Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Xgl Developer Calls it Quits

Posted by timothy on from the dwindling-incentives dept.

nosoupforyou writes "Jon Smirl, one of two main developers for Xgl and Xegl (a version of X layered on top of OpenGL and rendering directly to the linux framebuffer, similar to Apple's Quartz Extreme) is calling it quits. Citing two years of effort without pay, a shortage of interest from developers, and no hope of release for more than a year, Jon is moving on."

1 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Open Source Is The Wrong Cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You worked on this for 2 years for free?
    Why? What benefit is there to society?
    You probably idealize your efforts to undermine
    'The Borg'. You've accomplished nothing.
    Let me ask you this. What is your motivation for writingopen source software?
    Is it your delusion that 'People have a 'right' to 'change their own code'?
    What percentage of people even care about that?
    Or are you waging a BinLaden war against
    the entrenched software conglomarates?
    Hurling your little stones of open source
    software packages, bravely posting fixes found
    by other zealots, and then retreating to your
    cave to create more weapons.
    Then, congratulating each other on how you're
    hurting Evil Microsoft.
    Your cause sucks. It's pointless.
    You're doing nothing but helping other businesses
    lower their computing costs.
    Your helping capitalist pigs like Citicorp, AIG,
    and the Chinese totalitarian rulers
    lower their cost of computing. That's all.
    Hey, great job!
    If you put your analytical skills to understanding
    society, you'd realize that your goals accomplish
    nothing, no matter how sincere you believe in them.
    40,000 children die of starvation every day in this world.
    Why don't you work on creating a genetically viable crop for Niger?
    Or why don't you invent a method of distributing waterto communities afflicted with drought?
    Or why don't you create new medications or generic
    versions of patented medications to help the poor?
    Well, you probably don't realize these problems exist.
    Your world is too insular, consumed with code and machines,and shutting out the real world.
    And, you can't address the real problems of the world.
    You have your hammer, called your computer skills.
    And your personality is one that you hate other people, hate society.
    So, you take your single skill, and delude yourself by creating some poorly thought out reasons of how your single skill can be used to bring down some 'enemy' you perceive is 'harming the world'.
    Even if you can somehow prove Microsoft is harming the world, it is in no way one of the 10 ten threats hurting humans.
    But, you don't see this in yourself.
    You're too consumed in your cause.
    But, speaking for the interests of the insurance companies, banks and government agencies, thanks for the free labor. Chump.