X.Org Foundation Releases X11R6.7 X Window System

Several folks submitted the press release announcing the formation of the X.Org Foundation and the release of X11R6.7 of the X Window System. The XOrg Foundation is the successor to the X Consortium, formed by many of the most notworthy participants in the XFree86 Project. This code release is a tree forked from the last XFree86 release not troubled by that pesky license change. Since Mandrake, Gentoo, OpenBSD, and Debian have already rejected the new XFree86 license, this new code tree will likely become the default X11 for most Linux users. I've attached the press release that explains more details about the code release, as well as the X.Org foundation itself. XOrg Foundation writes "X.Org Foundation Announces Formation and First Release

The new X.Org Foundation will help drive the X Window System to support
state-of-the-art desktop technologies

San Francisco, CA., April 6, 2004 - X.Org Foundation today announces their first release of the X Window System since the formation of the Foundation in January of this year. The new X.Org release, called X Window System Version 11 Release 6.7 (X11R6.7), builds on the work of the X.Org X11R6.6 and XFree86TM Project Inc. V4.4RC2 releases to combine many of the latest developments from a large number of the participants and companies working with the X Window community. The X Window System X11R6.7 release can be found at http://www.x.org/.

We have made great progress in creating a framework upon which further development of the X Window System can be based, agreed the Interim Board of the Foundation. We expect to provide the desktop community with at least two more releases of the X Window System before the end of this year to encompass all of the new technologies and ideas that we are developing.

This release marks the return to community development of the X Window System under governance open to all contributors for the first time since the founding of the X Consortium in 1988, said Jim Gettys, co-founder of the X Window System, Interim X.Org Foundation board member and member of the research staff of HP Labs.

We welcome the formation of the X.Org Foundation and are looking forward to support this group to bring the work on the X Window System to a new technological level, said Egbert Eich, X Window System developer at Novell's SUSE LINUX business unit.

Matthias Ettrich, Director of Software Development at Trolltech, said As a multi-platform GUI toolkit vendor, we appreciate the value of a powerful underlying windowing system, and as such, we are excited about the direction X.Org is heading. We are very much looking forward to supporting new technologies around X, and we will do our share to make the advances of the platform accessible to software developers.

Being an underlying technology to the most popular desktops on all GNU Systems, in particular GNOME and KDE, the X Window System is indeed an essential part of most Free Software operating systems, said Georg C.F. Greve, president of the FSF Europe. It helps many users to access and enjoy the freedom of Free Software. We are glad that X.Org will from now on watch over this enabling technology.

Red Hat is pleased to be working with the new X.Org Foundation to build a vibrant open source community around X Window System innovation. Look for X11R6.7 in the upcoming Fedora Core 2 and future Red Hat Enterprise Linux products, said Havoc Pennington, desktop development manager at Red Hat.

As one of the largest GNU/Linux distribution projects in the world, the Debian Project is delighted to see that freedom and diversity are alive and well in the X technology sector. We're also delighted that the X.Org Foundation is dedicated to retaining the licensing model that has made the X Window System an enduring success, said Branden Robinson of the Debian GNU/Linux Project. Like us, the X.Org Foundation is a member-driven organization devoted to Free Software. We cannot help but be enthusiastic about them and the work they're doing for the X Window System and Free Software communities alike.

An open source project works best with a large community of active contributors. OSI welcomes the return of X to open source development by the entire community. I'm looking forward to contributing myself, said Russell Nelson, Vice-President of the Open Source Initiative.

Cygwin/X is benefiting heavily from the community-building spirit of the X.Org Foundation and their open development environment. We are pleased to be basing our releases on the good work of the X.Org Foundation, said Harold L Hunt II of the Cygwin/X project.

The XonX Project is very pleased that the X.Org Foundation has been eager to support Darwin and Mac OS X. X11R6.7 adds new features that will be appreciated by many Mac OS X users, said Torrey Lyons, XonX Project Founder.

Membership of the X.Org Foundation is free to all participants. Applications for membership are now being accepted, and active participants in the further development of the X Window System are invited to visit: http://www.x.org/XOrg_Foundation_Membership.html to complete a membership application. Participation in the Foundations Sponsor Group is also available to those who wish to financially support the activities The X.Org Foundation. Current Sponsors include Hewlett Packard, IBM, and SUN Microsystems.

About The Foundation Release
X11R6.7 is the first official X.Org Foundation release. It is the successor release to X11R6.6 from X.Org. To assure consistency with industry and community requirements and practices, it was developed from the X.Org X11R6.6 code base and the XFree86 V4.4RC2 code base, with the addition of bug fixes and enhancements. These enhancements include: new IPv6 functionality, Freetype V2.1.7, fontconfig V2.2.2, Xft V2.1.6, Xcursor V1.1.2, and Xrender V0.8.4, with corresponding changes in documentation and notices. Additional source and binary releases are anticipated during 2004.

About The X Window System
The X Window System provides the only common networked windowing environment bridging the heterogeneous platforms in today's computing. The X Window System is one of the most successful open-source, collaborative technologies developed to date and is the standard graphical window system for the Linux and UNIX operating systems. The inherent independence of the X Window System from the operating system, the network and the hardware, as well as its successful interoperability, have made it widely available and deployed with more than 30 million users worldwide. All major hardware vendors support the X Window System and many third parties provide technologies for integrating X Window System applications into the networked computer or personal computer environments including Microsoft Windows, UNIX, Linux and Mac OS X. Further, thousands of software developers provide X Window System applications, and with the continued growth of Linux and the emergence of Mac OS X, the number of users is growing rapidly.

About X.Org Foundation
X.Org Foundation L.L.C. is a recently formed Delaware company organized to operate as a scientific charity under IRS code 501(c)(3), chartered to develop and execute effective strategies that provide worldwide stewardship of the X Window System technology and standards. The group is currently managed by an Interim Board of Directors that includes: Stuart Anderson (Free Standards Group), Egbert Eich (SUSE), Jim Gettys (HP), Georg Greve (Free Software Foundation Europe), Stuart Kreitman (SUN Microsystems), Kevin Martin (Red Hat), Jim McQuillan (Linux Terminal Server Project), Leon Shiman (Shiman Associates) and Jeremy White (Code Weavers). The website for the X.Org Foundation can be found at http://www.x.org/.

Note to editors: UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries. LINUX is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. XFree86 is a trademark of The XFree86 Project, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mac OS is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. All other company names are trademarks of the registered owners.
$"

Comments

They're not worthy...

[checkitout]

formed by many of the most notworthy participants

Surely they must be worthy of something...

Ugh

[TheRealMindChild]

I just really hope no distro's of mine get overzelous and change /usr/X11R6 to /usr/X11R6.7

Re:Ugh

[GigsVT]

Why? Did you think they'd never come out with a new version of X?

It's stilly to rely on a directory named for a version of a program unless you want to update your software every time a new version comes out.

Re:Ugh

[bn557]

or unless you want to have multiple versions of such a program installed.... think gcc 2.9 vs gcc 3.3. Then you always just keep a symlink from somewhere in the path to the one you want.

so have a /etc/X11 link to /etc/X11R6.7 and an /etc/X11R6 folder laying around for fun.

Ah..

[Rhesus Piece]

Ah, I love the smell of forks in the morning. Hurrah for vitality.

whats new - the releasenotes :-)

[aeneas]

http://freedesktop.org/~xorg/X11R6.7.0/doc/RELNOTE S3.html

Re:Y11 Release 6.7

[joib]

Umm, why? In the brave new world of Unicode, there are lots of symbols to choose from, albeit unpronouncable.

A bit like Prince, you know?

Re:Y11 Release 6.7

[squiggleslash]

Why? I personally look forward to being able to run [ on my laptop...

"...likely become the default X11 for most users"

[zz99]

I for one greet our new windowing system overlords!

Re:Y11 Release 6.7

[rmolehusband]

Well I hear folks asking "Y Windows?" all the time so it must be getting popular.

So what's left for XFree86?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they just essentially commit suicide? Is anyone still sticking with them?

Re:So what's left for XFree86?

[lurwas]

Well, it will no longer be called X in short for most distributions. It's no longer actually Free, so 86?

Re:So what's left for XFree86?

[IamTheRealMike]

From the XFree86 website:

After tremendous testing and community feedback, the 4.4.0 Release is now available for twenty (yep that's the number 20!) popular platforms. Distros that are carrying it in with the license change integrated into their distribution are: NetBSD, Slackware Linux, Conectiva, and others. See our distro support page for the full breakout.

They also have an "interview" with David Dawes about the license change.

alphablending etc.

[CoolMoDee]

now that the xfree86 server is effectively forked, is there a chance of getting true alphablending and shadows?

Re:alphablending etc.

[be-fan]

That's in the works in the freedesktop.org X server, which is currently in development (but features like alpha-blending and shadows already work if you're interested in checking the source out of CVS). The X.org server is the 'stable' continuation of the XFree86 codebase.

NVidia

[TheAcousticMotrbiker]

The crucial thing (for me at least) is wether or not the NVidia binary drivers will work with this new version.

Judging form the fact that's forked of XF4.4rc2 it should , but I'd like to get confirmation .

Re:NVidia

[Lispy]

Rest assured, they do. I run the X.org server already, since its part of Dropline Gnome 2.6 testing. I only had to rerun the installer. No difference recognized so far...

I wish they would join wih the freedesktop.org X-server folks and bring true alpha to the desktop before redmond does... ;-)

cu,
Lispy

Re:NVidia

[Des Herriott]

Yep, I can confirm that 1.0-5336 works just fine on FC2 test2. It may be necessary to build a custom kernel, though. A couple of new 2.6.4 (I think .4) parameters cause a lockup with these drivers; you need to ensure that CONFIG_4KSTACKS and CONFIG_REGPARM are not set. This bit me with the 2.6.4-1.300 kernel.

To build a custom kernel on Fedora: install the kernel-sources package, create your .config (you can copy and modify an existing config from /usr/src/linux/configs), and type "make rpm". Let it build, and your custom kernel RPM will turn up in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS. Install that, check your Grub or LILO settings & reboot.

Now waiting for the trolls to come boiling out of their caves, holding this up as a shining example of why Linux will never make it on the desktop. To forestall them: 1) this is a test release, and 2) this is the risk you take with binary drivers. I expect FC2 final will have worked around the problem (and hopefully a newer release from Nvidia will fix it).

I didn't see it in the changelog...

[karmaflux]

Does anyone know if the line

Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

is included by fucking default in xorg.conf yet?

Re:Licenses.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why so many people think that GPL incompatible == not free? How is current XFree86 license non-free? Yeah, I know it's not about free-as-in-beer, but how isn't XFree free-as-in-speech?

This was discussed ad nauseum in the previous Slashdot articles about this, such as the one linked to in the story, above.

But to spoonfeed you the gist of it, since you're not going to get off your duff and read the previous discussion: it's not that it's not a free license. It's the practical ramifications of being incompatible with the GPL that are the issue. It's the opinion of some lawyers and legal-types that the GPL incompatibility means trouble for software that's built upon the XF86 framework and therefore must be consistent with the terms of the XF86 license. To build GNOME, KDE, etc. against XF86, and then release them under the GPL, would violate the terms of the XF86 license, since the GPL permits things that the XF86 license does not.

For more, see the previous stories.

Re:new X with gentoo

[Ender Ryan]

It shouldn't be a pain at all, as portage will handle all dependencies, just as always. And since the use flags for X is simply 'X', most people should have to change anything.

And since the "new" X is just a fork of the last "Free" XFree86, it should be no different than previous XFree86 upgrades.

That's my understanding, FWIW.

Re:But...

[mark_lybarger]

no. XFree86 is now dying. They've started their own obituary with the abrupt and incompatible licenses changes. Xorg lives on.

Re:Licenses.

[dinivin]

Except that the XFree86 libraries, you know those things that actually links to GNOME and KDE, aren't under a new license.

Dinivin

David Dawes?

[Featureless]

Would someone in the know please, for the benefit of the crowd, enlighten us as to whether this entire exercise was, as much as anything else, to rid the mainstream "free software X" development of David Dawes?

From reading the coverage on slashdot so far and following the source material (including specific comments by major players that name his name), that's kind of the sense I get.

Of course, the process created more openness - you can say the openness is the primary reason, but again, from following the list archives, I got the sense he was a big part of why it wasn't so open in the first place...

Re:David Dawes?

[bfree]

I have also read extensively about this problem for quite a while (the problems with XFree86 have been around quite a while, look back at Cygwin's problems and the similar problems that afflicted ati, basically patches were rotting). Whether or not David Dawes was a part of why it wasn't so open is hard to say, you have to remember he is the voice of the XFree86 board, and as such he speaks for them, not himself. XFree86 was the de facto default and remained in that position for a long time even while it was clear that it's development model no longer fitted in with everything else. The fact that they weren't dropped until they then decided to change some licenses to give themselves more credit is a sign of the reluctance to fork, but I presonally believe (and said from the outset) a fork was the right thing here unless XFree86 backed down, the key is just making sure you have enough bodies along with you (I'd have liked to see Branden from Debian on the interim board, this is a time when licenses are important and there's a man who knows them and X very well, I'd have liked to see more non-commercial people full stop actually). The question now is when and if the two trees will be incompatible vis-a-vis binary drivers, and then which versions Nvidia and Ati will support?

Con job?

[Queuetue]

I'm not saying *I* feel this way, but I was wondering what people think about David Dawes' statement to the effect that the big Linux Vendors were already planning to jump to X.org, because the collection of vendors can push it in directions that make the companies happier. He hints that they used the license issue as an excuse to wag the dog, and we users have been duped.

Re:Con job?

[BJH]

Yeah, that's obviously the reason why Debian was so quick to jump to X.org - cause they want to make their corporate masters happy.

</sarcasm>

The question is

[Chuck Chunder]

Will those distros continue to go with XFree86 now that the X.Org Foundation is not just talking about it but is also actually delivering a forward moving, credible alternative?

Re:Politics!

[be-fan]

I've got no clue what the new Xfree license entails...
And it really shows in your post!

But nonetheless, I think the community is overreacting.
Right. Because RedHat and Debian are *such* reactionary GPL-fundamentalists organization.

(yeah, there are forks, but they haven't been around long enough to prove their stability or their worth).
You do realize that X.org is the maintainer of the reference X11R6.x codebase, and that X11R6.7 is a continuation of XFree86 4.4-RC2, which is a derivative of that reference codebase?

If we can create a modern standardized windowing protocol (which is what X11 essentially is, only broken and outdated),
What is broken and outdated about the X11 protocol? Taking into account widely-supported extensions like RENDER, the X11 protocol is surprisingly Good. There are warts, to be sure (the color model, for example), but every long-lived system has those.

we can maxamize portability between platforms
Eh? X11 is the most portable windowing system in existance!

and radically simplify software development.
So X12 will be written in Lisp :) I'd go jump on that bandwagon!

Even Microsoft would jump on the bandwagon.
Have you lost *complete* touch with reality???

and seek to accomplish far too much and form their own proprietary standards.
What proprietory standards???? Do you have the slightest idea what you're talking about?

We need a completely new protocol so that everyone can work together and maintain compatibility.
We need to ditch a widely-supported, well-tested, mature, easily-extensible, and highly compatible protocol, and create a new, untested, immature, and unsupported one, in order to maintain compatibility?

Re:Politics!

[Rich]

Regarding KDE, we actually do interact directly with X11 as well as with X directly in a number of places. These include the window manager, startup notification, the system tray, window reparenting for Java support, the list goes on. Basically Qt provides support for things that can be done in a platform indepedent way, and we provide the rest in kdelibs.

X12 already exists...

[gosand]

Are you aware that there is already a very well established protocol called X12? I guess they'd have to pick another name for it, if they even did it for some reason.

Re:Licenses.

[kbmccarty]

Yeah, but Debian is no longer supporting nonfree software with their next (sarge) release. Doesn't that put XFree86 back on the Outs with Debian?

Sorry, but your first sentence is completely wrong. The amendment to remove support for non-free in Debian didn't even get a majority, let alone the 3:1 majority it would have required to win. See these links: Debian Planet, official Debian vote results.

It is true that no one on Debian's X Strike Force has intentions to package any of the XFree86 releases that the new license is applied to. But since Debian is an entirely volunteer project, conceivably a developer who really wanted to embark on this thankless task could do so, although the packages would probably have to go into non-free.

sigh, so much for moderating this discussion...

Re:XFree86

[bfree]

If XFree86 had been doing an exemplary job everyone would be using 4.4 with the new license and still be talking to XFree86 about it, trying to come up with a solution. Instead XFree86 had annoyed lots of developers who were working on XFree86 but outside the organisation, for example cygwin who could not get XFree86 to incorporate cygwin specific patches in any sort of reasonable manner as they would generally sit around for months before anything happened if anything did. The XFree86 development structure just doesn't seem right anymore, hence when they tried to ram a change down everyones throats without any meaningful discussion people quickly lost interest in them started building a new development model. I think it was more the prinicple of telling XFree86 finally that they can't just do whatever the hell they like and expect everyone to put up with it, that's a fact of FOSS code, your only a good fork away from death so you don't f about and encourage people to try and take your users.

Re:XFree86

[kbmccarty]

So the entire argument is about being forced to give credit where credit is due?

Only if you oversimplify. Here's an executive summary that I hope isn't oversimplified:

• XFree86 new license requires that people who redistribute modified versions of XFree86 include specified people in the credits of their programs or documentation.
• GPL does not require that.
• GPL specifically says that it is NOT COMPATIBLE with licenses that put restrictions on the user that the GPL does not.
• GPL applies to an entire work, e.g. a GNOME or KDE program plus all the libraries it's linked against.
• Therefore, distributions have NO LEGAL RIGHT to distribute GPL-licensed programs linked against X libraries when the libraries are licensed under the new XFree86 license.

There is nothing morally wrong with the new XFree86 license, and it is probably even "free software" or "open source" by most definitions. The problem is that it is NOT COMPATIBLE with the majority of existing free software. If the situation were reversed, most free software were licensed under what we call the new XFree86 license, and suddenly XFree86 wanted to relicense all of its code under a radical new license they called the GPL, the complaints would be exactly the same: the new license would be incompatible with the vast majority of existing open source code.

Gentoo e-build

[akulbe]

I just installed the e-build that's already in the tree. And told etc-update to automatically update all 200+ config files. >:) (crazy I know, but it works) make sure you read the info on the release notes page, and see what portage tells you at the end of the emerge. There is some useful info there.

The only thing I've seen so far, that I don't like, is a little bit of degradation of quality in the AA of fonts. I'm sure this is just a configuration issue, that I haven't found the answer to yet. But it's definitely usable right now. You will have to unmerge xfree and xft, as they are blocked by "xorg-x11" which is the name of the new e-build.

Cheers, and please share any useful info you might come up with.

Re:Pine Problems and Alternatives

[thumperward]

It is funny to see gratis software that ships with source being bashed for not being libre more than progams which don't ship with source.

Is it also funny being sued for releasing patched versions?

- Chris

Re:Pine Problems and Alternatives

[rsidd]

Pine has a superior IMAP implementation than any of these alternatives.

I was using imap with mutt back in 1999. I haven't needed to use imap since 2000, but I don't imagine the support has gone away.

What modifications are needed to it in the first place? The stock-binary is well-maintained. And it is easy enough to apply a patch to the source code & recompile.

So apply the patch and compile it. But Red Hat won't do it for you because they can't distribute a binary based on modified source.

Why take RMS's opinion on free/nonfree as scripture? It is funny to see gratis software that ships with source being bashed for not being libre more than progams which don't ship with source.

Not "more than", but "as much as". If Red Hat can't patch pine even to fix bugs, why should they distribute it? If you need it you can always compile it yourself.

Re:Licenses.

[dinivin]

As could the Xorg developers. What's your point?

Dinivin

XFree86 to lose multi-platform?

[steveha]

Up until version 4.0, the XFree86 guys were getting multi-platform development for free: Debian took care of it. Debian cares a great deal about supporting multiple platforms, and Debian builds everything on a bunch of platforms and contributes back bug fixes. They were doing that for XFree86.

Now Debian is simply going to walk away from XFree86. The XFree86 project will either have to suddenly do a whole bunch of work to keep the multi-platform nature of XFree86, or else the "86" part is going to mean something again.

I find it amazing that the XFree86 guys ever thought that this license change was a good idea, and that they aren't falling all over themselves to reverse it now that the consequences are becoming clear.

steveha