Fedora Prepares For Xorg Instead of XFree86

ZuperDee writes "I noticed in the development branch of Fedora today that they appear to be in the process of creating new xorg RPMs, and from the looks of the changelogs in those RPMs, it looks like their ultimate plan is to switch from XFree86 to the XOrg Foundation's implementation of X11. Anyone else here think this could signal the beginning of a new trend in Linux distributions, and that XOrg could end up becoming the new de-facto X11 implementation?" (See this earlier story,too.)

Comments

De Facto Standards

[tomhudson]

It's just become another standard - not the de facto one. De facto implies that it is, in fact, the standard, as opposed to, say, de jure, which is a legal standard (cf. "laws more honoured in the breach").

Fedora switching just means we have more choice. This is a good thing, just like KDE vs. Gnome is a good thing.

Most people will settle for whatever comes with their distro, so maybe this will give an impetus for the X group to clean up the licensing issue :-)

If it's compatible, they will use it ...

[molarmass192]

XOrg could end up becoming the new de-facto X11 implementation

It's a little early to make that kind of prediction. However, the key is compatibility. If XORG maintains full compatibility such that it's still X11 and we can just a recompile and go on our merry way, then anything is possible. Personally, I don't think people care which code base their X server uses so long as it's an X11 server. Reality is that the XF86 group will wake up an smell the coffee sooner rather than later, they're expendable, they just don't know it yet.

Re:drivers

[RLiegh]

I don't see why. Isn't it possible to find out what hooks they have and then port the old XFree86 code over? Or would the DMCA prevent us from finding out what hooks are called?

Re:drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this thread proves that freedesktop.org need to hire a marketing director.

Re:drivers

[be-fan]

I think they need to come up with a name for their damn X server. Up until now, calling it the FD.O X server was okay, cuz there was only one X server on freedesktop.org. Now there are two, and all hell has broken loose. It doesn't help that the new X server is called the X.org server, when there is already another X.org server (the X11R6.6 reference implementation).

Would NVidia follow RedHat or XFree86.

[ron_ivi]

If RedHat switched, I think a better question is will NVidia keep supporting the XFree86 version?

I think they'll follow whoever the biggest commercial Linux distros, and today that means RedHat and Novell/SuSE.

Why support XFree86 if the big distros are dropping it?

A good explanation

[eean]

I good explanation for it that I read at osnews.com was that the XFree86 and the Distros (commercial and community alike) started to increasingly have differences in priorities and culture. The license change was a like message from XFree86 to the distros that they didn't care one way or another for their support. The distros response is logical. Additionally while most of the distros have pleny of software incompatible with the GPL, it is not ideal to have something as central to an operating system as the X server to be GPL-incompatible.

too bad we're talking about X and not OSX

[dankelley]

As a long-time unix/linux user and sometime x11 developer, and as somebody who has switched to Apple's OSX (for reasons unrelated to this thread), I wish open-source desktops would stop weilding x11 to imitate/extend the mswindows interface, and instead imitate/extend the OSX interface.

For the user, OSX it is a dream. But for developers, it's a wet dream. Creating slick interfaces is simple, the PDF-inspired graphical model is a breath of fresh air, and the interfaces inherit impressive functionality automatically. Because its code-development process leverages effort powerfully, perhaps more so than for the comparable GNOME/KDE tools, I think OSX offers good potential for the open-source movement, given well-fashioned attitudes and licenses.

I make these remarks with some trepidation, since I think the fragmentation across GNOME and KDE dilutes developer momentum. Also, I make these remarks to evoke discussion by those more technically-aware than myself.

Simplistic Explanation

[RichiP]

Please refrain from using overly simplistic arguments to support your cause. In my opinion, it wasn't JUST the license change that lead to this seemingly spiralling downfall, but the head developers of XFree86 itself (David Dawes, to be specific).

I've read and re-read various threads on the XFree86 mailing list (please look it up in archives and past posts on /.) and the man strikes me as positively arrogant, with no respect for the opinions of others (unless he was actually majorly outnumbered, and sometimes not even then). He has repeatedly ignored input from other people including his own co-developers and loves to portray himself as the righteous leader. His posts are nothing short of antagonistic and he has very selective memory.

Would that be sufficient reason for a project to fail? In this case, I would say so. He insists on having and keeping all control of the project to himself. If he had good sense, that wouldn't be a problem, but he's already shown that all he's interested in is recognition and retaining control over the project (rather than the project's welfare).

Past posts have shown that several suggestions and patches had been ignored which led to the project's stagnation. You may argue that the project is successful and works even now, but the point is it could have been so much better under a different type of leadership.

The recent license change is but one manifestation of how callous the head developers are.

Re:Y-Windows

[TopherC]

As long as people are running with X11R6 servers, they will want new apps compiled against Y-windows or whatever to run. Does the planned X11R6 compatability layer work both ways?

I think the optional extensions are great -- this allows for multiple implementations of X without an unbearable burden of supporting *everything*. If the process of natural selection is going to work, you want a protocol that's not overly demanding.

By separating the widgets and toolkits from the X server, you again reduce complexity and allow for multiple implementations at these different layers. I guess the widgets and themes could somehow be linked into the X server, but now I'm rapidly entering the realm of speculation.

I keep hearing the argument that X is bad because it's old. Unix is even older, and look what happened with it! I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to hear about the details. Is it necessarily true that the entire protocol is insufficient and cannot be satisfactorily extended? Why not?

I guess efficiency could be the main issue. In part it's a matter of how the clients are designed. I've seen some relatively simple (just stock widgets) Java programs that, with Sun's VM, absolutely crawl over a 10 MBit connection. I mean that it takes half a minute to redraw a quarter of a window or pop up a menu. Compression seems not to help much because it's all limited by latency. (I can imagine the communique: "Can I draw this pixel here?" "What color?" "Red." "Okay." "You sure?" "pretty sure." ...) On the other hand, I've seen glitzier programs (emacs, even Mozilla) perform just fine through the same network. But I can see room for improvement. VNC seems to be faster in some ways. And Microsoft has some technology that does a similar thing fairly quickly, but that's relying on a higher-level protocol passing Windows API calls or something. So that's what you mean about integrating the widgets and toolkits somehow.