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Xgl Developer Calls it Quits
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."
I was really looking forward to the completion of this project. This is what we all need to accomplish the goal of bringing Linux to the desktop. We need to be able to make a, what we're calling at Plasma, a "designer desktop" that everyone will love and enjoy.
:-p
I'm surprised that Trolltech hasn't looked into and started contributing to this. They recently hired someone specifically to work on the enhancement of X and bringing its eye-candy and performance capabilities up to the point where it can compete with things like MacOS X without slowing down horrible.
Trolltech, save us!
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
I think you might be comparing apples and oranges, no? EXA stands for eyecandy X architecture, which is "based on KAA (KDrive acceleration architecture) it's designed to be an alternative to the currently used XAA (XFree86 acceleration architecture) with better acceleration of XRender which is used by composite managers for desktop eyecandy effects."
XGL is "an X-Server layered on top of OpenGL."
"The way things are heading is completely drop support for 2d acceleration and build a userspace X server that runs completely on a extended (currently EGL) OpenGL api. That way any OS that has any support for OpenGL, even if it's just thru a ported Mesa software rendering library, can run the X server."
And if you were financially contributing to the developers in question they might give a crap what you think they should be doing.
If you havent noticed, open source software doesnt exist just to give you what you want.
A good deal of the point of XGL, once you get past the hype-machine eye-candy business, is that it means only *one* driver for every video card -- a DRI one. Eliminating the dichotomy between the 2D X drivers and the 3D DRI drivers will only improve driver support for both 2D and 3D -- the effort needed to support both will be halfed, and 3D support will be required to support 2D.
There's even been talk about porting the Linux kernel framebuffer drivers to the DRI interface (possibly in userspace, run from initramfs).
Have you ever tried to get an X server, accelerated 3D, and a framebuffer console to get along on the same machine? It's ugly.
Add in multi-monitor support, and you can't even do it. So it's not possible to have all of accelerated 3D, multiple monitors and a console on platforms like the Macintosh that don't have a text mode in hardware.
Jon Smirl was also doing work on DRI/DRM, an area of the Linux video "architecture" that's much in need of love. I'm really sad to hear that he's giving all his video work up -- I was really looking forward to the day the whole Linux video mess got cleaned up for good.
"That's all I have to say about that" --Forrest Gump
Forgive my appeal to authority but,
Nat Friedman: "Xgl opens up a whole world of hardware acceleration, fancy animations, separating hardware resolution from software resolution, and more"
To those moaning about the lack of better video drivers, From wikipedia: "Structuring all rendering on top of Opengl should simplify modern video driver development and not have the separation of 2D and 3D acceleration." That means vendors would have an easier time giving you your "better drivers".
And of course OS X and Longhorn have already gone this route, placing FOSS behind the times.
And finally, you can have both improved current X and Xegl. Witness the recent Exa buzz (replacement X acceleration architecture); current X is getting a boost already, Xegl doesn't slow this in any way, however Exa is slowing Xegl apparently.