Posted by
michael
on from the thanks-for-all-the-fish-screensavers dept.
Nirbo writes "FreeBSD switches to X.Org, The 'HEADSUP' can be found here, and on the -x11, -current, and -ports mailing lists. Very good news for those FreeBSD users who have either changed to X.Org in anticipation, or have been waiting in hope for this momentous change."
Portupgrade neither necessary, nor sufficient
by
wirelessbuzzers
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Too bad that you can't upgrade an existing system without using portupgrade, though. I hate to see portupgrade drifting closer and closer to being a required part of the system.
No. It says in the post:
To upgrade, you must remove your XFree86 ports and install the xorg ports. It couldn't be done with portupgrade, unfortunately, because we are keeping the XFree86 ports around.
In other words, you cannot automatically upgrade all the ports using portupgrade.
As for portupgrade becoming necessary, I don't know what you're talking about. While I use it (to keep my -CURRENT current), this is merely for convenience: I haven't seen any ports that depend on it.
-- I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Is this the place?
by
iamdrscience
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I don't know if this is the best place to mention this, but I like to pronounce "X.org" like it was all one word, i.e. sounding like "Zorg". It sounds like some futuristic GUI monster that would crush towns at its whim. This alone is enough to justify Xorg the Conqueror's rising popularity and XFree86's decline. I mean, XFree86 sounds kind of like a fighter jet, which while kind of cool, would be useless against Xorg. He would use an XFree86 fighter jet to pick his teeth! All hail Xorg!
Re:The lesson of X11....
by
edhall
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I don't think this shift is entirely a license issue.
I was chatting with one of the FreeBSD core team guys
around the time the decision was being made, and he felt that the frustration of getting fixes fed back into the XFree86 code base in a timely manner was a big part of the motivation. And this certainly isn't the first time I've heard complaints of XFree86 foot-dragging by the FreeBSD folks.
I guess you might say it's all of a piece -- the XFree86 user community simply didn't find the developers responsive (whether on license or technology), and when X.org proved a viable alternative, they voted with their feet.
-Ed
I'm getting laid !!!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Funny
That's right, I've switched to FreeBSD...
Re:The lesson of X11....
by
nathanh
·
· Score: 5, Informative
But I'm curious what restrictions the XFree people added and why it caused all this ruckus. It doesn't seem to have made any difference to my ability to get the source or play with it. What am I missing?
They added an advertising clause. Similar to the old BSD license.
There's a reasonable argument that the license change by itself didn't cause the exodus. It was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. There has been friction between the XFree developers and the rest of the FLOSS community for quite some time. There has even been considerable friction within the XFree team which led to the infamous "eviction" of Keith. But until recently there haven't been any realistic alternatives to XFree.
It remains to be seen whether Xorg can deliver better than XFree. Initial signs are promising; the codebase is being broken up and autotooled, cutting edge extensions like Xcomposite are being integrated, some of the best and brightest have committed themselves to Xorg instead of XFree, the distributions are backing Xorg over XFree, and (most important of all) the Xorg developers are COMMUNICATING with the rest of freedesktop.org (eg, the projects that build upon X11/XFree/Xorg). Those changes alone are a significant improvement over XFree.
Re:The lesson of X11....
by
XO
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Although definitely not like any other build procedure I have ever seen in the free software world, X is probably the one piece of software that I have never had ANY problems whatsoever in building, re-building, installing, re-installing, etc.
Though I did have a big ass problem with Debian refusing to let apt do it's things the right way when I "broke" the X installation by installing a source-built XFree 4.3.0 over the then-Debian-supplied XFree 4.2.0. This is when I discovered that (a) dpkg sucks (b) Debian's X installation is a spaghetti mess (c) it's virtually impossible to remove XFree packages from a Debian installation and not remove every other program that uses X on the system, which is why I had to just plain install source-built XF over the top of the Debian installed one.
On the bright side, every time apt- would hork the XFree installation by changes having happened to the Debian files during an apt-get, a simple "make World" made my entire X installation back to the way it was supposed to be.
Now, on the other hand, I've never even cracked the bindings of XFree source. I imagine, that it's probably a myriad of horrible hacked crap dating back 10-15 years or more in several places. I imagine that it's a completely unmaintainable nightmare. And I also completely understand that there was virtually NO development happening beyond bug fixes and the occasional tweak type enhancement to XFree. XF 4 was a major update but that was still like 2 years ago. 4.1, 4.2 were mostly bug fixes, 4.3 completed some of th features for 4.0, and fixed more bugs.
I'm really curious as to if there are any differences between X.org and XFree86 in th software, yet?
-- "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!"
http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
brilinux
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You know, I was going to make a similar joke, but seriously, competition is always good. My laptop runs Gentoo, my desktop runs FreeBSD and WinXP. Why? Because Linux is good for a lot of desktop stuff and programming that I would be doing for school, I need XP on my desktop for gaming, and when I am not doing that, FreeBSD is something different that is nice and fast, a great server, and something that runs familiar programs that I normally run under Linux. So, do I need FreeBSD instead of Linux? No. But it serves purposes that are often different from the ones served by Linux and it is more specific in its direction and use.
Re:So XFree Is Dead then
by
neurojab
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
>This weakness made it possible for IBM, Sun, HP, etc. to proprietize Unix and make many incompatible versions that only run on their hardware.
So would you say that made UNIX less successful? Anyway, you're spouting nonsense. IBM and Sun were never forked from BSD. They were forked from derivations of AT&T Unix, a proprietary product.
>The GPL was only created because of the lessons learned from the whole Unix-fiasco.
Unix, arguably the most sucessful operating system ever, was a fiasco? Surely you jest.
The GPL was created for those who believe that software should always be free. Believe it or not, there are those of us in the industry that are totally comfortable with closed-source software as well. For those of us that don't MIND that a large company might make money off software that we freely write, the BSD license is a good fit.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone seems to be moving to xorg now. Where does this leave xfree? Not that I'm worried about it or anything.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Too bad that you can't upgrade an existing system without using portupgrade, though. I hate to see portupgrade drifting closer and closer to being a required part of the system.
No. It says in the post:
To upgrade, you must remove your XFree86 ports and install the xorg
ports. It couldn't be done with portupgrade, unfortunately, because we
are keeping the XFree86 ports around.
In other words, you cannot automatically upgrade all the ports using portupgrade.
As for portupgrade becoming necessary, I don't know what you're talking about. While I use it (to keep my -CURRENT current), this is merely for convenience: I haven't seen any ports that depend on it.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
I don't know if this is the best place to mention this, but I like to pronounce "X.org" like it was all one word, i.e. sounding like "Zorg". It sounds like some futuristic GUI monster that would crush towns at its whim. This alone is enough to justify Xorg the Conqueror's rising popularity and XFree86's decline. I mean, XFree86 sounds kind of like a fighter jet, which while kind of cool, would be useless against Xorg. He would use an XFree86 fighter jet to pick his teeth! All hail Xorg!
I don't think this shift is entirely a license issue. I was chatting with one of the FreeBSD core team guys around the time the decision was being made, and he felt that the frustration of getting fixes fed back into the XFree86 code base in a timely manner was a big part of the motivation. And this certainly isn't the first time I've heard complaints of XFree86 foot-dragging by the FreeBSD folks.
I guess you might say it's all of a piece -- the XFree86 user community simply didn't find the developers responsive (whether on license or technology), and when X.org proved a viable alternative, they voted with their feet.
That's right, I've switched to FreeBSD...
They added an advertising clause. Similar to the old BSD license.
There's a reasonable argument that the license change by itself didn't cause the exodus. It was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. There has been friction between the XFree developers and the rest of the FLOSS community for quite some time. There has even been considerable friction within the XFree team which led to the infamous "eviction" of Keith. But until recently there haven't been any realistic alternatives to XFree.
It remains to be seen whether Xorg can deliver better than XFree. Initial signs are promising; the codebase is being broken up and autotooled, cutting edge extensions like Xcomposite are being integrated, some of the best and brightest have committed themselves to Xorg instead of XFree, the distributions are backing Xorg over XFree, and (most important of all) the Xorg developers are COMMUNICATING with the rest of freedesktop.org (eg, the projects that build upon X11/XFree/Xorg). Those changes alone are a significant improvement over XFree.
Although definitely not like any other build procedure I have ever seen in the free software world, X is probably the one piece of software that I have never had ANY problems whatsoever in building, re-building, installing, re-installing, etc.
Though I did have a big ass problem with Debian refusing to let apt do it's things the right way when I "broke" the X installation by installing a source-built XFree 4.3.0 over the then-Debian-supplied XFree 4.2.0. This is when I discovered that (a) dpkg sucks (b) Debian's X installation is a spaghetti mess (c) it's virtually impossible to remove XFree packages from a Debian installation and not remove every other program that uses X on the system, which is why I had to just plain install source-built XF over the top of the Debian installed one.
On the bright side, every time apt- would hork the XFree installation by changes having happened to the Debian files during an apt-get, a simple "make World" made my entire X installation back to the way it was supposed to be.
Now, on the other hand, I've never even cracked the bindings of XFree source. I imagine, that it's probably a myriad of horrible hacked crap dating back 10-15 years or more in several places. I imagine that it's a completely unmaintainable nightmare. And I also completely understand that there was virtually NO development happening beyond bug fixes and the occasional tweak type enhancement to XFree. XF 4 was a major update but that was still like 2 years ago. 4.1, 4.2 were mostly bug fixes, 4.3 completed some of th features for 4.0, and fixed more bugs.
I'm really curious as to if there are any differences between X.org and XFree86 in th software, yet?
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
You know, I was going to make a similar joke, but seriously, competition is always good. My laptop runs Gentoo, my desktop runs FreeBSD and WinXP. Why? Because Linux is good for a lot of desktop stuff and programming that I would be doing for school, I need XP on my desktop for gaming, and when I am not doing that, FreeBSD is something different that is nice and fast, a great server, and something that runs familiar programs that I normally run under Linux. So, do I need FreeBSD instead of Linux? No. But it serves purposes that are often different from the ones served by Linux and it is more specific in its direction and use.
>This weakness made it possible for IBM, Sun, HP, etc. to proprietize Unix and make many incompatible versions that only run on their hardware.
So would you say that made UNIX less successful? Anyway, you're spouting nonsense. IBM and Sun were never forked from BSD. They were forked from derivations of AT&T Unix, a proprietary product.
>The GPL was only created because of the lessons learned from the whole Unix-fiasco.
Unix, arguably the most sucessful operating system ever, was a fiasco? Surely you jest.
The GPL was created for those who believe that software should always be free. Believe it or not, there are those of us in the industry that are totally comfortable with closed-source software as well. For those of us that don't MIND that a large company might make money off software that we freely write, the BSD license is a good fit.