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XFree86 Core Team Disbands
mumumu was among the many to write with this news: "XFree86's release engineer David Dawes has announced that "a majority of the XFree86 core team has voted in favour of my proposal to disband the core team". XFree86's News Headline has a short message about it. Why, all of a sudden?
What is the successor of the XFree86? Xouvert? freedesktop.org?"
Why would a successor for XFree86 be needed? As I understand it, this is only a change in the "political" structure of the project, not its end.
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
Sounds more like the "core" team weren't actually doing the development anymore, and that they felt it was unfair to be the "core" team when they weren't doing the work.
Nothing to see here folks, keep moving.
"core team was no longer
representative of the active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developers"
That leads me to suspect it isn't XFree86 that is dying, just the current core team is giving up their posts- and probably to be reorganized with new members from among the referred to "active, experienced... developers"
I wouldn't panic yet.
This has nothing to do with XFree developement. In fact the non-relation between XFree 'core team' and Xfree development was the actual reason to dispand.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
We're all doomed anyway. This will just hurry it along.
It will be called XX.
But I suggest you wait a bit for what will replace XX!
Is this related to the Cygwin/XFree86 blowup a few months back?
That is a relief, as I almost thought for a second that XFree86 was going to disappear... *eek*
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
A lot of big companies still use COBOL, and COBOL is over fifty years old, which means we can keep using X even if it's not being developed anymore. If something is worth using, then it must have a good solid base which can be used for many years to come. We don't need to worry at all for another fifty year or so, when we'll probably need a new system. Why panic now?
Many systems have lived beyond their original development schedules. Financial software written in COBOL, for example, which has caused no problems at all since it was developed, Windows 3.1 which is still more than good enough for most schools and small businesses and has no security flaws despite all thsi time, and the B programming language, which many an OS kernel is written in.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Read the message:
I believe that this is an acknowlegement that the core team was no longer representative of the active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developers, or a place where technical discussion happens.
In effect, nothing is going to change. There are still active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developers out there, who will continue to work just as they always have.
read.
the.
exceedingly.
short.
article.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
then perhaps it's a good thing as there has clearly been a fair amount of rankling lately.
Wasn't this what Keith Packard et.al wanted?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
they almost sound like they've been in some type of self induced code bondage and Mr. Lincoln has just set them free. *mental images of xFree86 core team members doing the "freed slave" dance*
It's hard to continue developement when members of the core group were abducted by aliens.
The aliens were interested in them because X11 has alien-like code embedded in it.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Face it.
"Core Team" Development models are out-dated and sound more M$'ish than Open Source'ish.
While several projects continue to use the "Core Team" model, like FreeBSD, in my opinion, the politics involved ain't worth it.
For XFree86, it's time for change. Hopefully, in years to come, we will see a more efficient graphics subsystem for Unix (MacOS X may be an example) weather it be by a XFree86, XF86 Fork, or some other system (NOT framebuffer because fb doesn't work well with some hardware)
After comparing the /. headline with the actual content of the email, I wonder what exactly /. *does* check on before they post these...I feel like they're trolling for a bunch of misinformed readers to overreact.
It may be newsworthy, but considering the length of the message, why not just post the original email and be done with it?
From what little i've heard over the past few months, the XFree core team had become something of an elitist boys-club, completely and totally closed to the idea of accepting any outside code/ideas. Fuck that shit.. There were people who wanted write access to CVS, and HAD perfectly working code, and who were refused outright by that sad sack of pricks.
Bowie J. Poag
Look at Windows, it's never been supported and that doesn't seem to stop anyone from continuing to use it.
Bull. If you buy Windows retail, you get 90 days (iirc) of free technical support from MS (limited to some set number of incidents, of course). If you get it with a system, your OEM is supposed to support you - most do, in my experience, for a similar amount of time. MS also offer paid-for support, of course, if you're so inclined.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Why not call it YAPN TMANRP? (Yet Another Program with a Name That Means Absolutely Nothing to Regular People) I would think that would make perfect sense for a Unix windowing system. =P
Maybe a XY should be created for the non-lesbian females?
Maybe you should understand what we are talking about here before you predict anything.
The XFree86 core team (of which some of them isn't even *nix users anymore) have been disbanded because of there lack of interest in the project. It's really no big deal for XFree.
hmm then what will windows be replaced by, mac? unix? FreeBSD? rtfa though xfree is still alive and kicking just the leadership has changed
I did.
It didn't say much of anything.
They used the word "disbanded" without any explination of how who when how or what will happen.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
This brings up a good point: is anyone to maintain xFree86 anymore? Sure, the source is still available, but is the project documented well enough that another team could pick up in a year where this one left off? Interesting questions that the open source community will have to answer if proprietary source is to be defeated once and for all.
stuff |
What new core team?
The post indicated in the article said nothing about that.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
It just picks up where somebody left off.
I can guarantee you something will replace it. Actually, the project has already forked.
Besides, most posters aren't even interpreting the statement as the "end of XFree86", just a reorganization of "official roles/titles" within the team.
Why do we need Xfree86 core team? All they did was argue and slow development down with their politics.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Given the tenor of many comments it seems not everybody has read this seminal text! Mind you, some of the politics is pretty much off the wall - especially in the post-bubble world. The other issue is that the model highlights the extent to which we are all dependent on a few good citizens to give up their time and life to make this happen. Core teams work when people are being paid to do the job, but not when whn you are relying on the generousity of a few talented individuals.
with NC-17?
...
technical support from MS
Have you ever actually USED MS support? It's not really support. Same with vendor support. 99% of the solutions are "reboot" or "reinstall". That said, the original poster was trying to be funny.
Nobody seems to know who the core XFree86 team is, or what they do or even did and who or what is going to replace them. The whole story consists of maybe 20 lines. No answers. Nothing.
I nominate this as Slashdot's most useless story of 2003!
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
There are places where the day analogous(sp?) to april fools is celebrated the 28th of december.
That would be 3 days late anyways.
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
This is are opputunity, to Kombine, Konquer and rise to a new age in GUI design!
Look at the projects such as KDE 3.2 beta, Cairo, Looking glass, Karamba for example. They are researching new and innovative GUI's, but there is one problem, the X11 limitations are hurting them. Some of them are pushing X11 to the limit, looking at some sourcecode gives me nightmares!
Xouvert, KDE, Gnome and all other interested parties should join up to make it happen.
We need to update and break the current X11 protocal since there is a lot of kludges and write a new faster one, call it X12, unify GTK, Qt, Motif and more into one universal licencing freindly toolkit to run on X12. Integrate all the new technology such as vector widgets, antialasing, and stuff into this X12 toolkit and to symbolise this new change, rename it K12. There should be X11 compatibillity layer, like Mac OS Classic on OS X, just for the old apps such as propreitrey ones.
Then release KDE 4, rewritten in K12, along with the enhancements. K12 should be similar to an existing toolkit so it will be easy to port applications such as Gimp, OpenOffice, Mozilla and the rest. Since there is no more licencing issues with the new toolkit, no need to have seperate gnome/kde anymore, just one desktop environemnt. This will make things consistent, and allow stuff like copy and paste work PERFECTLY!
Then, integrate with Linux 2.6, and other technologies to make the Open Source Desktop dream come true : One unified desktop that is easy to use, yet MORE powerful than the command line.
This Neo-GUI plan may feel unreal, and maybe almost imposible with all the holy wars between X11, KDE, Gnome, and the others, but XouverK could come true if we realise we are only hidering ourselfs as of now! For example, why dosen't gimp use the KDE file dialog!
> What is the successor of the XFree86?
. html] and directfb [http://www.directfb.org/news/count/gtk-themed-alp ha.png] and others.
> Xouvert? freedesktop.org?"
Not that I'm an X hater but I truly hope that this brings room to new, non-X initiatives.
Like: plan9 [http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/screenshot
I wish good luck to Xouvert, freedesktop.org and all the others that now have to think of the future!
cies
I'm going to forego the opportunity to use my moderator points today on this story because every odd-numbered post in the list is already "Score:5 Insightful". There's just a wealth of wisdom here, and I have precious little to add.
In all fairness to those who questioned the future of X, I was momentarily confused by the announcement, too. It appears this little group of developers has finally just gotten out of the way. I'm hoping there's still a person or two to moderate code additions while the rest of the community keeps up the project.
-j
Any switch can blow up if a transition isn't well-planned or done with the right expertise. In my experience, major shifts like that require a lot of training of existing staff while bringing in a number of consultants that are fluent in the new tech.
True, choosing a product that is a poor fit will make it blow up in your face, but that doesn't mean that sticking with the old code forever is the answer.
Besides, we use SAP at my place of work and are pretty damn successful.
"Besides, most posters aren't even interpreting the statement as the "end of XFree86""
Most posters here sincerely believe Microsoft is in trouble, too.
Counting on the collective "wisdom" on slashdot is an interesting way to be continuously wrong.
signatures are for fools with hands
This guy shouldn't have been moderated down. XFree HAS forked, so fragmentation could be a real concern.
> make it hard for driver vendors like NVidia to target XFree86's derivatives as a platform
XFree has a standard "driver model" that they use, and dislike of that actually one of the things movtivating the forks. So, new X servers won't use the same drivers, but the argument is that it will be easier to implement better drivers without being hamstrung by backward compatibility.
> Unless they agree on an API or similar framework
That API is X11R6 + extensions. Ultimately it matters little if you use XServer1 and I use XServer2 -- the difference wouldn't be visible to end users except maybe with some eyecandy features like transparency effects.
This is a far less serious problem than (say) KDE versus Gnome, which affects the end user in all sorts of ways, but yet people manage to survive.
Just some folks will have one less title on their business cards.
Move along folks, nothing to see here.
Maybe SCO sent the developers a letter, after all SCO claims anything that looks unixy.
(is unixy a word?)
Do the BSDs use some X server I don't know about?
Counting on the collective "wisdom" on slashdot is an interesting way to be continuously wrong.
I count on "slashbot wisdom" quite often with great success. It is an excellent contrary indicator.
But then again, that is just a roundabout way of agreeing with you.
having worked (at my lowest) in Vendor support, i can say this is true.
OTOH, anyone who considers this a bad thing should try to work for a month in a call centre doing it. If you really think it is still worth telling people how to us MSconfig or Regedit after that long, then fine. but having to do that and coach ppl along the CLI (such as it is) in Windows is absolute torture 20 times a day.
For me, after that long, the mantra "fdisk, format, reinstall" got to be the only way to survive until clocking off.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
Why do you say that?
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Yea, like most CIOs get their tech, political, and business news from /. You grossly overestimate /.'s influence.
FreeSpeech.org
Mmmmm.. XX
And Free... as in beer!
How will XFree maintain control without the bureaucracy?
Why all a sudden?
Maybe because David Dawes was too difficult to work with and not open enough to allowing non-core developers to contribute?
I for one welcome our new active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developer overlords.
XExpensive86?
Not, never, ever, in any way, shape or form, "XFree". The software is called "XFree86". The numbers are part of the name, just like "Element17" (company that formed from the ashes of Acorn).
Why do people call it "XFree"? Sure, it runs on more than x86 machines now, but it's still entirely incorrect.
If someone is looking for alternatives, look at XGGI, part of the the GGI project. Together with directfb or KGI(currently focussing at BSD, but the Linux core is there too) it's really powerfull.
Well, at least Apple's support of XDarwin is still around. I doubt Apple will ever get support the freedesktop.org efforts because that would mean supporting alpha-channels for non-Mac platforms.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
No but they do run it on a better operating system. :)
Egon:40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanos.
Winston:The dead rising from the grave!
Venkman:Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together... mass hysteria!
And now, no more core team!
Accord, article was unbellyfeel verging thoughtcrime. Slashdot, duckspeak opsource futurewise!
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
They're sure to appear on an upcoming VH-1 "Behind the Music" special and be on the verge of a reunion tour. Playing smaller venues supposedly in order to "get back to their roots" and "get closer to their fans."
I hope whatever this team is that it forms in some sane normal country with rational IP laws that will not threaten to sue if they add a tuner driver or render engine that might, GOD FORBID allow someone to do something some industry might not like. Before you go there, nothing stops them from building or distributing a given module with these features removed for those sad companies that must be able to work and distribute in the new Soviet opps!! I meant US.
You know... Nostradamus predicted all of this.
Nay, for the successor of X is surely XI. All who claim 'Y' succeedth 'X' need a lesson in arithmetic...
If you think this is the most irresponsible post you've seen, then you haven't been reading Slashdot very long. If people are so stupid that they can't read past the headline, I hardly think we should fault Slashdot for reader incompetence. Of course the most sensational submission is going to get posted. Why? Because they get 1000s of submissions here and most of them probably suck. So the ones that stick out a bit get posted because they're the only ones that don't get subjected to an immediate pressing of the Delete key.
The XFree86 site has a page that says they disbanded. Here is a mirrored list of core team members . Some have been around a while ... easy to loose interest.
The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
fragmentation could be a real concern.
Multiple X implementations for Linux is not a problem. In fact it could be an advantage. The claim that it becomes harder for vendors like ATI and NVidia to target the platform is of course wrong. They only have to support one of them. So what if we end up in a situation where ATI users will need one X server and NVidia users will need another X server? As long as both X servers implement the correct protocol. Different features of course could be a problem to some extent, but since we are talking about different hardware it's obvious, that there will be differences. If it is going to happen, I hope both forks stay open (is that required by the license used by XFree86?), at least if it is open a new branch can try to merge the two if divergence become too much.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
dos_equis_libre86
-- Is it a right to remain ignorant? -- Calvin
http://www.directfb.org/ is a very good answer... Look at the gtk-directfb implementation. The GNOME desktop could quickly drop the X11 dependency using a directfb backend gtk implementation.
I could have sworn it was a well-documented part of the model..
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'm not saying this was the wrong decision (I honestly don't know if it was), just that it could have been handled in a much better way. Every time some open source project has one of their typical public pissing matches (and I'm NOT implying that's what happened here) or makes some wrenching change, it just hands the closed source forces a big stick to beat us with. You can hear them telling customers, "See? Do you want to trust your company or university to a bunch of developers who can just kill off a major project and walk away, with no commitment from anyone to continue development?"
The disbanding of the current XFree86 core team does not mean an end to the continuing development of XFree86, it means a change of people recongised as being key players.
The biggest remaining question IMHO is whether there will be a expansion of cvs commit access. I think the former core team realises that new up and coming developers need to be added to the project to subtain the continuing improvement and work with others groups such as X.org, and freedesktop.org. To say nothing of expanding access to video card manufacturers so they can maintain and improve open source drivers for their cards (Most companies are at least partial supportive of 2D drivers, the real issues occur over 3D accelation).
I expect it will end up being a good thing.
Back in the day Xfree86 needed to be a corporation to trademark the term "Xfree86" so they created this weird organization with a constitution and everything. There was the board and there was the core. Later another group was added, people who had commit access to the CVS repository, but weren't on the core. Then at the bottom there were regular developers.
The problem is that no one really new what the core does except that it had a private email list. Even people on the core didn't know. (I'm not making this up).
Historically XFree86 has had closed developement. If you wanted to read the developers emails or look at the development code you had to apply and be approved. A couple years ago they openned up the CVS repository to the world. Then earlier this year they openned up all the development email lists.
But once in a while when during code discussions people would say, "Oh that. We discussed on the core email list and we decided it sucked. Case closed." That kind of thing gets annoying.
Some people said that the core email list should be destroyed, but the answer was that, "Why do you care? All the development discussion is on the developers email list." This was probably true in theory if not in real life.
To be on the core you had to be selected after coding for 3 or 4 years. It's not worth it really because as I said, no one knows what the core does and all the real power is held by the people with CVS commit access anyway.
The whole idea of a core group was stupid and pointless. The reason it stuck around for so long was that XFree86 developers are stubborn people. Everyone (often not developers) was telling them to change and have elections and so they said, "Screw you. We'll do whatever we want." Another reason was that some people on the core group weren't active developers and didn't follow the lists closely. They didn't realise how frustrated people were.
I've been getting more and more upset as I write this post thinking about how XFree86 used to be, but I started out just wanting to say that it was a good thing. I believe it is a good thing for XFree86. It's a sign that the project is becoming more transparent and responsive to developers. It takes humility on the part of the core members to give up the extra privileges.
This is a good thing for everyone.
> Multiple X implementations for Linux is not a problem.
I don't think you should overstate the case. X Fragmented a long time ago in the UNIX world, and as a result it made it very difficult to add or upgrade features.
One could quite easily see the situation where someone couldn't use particular features because of the brand video card.
I think we really need a new X server, dedicated to desktop use. It looks like the RENDER model is going to be the primary graphics model these days and applications expect both multithreading and lots of bitmap storage from the X server.
Yet, the existing X server originated out of a code base that highly optimized the traditional X11 graphics model and assumed a completely different mix of clients and applications. That means that a lot of complexity in the existing server is devoted to optimizing things few people still care about.
A new implementation could replace that code with simple, generic implementations and focus on making the stuff that everybody uses these days efficient.
It may also be worth using C++ for such a new X server. That's not because C++ is "object oriented", but because C++ standardizes a number of facilities that big software systems need, like exceptions and resource cleanup, but for which C has no single standard.
Actually, at the same time, it might also be good to create a second, minimal X server from scratch that is aimed at handhelds and machines with very limited resources. Some existing work on such servers is based on XFree86, but I suspect one might be able to cut things down to an X server that gets by with 100-200k of code and data with careful coding and choice of features.
Why should Nvidia and ATI support any kind of X server? Doesn't that just make it harder to produce a driver package? Not to troll, but I couldn't even find a good how-to doc for this on the xfree86.org site. At most just a few hints on bare-minimum functions.
Why can't we shove off the X11 and let Nvidia/ATI implement a raw OpenGL driver? Just let them support their hardware. Let them expose OpenGL, shaders, and overlay/MPEG stuff. Wouldn't it be fantastic not to need a new set of drivers for each XFree86 version?
Then if you want legacy X11 functions, just re-implement them to call OpenGL functions instead. There's no reason for an X line when the hardware is built for OpenGL lines.
In this scheme the X11 is sidebanded (networking) and wrappered (graphics calls) and graphics card driver updates are greatly simplified. Dare we hope it may spur more frequent driver updates as well?
YES BABY !!!!
then a new core team will appear. In fact, we already have one: XOuvert.
Actually, XOuvert and whatever else might succeed the XFree86 core team is in roughly the same situation as XFree86 was with respect to MIT X11 when they got started.
Let's just be clear: X11 is here to stay no matter what because it's a protocol standard, not any particular implementation. And the XFree86 codebase already has at least one new group of maintainers, and I wouldn't be surprised if it found another. Both X11 and XFree86 are so widely used, successful, and important that any other outcome is inconceivable.
by the Google translater: It appears that Keith Packard is translated into "Keith luggage pool of broadcasting corporations"
If anybody was honestly curius about what this meant, you might have checked the mail archives of the devel list. Here is a more detailed message from David Dawes. 'Nuff said.
You are very right. You can't let the common Joe Blow go tromping about regedit, he'll kill his system. I've given the most concise directions possible to some "customers" when I worked at CompUSA. I regretted it more than anything else ever. I got blamed for all sorts of shit after they couldn't figure out how to not accidentally delete major setting files, or not save a backup and forget what they did to system.ini. After that, the only way I'd repair a software problem is if they brought a restore CD, or if I was consulting on my own on the side. And then, I'd tell the guy, "Look, I can try to show you what's happening here, but let's be honest... you won't spend the time necessary to learn what is needed in order to make sure you can get your way out of any mess you get into."
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I suspect many people (ie the CIO we are trying to win over) will react badly to this.
This happens all the time in both the closed world and the OSS world.
Remember the big "tiff" between Alan and Linus? It was ridiculus that the press picked it up.
Likewise, at the large companies that I have worked at are far worse than what is happening. At USWest, a VP had to be physically restrained and removed from the premise, and only THEN was fired (he was later found to have a handgun in his desk, but that little info was kinda kept quiet).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Are the mods on crack? Mod this as "funny" or "not funny", but hardly flamebait.
I guess 15 year old fanboys are stupid.
Flanders: "Well, I guess this is a case where we'll have to agree to disagree."
Principal Skinner: "I don't agree to that."
Ms. Krabappel: "Neither do I."
Ned: Ho, ho, this is a dilly of a pickle.
Man: Oh my God...the PTA has disbanded! (jumps out a window)
Ned: No, no! The PTA has not disbanded. (the man reverses his path through the window and sits down)
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
If by better you mean deader, then you would be correct.
And it will be pronounced:
ecks-ten
Netscape/AOL stopped funding mozilla, but the developers who worked on it were able to continue because the source code was publicly available.
He's the only one with any really good ideas.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Nobody doubts that Linus did a lot of good to the world and still does to this day. But I do think he has a particular vision for Linux and his reputation keeps people who have some disagreement from forking or working on another OS.
Say, I want to contribute a USB kernel module for my webcam. So I read a nice doxygen reference about the virtual methods I need to override in LinVideoCapture class. Then I write my driver and put binary and optionally source on my website. I shouldn't have to update/recompile it for a couple of years, until the next major rewrite of the kernel that changes LinVideoCapture signatures.
Umm... Actually it's more like I need to read lots of uncommented C code for other drivers that access kernel data structure that seem to have nothing to do with video or USB. Then when I am done I need to make source code changes every couple of month and provide a separate binary for non-SMP, SMP and so on kernels Redhat ships.
I wrote many TSRs/drivers in ASM for DOS and it's a joy compared to ASM-like C for Linux. Yes, OSes are more complicated now. But they should also provide higher-level interfaces to compensate.
Or I can just run Windows (well, MacOSX in my case) and spend the same effort to write a nice Java video-editing app. I would love to have an OS that people really use and that makes contributing to the kernel pleasent though. Like a forked Linux distribution with kernel interfaces, libc, ld.so, threading model, gcc C++ ABI... thought though once and stabalized for long time.
I think we should congratulate the core team for doing the right thing. Its pretty rare for any institution to volintarily disband no matter how irrelevant it becomes. I can think of a few institutions a lot less relevant than this group that have continued plugging along for generations.
These people are showing maturity and class usually missing in the software industry. Just by taking this action, the team has refuted one of the more subtle FUD points out there, that projects will eventually peter out or be consumed by internal bickering.
The fdo.o X server is most likely going to be the successor to XFree86, even if development of XF86 continues. They fd.o X server project is led by Keith Packard, who did a lot of the work on Render and Xft, basically bringing XFree86 into the 20th century. He is also getting help from people who really know what they are doing, like Jim Gettys. They are working on the following features:
- A core X server based on the lightweight kdrive codebase (formerly TinyX).
- Back-buffering of all windows, like OS X. This will enable OS X-style fancy window effects like shadows and whatnot.
- OpenGL accelerated 2D rendering. This is a big step up from Apple's system, because it will accelerate actual drawing via OpenGL, not just window compositing. As a result of this, there is a lot of talk about seperating OpenGL from the X server, and allowing the X server to be just another OpenGL app running on top of a low-level OpenGL acceleration layer.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Perfectly working code should definitely be refused if it's too complicated, breaks consistency, ignores development basics like code reuse, comments and proper class design or will cause lead developers to loose understanding of their project, without the author being willing/able to take over.
It's another question if XFree code team were no longer lead developers, or if another group of people can do the job better. But a project with a lot of contributers and without any moderators will degenerate to chaos before you can say Bazaar.
Not trolling, but for me the successor to XFree86 is turning out to be Apple's X11.app.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
It seems that the tone of this article is misleading; X development will continue on in good health.
However, I always find myself thinking about Y as an X replacement. It's certainly not the most mature option out there, but reading throught the PDF is a pleasure, as the author seems to have struck a great balance of power and simplicity.
Cheers.
Not just the software, but I mean the development. It's development by committee. Look at the rapid pace of the Linux kernel--headed by one guy.
Compare to XFree86 and its Board of Directors, Consortium, Core team, etc. And then people wonder why there is frustration at the slow pace of development. I'm not even talking about retardedly simple things like RandR (a feature even Windows 95 had close to a decade ago).
"Sufferin' succotash."
The reason posts like this get modded down isn't some conspiracy for the supression of your opinions. Rather, they get modded down because it's basically off-topic. Where's the "screw it all up" in this story? Or the "politics, idealism, and lack of interest", for that matter?
XDarwin
You say X doesn't suck, but then explain how it doesn't fully utilize graphics cards.
X doesn't work. I hate dragging a simple window and have a trail of tutti-fruity after it, or waiting 5 seconds for a menu to popup. Here's the part where you blame the window manager, or the graphics library, or the desktop environment.
XFree86 doesn't dare do a thing wrong. Hold on while we hack on yet another "extension," and then meanwhile in a Microsoft discussion complain that you can't hack on things that weren't in the core design of Windows.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Now, see, 90% of the people reading Slashdot will assume XFree86 has completely disbanded because of that completely misleading article summary that asks for a successor.
If you bring things like this up to CmdrTaco in, say, an e-mail, you'll either get no reply or a really nasty, sarcastic response. It's frustrating.
"Sufferin' succotash."
remember this? The developer responsible for the Cygwin implementation of Xfree left the project after dealing with the core "team"'s bad attitude. I think other active contributors must have finally overthrown the gate keepers.
1st known failed CIA coup in South America : http://www.chavezthefilm.com/index_ex.htm
The reason posts like this get modded down isn't some conspiracy for the supression of your opinions. Rather, they get modded down because it's basically off-topic.
Troll, more like it, i.e., "doesn't succeed in the mainstream like commercial software does".
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
That's what is wrong with the support industry. Lazy asses who don't take pride in their work and have little or no patience. Way back in 94 when I was a Windows n00b, I used to call support and was appalled at how bad it was. Adaptec, S3, Microsoft... they all sucked. Within a year of using Windows (originally a Mac and Atari/Amiga guy here) I became my own support because I knew more than any of the jackasses on the other end of the phone. What really used to irk me was when I would call and have to walk through all the crap solutions that they were reading from a database even though I'd already done all of that. I'd tell them I already knew the outcome but they wanted me to do it anyway. Then in the end they would say "fdisk, format and re-install". Of course I wouldn't do that. I would dig up the info online or form other users and eventually solve the problem. That's when I realized that the fools that work support are just plain lazy, but your comment cinches it.
I deal with stupid users every day where I work, but I still help them even if it's the upteenth millionth time. I don't expect them to understand or to know what to do. Face it. Computers are STILL to hard to use for the average user because they are very complex machines. The only people that have a prayer of being able to use a computer to it's full capabilities are people who are very good at deductive logic and can understand abstractions easily. This is NOT the average human being. It's probably only about 10% of the population. About 75% would be the people who learn by wrote. They just know what buttons to puch when, but don't know why. So people and computers are meeting halfway, but when something doesn't work, it all falls apart. Face it... computers STILL suck for the majority of the population. (Note that the other 15% I didn't mention are comprised of both the guys with the bulbous heads who can do advanced physics calculations at 245 MIPS in their wetware and the other end of the spectrum with the small cranium that has trouble turning on a light and votes for George W. Bush because that's what TV told them everyone else is doing.)
Anyway... I guess a big part of the "American way" (these days read that as the way capitlist countries act) is to be lazy. Make millions while you sleep, yadda yadda...
Un-news
This is a troll, and a pathetic attempt at that. You hate linux, you've made that abundantly clear. Sincere my ass.
Next!
Rather, they get modded down because it's basically off-topic.
I can't help thinking that journal entries where he talks about his trolling might have something to do with it. The guy's a bit weird.
You, sir, are the reason I read slashdot with a +6 bonus to flamebait.
What, will it now support them new-fangled horseless carriages?
I know, the joke is that X seems so out of date feature wise in terms of eye-candy cruft, but the average technology level of the 20th century isn't too impressive.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
step 1: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mbt99/Y/ .1 source
step 2: grab the Y
step 3: hack hack hack
Boy, I want your job. If my experience with commercial, proprietary software development has taught me anything, then that politics and lack of interest screw up that just as well, probably more than it happens in FLOSS projects. Idealism is less of a problem, however, but I fail to see how it is a problem for FLOSS either.
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
(Morale of the story: only read /. when drunk, and don't host important projects on sourceforge. At least have decent backups and spare web/CVS space)
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
How about the "screw it all up" is the fact that, I don't know, the core XFree86 development team decided to disband because they were no longer relevant?
Politics--Keith Packard getting fired. Idealism--the consortium of XFree86 and their inability to let progress supercede their committee ideas. Lack of interest--the fact that people are already decided on "successors."
Next.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Just look here or here.
Next.
Someone hasn't been paying attention. This does not mean that Open Source doesn't work, or that the XFree project is in trouble--as a matter of fact, this is an example of how it works and is thriving, even though you don't want it to.
Next.
This happens just as often, if not moreso in commercial products. How many games and applications have been dumped due to overspending, employees leaving due to morale problems, and just plain differing views on how the company should be run by the higher-ups.
This type of problem is NOT limited to OSS, as you'd like people to believe.
Aw crap. I've been metatrolled.
You make some good points that computers are still hard to use by their current nature. However, you're confusing the previous poster with phone support. S/he was working a sales floor, dealing with new users coming in without their computer, and unable to either retain the detailed troubleshooting methods given until they got back to the home/office, or use care when diving into the guts of an OS. The poster TRIED to help, and got his ass FRIED for it by finger pointing customers. The subsequent simplification of the poster's tech support wasn't lazy, it was protecting his job.
Luke, help me take this mask off
It's exactly what the open source community needed.
A dumping ground for ANY works in progress that
can be re-used and a great assist for works that
won't be dumped.
The really neat and useful stuff always seems
to find the time and resources to get developed.
It's the stuff 'just because' that usually gets left
behind.
"Windows 3.1 which is still more than good enough for most schools and small businesses and has no security flaws despite all this time,"
The very idea that 3.1 has no security flaws is
so laughable. The only reason you don't hear about
them is because nobody has targeted it long enough.
The whole security loophole finding community didn't
really evolve until after 95 came out and 95 had so
many exploits and crap in it, who needed to focus on
3.1????
No security flaws LOL.. thanks.. I was having a bummer morning ROTFLMAO!!!
I posted an innocent phrase which turned out to be flamebait. Should I be pissed off or should I celebrate?
I vote for Xouvert
on my Thinkpad 600x using kernel 2.4, the fb works pretty well using the
Neomagic Corporation NM2360 [MagicMedia 256ZX]
but with kernel 2.6, scrolling with the fb is really messed up.
I don't understand why people want to ditch X-Windows. The X-Windows system is a fine window system. It's not slow, it's extendable, it's networkable, and it runs in every Unix system/clone.
The problem lies with the layers above xlib: the toolkits. Actually, not the toolkits themselves, but how they are used. For example, the Linux GUIs suffer from bad fonts and bad font sizes, bad placement of text, bad placement of buttons, too much info on the screen, improper colors, and usability issues like cut-copy-paste etc.
To those that they request a new window system based on accelerated 3d graphics, I have to say this: it does not fit with the Unix mentality. Unix can run in minimal hardware. I can run TWM on a 486 and the machine will just fly. But if a new window system comes along that is based on new 3d accelerators, lots of old systems will be left out...and not forget other unix systems that might not have 3d acceleration at all. And the truly impressive effects that Quartz can achieve are just eye-candy...most professionals will turn them off anyway.
Moreover, that "ATI lags and nVidia is buggy" is their own fault, since they have not done the above, and is really not the fault of X.
So, in short, my blame is sorely misplaced. It should be focused squarely on the 3D card manufacturers and not the specific X server itself.
No hard feelings, right? ^_^;
Good, maybe we'll get something that doesn't suck now.
All these years of people whining how X is no good, chuck it away, (kick, kick, kick the developers while their down), now you're all scared of loosing X
Sorry but it serves you right you rotten mongrel's :-D.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
XFree86 was the Cathedral, now it looks like they are recognizing that the Bazaar model of development may be more applicable to their software.
The more you know, the less you understand.
Sounds like sweet movie.. "X is Loose".
Even trolls need spellcheckers.
Err... I guess even smart asses could use a grammar checker too. ;)
Mandrake = bankrupt
Red Hat = User XP
SuSE = Novell = SCO
X = development disaster
Slackware != user friendly
Debian = Sucks
My friends... Linux IS DEAD!
After reading this, I convinced myself that it's time to start using XP in the home and 2003 Server in the office.
Today, I'll start formating all the HD.
Was nice while it last, but this is a big shit.
Why the hell would they trust any post on slashdot, nevermind the comments thereafter. Read it "News for Nerds", not "News for CIO's in charge of over-funded, under-productive firms" Anyone smarter than the average dog would know to correlate an article before considering it as cannot, especially on a website like slashdot. The articles are A) user submitted, and thus there is an inclination for people to submit articles in such a wording as to spin the matter politcally; and B) it's essentially a collaborative blog - do you really trust anything states on any blog as definitive before it has been properly correlated? Meh.
Doesn't the efficient 3D graphics implementations for XFree86 more or less already bypass X? I mean of course X is involved during initial setup, but you will map part of the graphics hardware memory directly into the clients address space. (Obviously that only works locally, but I don't care that much about performance of remote applications. In most cases network will be the bottleneck for remote applications. As long as it works I don't care if remote X displays require more CPU time).
I'm not saying that you shouldn't reconsider your layers. I don't know exactly how much OpenGL will allow you to do, but if it is a decent interface, implementing an X server on top of it should be possible. Now if that X server could even implement OpenGL and take advantage of the underlying OpenGL, we would have some really interesting stuff. And yes in that case it might even make sense to implement OpenGL on top of the hardware rather than X. However X is more than just putting 2D and 3D graphics on the screen. It also handles multiple clients and windows, which is something I don't think you could do with OpenGL. So while your idea might be interesting, I would like to see a proof of concept before accepting it as a good idea.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
LOL good work /. douche-esque editors.
/. = loves the cock /. editors/moderators are all trolls. Thats the only reasonable conslusion which can be drawn from this. Why else would a massively popular site like /. post utter bullshit? /. users (ie the douches who have replied oin this thread) go do us all a favour and commit suicide. The world doesnt need dumbasses like you polluting the gene pool.
Nice way to totally misrepresent this issue.
Just like every other xfree86 issue recently.
All the xwin content (website, lists, etc) is in the process of migrating to freedesktop.org (the machines live right next to one another), since the xwin.org machine was recently retasked for another project.
It hasn't died or anything, I just haven't gotten around to getting funky with Apache virtual hosting.
Cheers,
Daniel Stone (daniel [at] (fooishbar|xwin|freedesktop) [dawt] org)
Female Prison Rape in NY
There are some kernel trees which are diferents of Linus tree. If Linus become a dictator, other tree will be adopted for the developers.
There is evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker. Think independently.
There is evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker. Think independently.
Cool. It's good to hear xwin.org will carry on.
the negative thinking here. The 'core team' philosophy as a whole was the straw that broke many camels' backs, including freedesktop.org.
The rigid holding of control (as it appeared) by the core team has now been relieved and the actual developers, movers and shakers in the XFree86 project now have less red tape to cut through to make the project what we would all like it to be!