The Power of X

An anonymous reader writes "The license changes in the last version of Xfree86 have caused many distributions to reject the project in favor of the forked X.Org X server. As X.Org prepares to release the second version of the X.Org "monolithic" X Server (dubbed version 6.8), Ars Technica investigates the future of the X platform, as cooperation between X.Org and projects like GNOME and KDE begin to take take hold at freedesktop.org. Already host to an impressive array of projects, it appears that freedesktop.org will become the hub in which other Free Desktop projects can collaborate. Daniel Stone, release manager for freedesktop.org, gets into the details on how it's all going to work, in conjunction with freedesktop.org's upcoming platform release."

Comments

Unfortunate...

[Sheetrock]

I was somewhat hopeful that the impending death of X-Windows would lead to the development of a windowing system designed specifically to take advantage of the more advanced features of NetBSD.

Indeed, most of the X-Windows targets would benefit from a native implementation of a windowing system -- native implementations could run something like 23-27% more efficiently because of the layers of abstraction that are currently necessary. Most people don't need internationalization and most could use a simpler interface to get the printer working.

I think there's an underlying fear to reimplement that comes from (and I hate to say it) a certain sense of elitism in juggling three or four fontservers or digging through a million XFConfig-4 lines to get TV-Out working. But perhaps the focus needs to be put back on the basics?

Mod -5: Illiterate

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off and die, moron.

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the "workstation" market any different than the "desktop" market?

(at this point $SLASHBOT appears and informs you that X's problem is not client-server, it's somewhere else.)

As for X11's claim to fame, remote windowing, it's nowhere near as good as commercial warez like Citrix. So you have something that's thoughly second rate at both local and remote windowing.

X11 is probably the best example of Legacy Ueber Alles-- a fundemental piece of the unix operating environment lives on only for compatibility reasons and not technical justification.

Re:PRECISELY MOD UP+

[Seahawk]

Funny - this anonymous user asks to mod the parent up.

And this anonymous user has the exact same spelling mistake in "internationalization" as its parent have! :)

Re:Nice Screeny's

[Anonymous Coward]

The drop shadows give a fantastic touch.

"fantastic" is relative. They still don't look half as good as *GASP* A Real Mac. Idoit.

hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Now in about 50 years from now, linux will have an interface which is comparible to windows 2000 :)

Resolution limit

[cmaxx]

Is anyone fixing the fundamental resolution limit in the protocol?

Re:Whose task is copy&paste

[Simon]

You save to a file in app A and then open it in app B. Honestly, where's the attraction in having your data floating about in a clipboard like some etherial juggling act?

The attraction is that a clipboard is about a BILLION times faster and easier to use than juggling files, if all you want to do is move something from app A to app B.

I can't believe this kind of stuff needs to be explained to people/geeks. WHAT PLANET ARE YOU PEOPLE FROM?!?

--
Simon