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Y Window System Project Started
cuppm writes "Y, Mark Thomas's final year project for his masters degree, is back in active development (outlined here). Here is the email I received: '...Y development is about to start up again. If you are interested in participating, the website is at: http://www.y-windows.org/. There are links to mailing lists there, and you can download the latest development snapshot, which should compile this time :o). I apologise if I did not respond to your email personally. I was on holiday in Japan when the story broke, and by the time I got back I had over 80 emails about the subject, many of them in depth. If you had specific points that you'd like to raise, I suggest re-raising them on the y-devel mailing list.' So for all those who think it's time for a X replacement, here's your shot. And for those X lovers, use Y's extensibility to make it X compatible." See our previous story for more background.
I was reading an old book on X Windows the other day and the naming came something like this:
Stanford had an operating system called V where they developed a windowing environment called W. MIT needed such a windowing environment for the Athena project and borrowed the W system from Stanford. They made so many improvements over time that it no longer resembled the W system so they named it the X Windows system. Over time 11 versions were developed as more and more Unix companies got interested. But by then MIT had its needs met so an X Consortium was formed that developed the X11 system from revision 1 to 6 reaching the X11R6 release that we have now.
Try reading for once, GPL version 3 is supposed to take into account the incompatiblities with the new Apache License, and xfree86 4.4 new license. Then again it isn't out yet either.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Taken from their site:
About Y
I've got tired with the state of desktop GNU/Linux. Most of the problems that I see with it can be traced back to the underlying window system, X. So I decided to write its successor...
Y was my final year project for my masters degree at the Department of Computing, Imperial College, London. I set out to design and begin the implementation of a modern windowing system. The Y design has the following features:
Network Transparency
Contrary to popular belief, supporting network transparency does not reduce the speed of the window system on local hosts. Further, with Y's in-server knowledge of widgets, applications run over a slow network can appear almost as responsive as local applications (especially when compared to an X application).
Modularity (plug-in style: dynamically unloadable and reloadable)
Unload an old video driver, load a new version. On the fly. No restart in sight.
In-server implementation of widgets
Y specifies a core set of widget classes. Objects of these classes are stored in the server, where they are closer to the user and thus more responsive from the user's point of view.
Consistency and Themeability
Y widgets use the currently loaded theme to render themselves. Since all server widgets are using the same theme, all widgets appear consistent throughout the desktop. Client applications can also use the theme's drawing operations, allowing specialised widgets to make themselves fit in with the look-and-feel.
Support for hardware acceleration
The Y design can make use of hardware acceleration to speed up rendering operations. This can even include the use of 3D-accelerators' textures to draw windows with (someone has already implemented a prototype of this which is very smooth).
Better internationalisation, localisation, and accessiblity
In-server widgets means there can be exactly one current language, one complex input method system for languages that require them, and one set of accessibility features.
Some more information can be found in my individual project report. If you have any more questions, ask them on the appropriate mailing list.
The current implementation is, however, very basic. It needs a lot more work before it will be usable on a day-to-day basis.
This is all taken from the PDF file.
I for one, am all for standardizing a window system. That's not saying that we can't have competiting Window managers, but there is standard of the communication to the windows system. This is (IMO) what is holding back Linux from the desktop.
Every Super Villan uses Linux.
hit #y-windows on irc.freenode.net if you want to chat about Y.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
Hence XRender and the introduction of a new visual type with an alpha channel done by FreeDesktop.org, both done in a non-crufty way, yet within the confines of the existing X protocol.
DNA just wants to be free...