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X.org and XFree86 Reform
albepetr writes "NewsForge is reporting about a press conference held today at LinuxWorld 2004 in New York, where some members of the X Consortium, XFree86, and freedesktop.org announced that X.org and XFree86 have merged. They claim that the reformed group will be working together to bring "not just more eye candy but new functionality" to the X Window Manager for Linux and Unix." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN. Update: 01/23 18:06 GMT by M : XFree86.org denies the story. I think a more accurate description of the event might be something like, "XFree86 core developers leave XFree86, join X.org, remaining people of XFree86 are peeved".
give credit to -- individual contributors rather than continue to view X development primarily as a corporate activity.
I like this alot. Functionality to the desktop is something that Unix and Linux both need to see loads of improvement on to help spread it to a larger market. I also like to see the OpenSource community coming together and joining into larger projects that can do more, rather than see hundreds of smaller projects all going in the same direction seperately. Bringing lots of brain power together gets stuff done.
Hopefully, they will work out a SINGLE standard for getting copy/cut and paste working correctly.
I can't tell you how infuriating it is when you go to copy a page of text from, say, openoffice.org, and paste it into a webform in Mozilla - only to find that perhaps the first half a paragraph out of 6 made it over.
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
It's nice. Now we need the big desktop systems to agree on common ground, make a "base" system that they can develop each their own systems on ;)
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
What the fuck is the "X Window Manager"?
I'm seriously confused now.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I hope this means we're gotting one GOOD X server, instead of one that has the drivers but not the features, and one that has the features but not the drivers.
I still believe the Right Thing is to have an efficient system for local display, and a widget-based protocol (a la PicoGUI) for remote display, though.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
It's called "X Window System" and not "X Window Manager".
It is so mostly because it is not a window manager.
Real life is overrated.
Ok, how many slashdot stories do we need where half the people support X and half the people want something new, or a re-write. This is what it comes down to. X has a lot of great features. X forwarding over ssh being the premier reason I use X. It's probably a feature I couldn't live without. But if linux wants to transition to being a desktop OS for everybody X wont cut it. It's just too big, slow, and full of features desktop users don't need. Directfb is more like what desktop users need, but not quite. That's all there is to it. Linux is about choice, and right now X is the only truly reliable choice for any sort of gui stuffs. We need a real alternative to X for those who don't need the features.
However, as a user of X, I think it's great these sites are joining forces. OSS is about collaboration, and the more they work together the better the end result will be. And if everyone works together they will follow the same standards like the ones from freedesktop.org programs will be much nicer. gaim easily going into the system tray which I put in my xfce4 taskbar is an example of freedesktop.org standards at work. If everyone followed them, imagine what we could do.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
From the article
"...the reformed group is working together to bring "not just more eye candy but new functionality" to the X Window Manager for Linux and Unix."
Umm, they mean X Server don't they, or is there suppossed to be some sort of official window manager now? That would be very bad news in my opinion - Linux benefits greatly from the diversity of GUIs that exist for it.
Please, let's get off this dead horse.
Cut'n'paste works on X's level.
The problem is (or probably: was) not with X, but with Gnome and/or KDE.
Real life is overrated.
A real welcome development.
But I'm curious where Keith Packard stands relative to all of this; he has talent to contribute substantially to an improved X and has had enough problems with the earlier XFree86 development that he thought a fork was justified.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Now would be the time to strike on a new name change for the system. Since we have two X groups joining and it a new X orginization. I suggest they rename it to "XXX Windows System". I would bet they would see there number of downloads skyrocket.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
One thing that always annoys me with programming for linux and unix is that include files are always in a different spot. I've spent days hunting for something(yes I know about whereis and assorted utils) only to find out it's name had an x infront of it, whereas on the other system it didn't or it was in another directory. Something stupid like /etc/bin/include/graphics/opengl.
Or one system uses opengl and the other mesa for example, and then your completely lost. The arguement that if you new the systems you were coding for better you would be fine, is ignorant as most people use standard libraries like opengl, sockets.h etc, because they aren't supposed to need to know much about the other os for it to work. Anyways, if the X guys standardize things like the directory structure, and procedure interfaces(although I think there are standards for these) it will make things much easier for us linux at home, unix at work guys.
...hands down.
The problem is (or probably: was) not with X, but with Gnome and/or KDE
Indeed.
X has the most elegant cut-and-paste scheme I've ever seen, certainly vastly superior to Mac OS X and Windows.
Select with the left button pressed, and click with the middle button in the target window to paste. No Apple-C or control-V crap, no need to press any key of any kind. Click-select, click, and you're done.
Once you get used to it, you won't be able to stand the way Mac OS X and Windows handle cut-and-paste.
Gnome and KDE made the extremely boneheaded decision to mimic Windows even when it really doesn't make sense; when the X way of doing things is vastly better. Click to focus as a default? Ugh! Windows-style cut-and-paste? An affront to humankind.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Linux needs to fix cut and paste
So, how do the new developments at freedesktop.org like XCB/XCL fit into this new picture? I'm hoping the exciting new code can be eventually rolled in more easily now?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
XFree86 should be for x86 versions of X, or X thats generally run on x86-based OSes shouldnt it? Ideally it should be named XFree which will mean a certain implementation of X, yet architecture-free. XFree86 is already used on almost as many architectures as NetBSD supports.
And if x.org is uniting with XFree86, maybe we can keep it simple and just call it X. I know there are other implementations of X, but since x.org owns the copyright, might as well keep the name simple.
At the least, I would lose the '86'.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I just hope that with this new, more optimitic outlook, more developers will come on board and contribute new and refreshing ideas to the development of X.
The unfortunate thing with X is that it is so important to *NIX and yet it receives less attention than the kernel. Sure, X11 isn't sexy but it a very important component none the less.
What I hope by the end of this year is a strong cohesive X server development team/community with good links to IHVs and an active programme in place to encourage people with new and exciting ideas to come forward and discuss them.
What I would also like to see is a situation where the X specification becomes more than just what we see today. We need an encompassing standard which not only includes what we have today but flexible enough to adapt to new extensions as they arise.
Along with these extensions, the toolkit communities need to work closer together with X and each other and work towards an X11/Consortium backed HIG of which all toolkits conform to. What I am trying to get at is this, different tool kits are great, each community can concerntrate on developing the strengths of that particular toolkit, however, for this choice on one hand and the adoption of Linux on the other hand to continue, there needs to be a standard set down. Once that standard is set down and the the two, X + toolkits, work closer together and allow better interoperability, the net result should be applications which look consistant no matter what toolkit is used.
CNN has a story today in which various people purport that Linux isn't ready for desktop prime time but has a window (rimshot) of opportunity to establish itself therein before the release of Longhorn in 2006.
Might this be a step in the right direction? Your fabled bluehaired grandmother doesn't want to choose between different window managers, etc. Hell, she doesn't know what a window manager is and doesn't want to know. Try to explain various incarnations of X to her and watch granny sizzle.
It will mean nothing for them. All this is is a consolidation of duplicate functions in administration of the projects, and maybe not even that.
KDE and GNOME are totally insulated from the poitics and even a lot of tht technical issues surrounding XFree86. X11 and the projects that run under it are very different beasts.
Now if users migrated from X11 and started using display projects like Fresco, Y, or even FrameBuffer, the KDE and GNOME teams would have to write a air amount of new 'connector' code and rework some libraries.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
"If you want copy and paste, write a deamon to manage it"
...), preferably doing it the select and paste way as well as the keyboard way (which could add support for named buffers). U am not writing this, though, because it would merely add yet another standard, and besides, I don't care enough. It works for me as it is now.
I agree with that stance, though. The problem is not that there is no support, it's that there is too much support. KDE and GNOME do it differently. Some applications do it differently yet. If I select text in Mozilla and press Ctl+C, it goes to a different buffer than just selecting it. Etc...
My solution would be a module (lkm, library, daemon, I don't care) that handles it for all apps (be they console, GTK,
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
"If you want copy and paste, write a deamon to manage it"
I've been wondering for a long time why this hasn't happened already. How on earth can it be hard to come up with a daemon that can recieve, store and reguritate small blobs of text or binary data?!?
Best of all, it wouldn't depend on which gui you were using. It could work with all of them. It wouldn't depend on any gui being present all.
With a standard clipboard service/daemon, you could do stuff like cut in mozilla or a KDE app, and paste in commandline vi/emacs or reboot and paste into a gnome app.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I am *so* tired of being say that X is slow. I use X everyday, at work and at home, and never, ever has it been slow. There are some *applications* that are slow, most notable among them OpenOffice running on a Pentium 400Mhz machine, but on my 1Ghz+ machines it's quite nice.
The X Server has never been slow for me, and I really wonder where the myth that running X is slow. I have plenty of apps that run rather speedily on my X boxes that take longer on faster Win32 based machines. (Firebird comes to mind.) And just for the fun of it, I use a PyQT text editor that I wrote to teach myself PyQT -- it's interpreted, gui-based text editor -- and it launches and displayed in under a second on this Pentium 400Mhz machine.
No, X is not slow. The apps are.
It is absolutely clear why the XFree86 team-members joined the X-Consortium:
They wanted this cool x.org mail-adress
Dammit! Why can't the browser just be integrated into the OS?
*ducks*
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
"the market has chosen it" is and always will be a bullshit statement.
X has both, and it has always had both. They're not "incompatible". Middle click inserts the primary selection, while application can access the clipboard buffer provided by X, for years and years long before KDE and GNOME with things like meny options or keyboard shortcuts. The GUIs use C-c, C-x and C-v just like Windows. (In which language does paste begin with v?)
That you can choose to use the clipboard buffer does not mean that we lazy geeks should be hindered from using the middle-click method. Neither is in the way of the other and they never were (except that for a while one of the DEs had a wrong implementation that used the primary selection buffer for C-c/C-x. This was dealt with accordingly - as a bug).
JWZ explains it nicely.
Not really.
I seriously doubt that X.org, the new face of the former X Consortium (members like HP, IBM, Sun, XFree86), has merged with XFree86. They have two totally different goals. The goal of X.org is to promote a single X (currently 11R6) standard between different vendors and implementors. XFree86 was and is a member of X Consortium/X.org, and is a specific (Open Source) implementation of the X standard.
The rest of it is too confused for me to make any real sense out of. I suspect that there is some good vibes between members of X.org, freedesktop.org, and hopefully XFree86 - which is a good thing. Key developers of XFree86 (e.g. David Dawes and Egbert Eich) and X.org (Alan Coopersmith) now seem eager to move forward and work together on making better software. Getting people all on the same page and working together is a lot of work, because of different interests and goals, but I think that XFree86 will see 2004 as a busy year with lots of improvements.
I really hope that freedesktop does not widely diverge from XFree86, let it be a test bed sure, but not a competing product.
Cut-n-paste works under X, but I hate that Move-n-replace is ugly.
Windows:
1) Highlight new text
2) Ctl-x
3) Highlight text-to-be-replaced
4) Ctl-v
X:
1) Highlight text-to-be-replaced
2) Delete text-to-be-replaced
3) Highlight new text
4) Delete new text
5) Paste new text
I'd like to see X do something like this:
1) Highlight new text with left button
2) Keep holding left button and press right button to cut to clipboard
3) Highlight text-to-be-replaced with left button
4) Keep holding left button and press middle button to copy from clipboard
This wouldn't work for Left+Right=Middle, but Ctl-x|c|v would work for those people.
What do you think? I find move-n-replace to be very handy for text editing.
-l
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Repeat: removing the networking code would not make X any faster.
So, given that including the gee-whiz features that a lot of us require in our daily usage has absolutely penalty for "average joe's grandma", why would you want to remove it? That's like saying that the average user won't use sed, so RedHat should remove it to make Linux faster.
[1] Webster: "uninstructed or uninformed". I don't know of a "nice" substitute, that is, one without the negative connotations. Don't infer malice. :-)
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
X is not slow by design. Look at SGI machines, they all run X. Even the really old 30Mhz ones will provide a nice snappy GUI experience and they were made in 91! The linux implementation needs further refinement which is some of what this project looks to provide (finally).
As far as the eye-candy goes, you are right for many casual/home users. With regard to enterprise computing you are dead wrong. People are supposed to be working with their machines. The less that gets in the way of that, the better.
Do we need the work? For sure. Is any of this stuff work replacing X. Not a bloody chance. X plays hard in the enterprise computing space, saving money & time through central administration and effective use of avaliable computing resources. Buffers simply cannot compare.
Network transparancy was wonderful and innovative 20 years ago. Just think, networks were young then and they still bothered to build it. Today, we have networks everywhere, and people call for the removal of the network display feature? WTF! Now is the time to be pushing it because the networks/ OS / hardware are all dirt cheap!
The only reason people say this sort of thing is because of the PC mindset.
X is great today, and it is going to continue to get better. Most of the old slashdot responses are dead on in that regard. Will we get the eye-candy nirvana you claim other systems have?
Given the excellent response qualities of my SGI, running X, I would say it is only a matter of time for Linux...
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