Slashdot Mirror
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".
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!
I think the parent wanted to point out that the window-managers are not part of the X-server.
The window-managers are apps running on the X-server.
Although. I cannot read anybodys minds =)
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
This has nothing to do with X and has everything to do with a long standing bug in Mozilla, which fails to use the X clipboard correctly. Mozilla on X has always been secondary to Mozilla on Windows/GDI, and unfortunately it shows here badly.
Here is the buglink: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56219, you'll need to copy/paste to stop bugzilla being Slashdotted (don't bother if you aren't interested or able to understand the technical details).
Basically Mozilla does not properly support the ICCCM protocols and as is often the way with Mozilla the bug has been blocking on one or two overworked people for a very long time.
An object lesson in why inventing your own toolkit is a silly idea, IMHO....
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
Ok, responding to my own post, X already handles non-text items in the clipboard, which would presumably be available to all remote clients. The problem is that KDE/Gnome apparently do not use these facilities.
The link I found in a post below is here