. ) Console or not, I think this software is quite complete (And free! I hate to see notepads made by some guy and put it demo or 5-day shareware. I mean, why the hell would I pay to edit/view a readme!? :/) and its more than enough for me.
But I know emacs isnt popular/known for windows users, though.
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
Sorry, but the GNU autobuild tools suck. They start with a broken idea (Hey, let's give everybody a *different* makefile, so that you can't debug makefile problems! Hey, let's build the Makefile itself from a file which is automatically created, so you can't tell which of the four levels has the build problem!) and break things from there.
As usual, djb's got the innovative ideas. Google for djb and redo.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Why not just run Y and have an X-server program built for it for 'legacy' apps? You could also write a 'blank' window and use a foreign toolkit in a more 'raw' way. This isn't my field, so I might be wildly off-base.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Although the fonts on the web page are awful crappy, something good may come of it. Give it time. They mention something about staying under the X license or anything else blessed by the FSF, so we may soon have a GPL'd X. It's appropriate that the project should fork about the time that 'X' becomes obsolete. Let's give them a hand!
The address making the change is 24.76.60.47.
Run along over to DirectFB, grab the framebuffer code and modules for your card, or just use their default VESA Framebuffer (works on everything), then try out the XDirectFB module for X Window System ontop of their Framebuffer. Already, DRI/accelerated openGL works by use of their DirectFBGL interface for Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 and support for DRI/accelerated openGL will be around within a month (work in progress, almost released to public).
If you don't believe me, here are the direct links to what you need or should see:
DirectFB graphics support list (project page)
DirectFBGL (openGL Framebuffer abstraction layer for DRI project's openGL)
XDirectFB (alternative X Server! Works fast and verry compatible!)
Accelerated openGL screenshots (Quake3 works without X Window System, although hacked to abstract!)
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
A third option is that both projects will be merged. EGCS no longer exists as a separate project, that work was eventually merged with GCC and released as GCC 3.
I'm with you, while X isn't the simplest thing one could think of, it really does perform amazingly well. The frame buffer as a 'performance solution' is a total dead-end as writing a stream of pixels to a buffer is a LOT slower than using X to draw complete objects.
I do think X is a bit creaky though, maybe it is time to start a new one, one where major (and even compatability-breaking) changes can happen. Some things on my wishlist:
*A single, standard, simple font system.
*Integration of a more modern toolkit and WM, even if it has to borrow heavily from GTK+ or another project. This would be inclusive, it wouldn't prevent you from using other toolkits and WMs (think WindowMaker instead of TWM in the base set).
*Ability to run like Quartz Extreme (as an OpenGL-based system). Also, not as a requirement, just as an option.
*There's no excuse for not vectorizing this from the bottom-up, and we'll be thankful when the commercial OSs get this done and we've already got it. Think about running your monitor at 1600X1200 and telling the system it's 200 DPI so it zooms everything accordingly. Apple has this up their sleeve now, and Longhorn might unleash it on Windows.
*Transparency, which personally doesn't get me hot and bothered, but I guess people think it's cool.
*Ability to act as the 'console' layer for the OS, no more framebuffer-for-console, X for graphical. Have the thing run a full-screen native terminal, and have the OS work with it.
*extensive database of video cards and monitors for easier configuration, this should be integral to the graphics system. It took me a LONG time to find the specs on some of my monitors and I'd rather not do it ever again.
*Generally simpler/more elegant design. I'm pretty sure that a lot of what's in XFree86 today is there just to prop itself up, while a newer system might have a better chance of coming out with a clean design.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Xi graphics can't even get info from Nvidia to make drivers for their server, and I'm sure they'd be willing to sign a NDA. I don't even see how it'd be possible for an open source project to sign an NDA anyway, since they'd be giving the code away.
---------- Open Source is capitalism applied to IP.
BTW I didn't see keith listed as a contact person on the website. Didn't look hard enough?
I forgot, hopefully the framebuffer will progress to the point where the manufactures can just write their drivers for it (including 3d) and be done with it. This would leave the community free design whatever implementation they want without having to worry about drivers.
---------- Open Source is capitalism applied to IP.
How do you pronounce:
* Atari, is it pronounced AY-TAY-REE or AH-TAR-EE or AH-TAY-REE?
* Sega, is it pronounced SEE-GAH or SEH-GAH or SAY-GAH?
* Linux, is it pronounced LEE-NUX or LIE-NUX or LI-NUCKS
* MP3, is it pronounced Mmmmm-Puh-three or EM-PEE-THREE?
* NEC, is it pronounced EN-EE-SEE or Neck?
* Microsoft, is it pronounced MY-CROW-SOFT or MA-FEE-YAH?
See? All the above have ambigious names and they're all very popular (at least at one time or another).
*phew*
That's great, because the last thing we need is to cram even more drivers & features into XFree/X11. Thanks for reducing the risk, guys!
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
just cost me an hour of my life!
Mike
The clean design of arch makes it trivial for anyone who downloads our source code to create their own local "branch" for development, keep it under revision control, then have their modifications merged, with complete history, back upstream at some point in the future. This is next to impossible to do with CVS.
There are other projects that have started using Arch; for example, I noticed Y, mentioned in another comment, also uses it (just a coincidence, or a case of Y influencing Xouvert?).
Any slashdotters used it? I'm doing some testing with Arch and if I end up deciding I really like it, I'll try persuading my colleagues that we should adopt it as our company's source code management system. Mmm... atomic commits.
you are, to put it bluntly, a fucking idiot. Stop using linux.
Give us, us Xfree!
You obviously don't use neither Emacs nor Xemacs. Both works perfectly under X11 and Win32 (there is even a port to Mac) with support of fonts making both Emacs and Xemacs an excelent IDE with many WYSIWYG features.
Less is more !
Stop mousey stop I want you to scrollllllll, no XY for me I use X not Z. Pisss Up a rope! I will hack config if I feel like it you /. Nazi morons....flame, down Karma I need to lose Karma please flaim.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Xouvert will be caled "It's over" in a near future.
Gover name is better it stands for Game Over.
[I read your link]
So, you're using GNU/Linux for seven years, you want good graphics performance but you didn't check to see if the card is supported before spending $400?
I know this takes up 6 minutes of your life, I think a quick check would be okay.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I havent...even in windows. No video card maker that I have ever heard of has charged for video drivers.
Due to the "french" nature of the name (ouvert means open in french) some Americans have decided to call the new X fork, Xfreedom.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Fresco was almost entirely developed by SGI and Fujitsu while it was being considered for adoption by the X people as thier high-level (and very modern) GUI library. When they decided to stay out of that business, a few individuals kept it going a few more years until it was being developed by nobody and used by few. (Apparently because it was never developed enough to have all the widgets and documentation that people expect. Maybe because it more-or-less required C++.)
The Berlin people gave up on their pie-in-the-sky ideas about replacing most of X, but still wanting to see some modern GUI ideas get developed, saw the dead carcass and took what they wanted including the name. I'm not sure how much of the code they used, but from the little I've read, it sounded like it's significanly different than real Fresco, while using much of it's code.
What they're calling Fresco is also claimed to be under the GPL, while real Fresco code is much more liberally licensed, under an X11-type license.
It's sad when individual open source software developers are less generous with their software than big corporations!
Fuck. Last thing we need is for people to think the community is unstable. Dammit. Oh well, i can respect their reasons for forking though. I hope they get merged back together. With people already bitching about too many distros and de's the last thing we need is a fork of X.
75% of all statistics are made up!
Even if unix domain messaging is as far as shared memory messaging, it isn't as fast as not messaging at all.
Writing directly to the frame buffer will always provide higher performance than taking circuitous routes. As hardware gets faster we may be able to get by with the reduced performance, but it will always be faster to go straight to the hardware instead of pussyfooting around.
VNC - a desktop sized window per connection.
X - just the window you want, and no more.
True. I ama practicing pagan for over twenty years. Although, I have never met another SysAdmin of the same faith. But then again, SysAdmins can't talk for a few seconds without discussing computers.
90% of the comments here are about the name. It seems these guys really picked a really shitty one. Unless they do really good work, the project will probably die due to the name alone!
.. The name would imply that it is somehow a successor and furthering of X windows, yet in an entirely new and advanced incarnation.
A better choice?
"Y-Window System"
Xouvert.. "It's like banging your head on the table repeatedly!"
~GoRK
Xwin is a rewritten from scratch implementation that will be great for old systems.
Xfree86 is old, bloated and horribly complex. Keith Packards created ttf fonts and may have helped with the rendering interface of X. He decided to give up on Xfree86 because it became too bloated, too unmodular, complex, and old thanks to legacy code for things like vesa, 286 support, etc.
A good read is the Unix Haters Manual, "..building an application with X is like building a bookcase with mashed potatoes".
Anyway Xwin is going to be a brand new written from scratch program that only implements the protocal. In other words its going to be backward compatible but be fast, modern, and ore modulized.
http://saveie6.com/
Lets say something happens that a bunch of Y-Windows system developers dont like, and they fork again....
That of course, will be called the Z-Windows system. Then what happens if something forks off Z? What will it be called then?
XFree is actualy the name of a project that existed before XFree86!
XFree was a much earlier X Window System implementation and XFree86 is a completely independent alternative to that was originaly based on intel 386 architecture; although XFree86 works on more that i386, such as SPARC and Alpha.
If I remember correctly, XFree is actualy defunct, but its tradmark is still in affect. Taking the name "XFree" and using it within the United States will result in possible fines. However, I am certain that if you use the name XFree outside the United States, you are ok.
For one.. the fork could be quite good, it could bring about a more rapid development. But on the other hand, it could also cuase a divide, if the two projects don't stay closely involved, causeing a hell of a lot of problems writing aps. I'd feel bad for people like KDE devs, who might eventually have to do two completly different versions of all thier software, just to accomodate the fork, and the orginal. Change is good, but it could also be disasterous.
-Here we are now, Entertain us.
How I understand it, X does this because it was made for a server/terminal model--the server running X clients, and cheaper terminals running the X "server". Expecting the terminal to use more processing power would mean either more expensive terminals or poor performance. Why else would X have been designed this way? X was created long ago when the mainframes ran the code and ruled the world.
It sounds like you don't want X at all. I believe there are several projects which work similar to what you describe. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is PicoGUI. Maybe I just don't know enough about the X protocol, but it seems to me it would be easier to start over, and it appears some have done so. If you're serious about wanting those features in a display server, then you may want to start using/working on one of these projects and help evangelize it.
I don't have enough problems with X to see the point in switching yet. Though I do recognize it as archaic and understand why one of these projects may be better. If I had the time and patience, I'd probably try to help out, but I don't...maybe you will fare better. I suppose it'd be time better spent than on something like Xouvert. Not to knock the guy who started the project--Xouvert will most likely be useful. The only problem is getting the video card manufacturer's support for "rogue" systems...
Got a URL? I think you might be thinking of X386.
Current X is good enough for running a word processor. All the new gimmicks are of interest only to owners and manufacturors of the latest hardware. What these guys need to do is set up a decent framework where the NVIDIA's and ATI's of this world can do their thing. Closed source or not.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
As an Spanish speaking person I find very refreshing to find project names based on non English words.
/.ers expect that an open IT world means a world all signalled in English only.
To the English speakers it gives a feeling of how it is to have to deal with English terminology all the time when English is your mother tongue, to others it gives the sense that open source is really open for all and not the playground of English speakers only.
OK, so English speaking people are making most of the technology available? Fair enough, but then if other people for whatever reason decide to use other languages for their own projects, that should not be reason for chauvinistic whining from English speaking people.
What sad, that like most tourists, some
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
LOL, dumb yank.
EOM - End of message/no comments (when used in a subject line, it means that the message contains no text: The poster said it all in their subject line.)
Since X is old and crickety, as most responses seem to agree...
XWin.ORG was supposed to stealthily fork and improve XFree86
XFree86 introduced incompatibilities with X/Open X.ORG references
And many seem to favour Y over X. As X was favoured over W.
Why not just get a new X? X12... petition Open to get a new X. It's happened from X1 to X10... next step would be a new R level or a new X level...
OR, build everything on top of OpenGL.
It's really tiring to work with Alpha blended windows. It's only a visual trick that produces smooth colors, pleasing to the eye, without any other value.
It's called NXHost. OpenSesame.
Why the hell wasn't parent +5, funny? It's a wonderful parody of US foreign policy.
Just call it the "project formerly known as XFree86."
SCO to Hell
That's right. This suggests that the "correct" pronounciation is ex-oo-vair.
Babylonian goddess my ass.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
It is entirely possible to write APIs that are not network transparent, although I suppose that's more of an implementation detail. In any event, OpenGL was designed to be network transparent, using a client/server architecture.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Going to war without France is like playing videogames on your Xbox without your Xouvert...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
They overlooked this. C became C++ via incrementing. X should do the same. Thus, we now unveil.... Xcrement.
Funny name: Xouvert == Xopen in french