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XFree86 Release Update: 4.0 in Q12000
Belzecue writes " XFree86.org has been updated mentioning that xfree-4.0 has been pushed back 2 months to mid Q1-2000, but that the next snapshot release of the 4.0 preview series will be released before the end of the year.
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Although many readers probably don't realize it, this is actually really bad news for the Linux gaming community. For those who are unfamiliar with the design specifications of Xfree86 4.0, one of the major planned innovations is tightly integrated 3D accelleration. Not only will this significantly improve performance and stability, it will also make it easier to make a given video card compatible, this increasing Unix's (yes, XFree86 IS at least somewhat cross-platform!) viability as a gaming platform. The sooner good, integrated, compatible 3D support comes to Unix, the better off Unix gaming will be.
XFree86 4.0 is being delayed two whole months.
I'll bet it is also losing market share in the
corporate segment as well. That's it. This
must be the end of X. Game over.
Actually, I can't even remember what got released
two months ago. XFree86 4.0 will come out.
It will be good. Mozilla will come out.
It will be good.
You may see more delays in the Open Source world,
than in the commercial world, but I think is's a
good sign. We keep our clear goals and do not compromise to keep a deadline. This means fewer problems in the future with necessary compabillity code to these 90% finished programs.
Still if you need the bleading edge - go for the snapshots.
Real Programmers know when their programs are in beta and when they are not.
I hate to carp about something like this (I'm generally one of those "shut up and code" type people), but I really do think the XFree people could release more snapshots, and more development code. It's been what, three, four months since they released 3.9.16, and only now are they releasing 3.9.17. How many revisions has even the stable kernel gone through in that time, let alone the development kernel . . .
Which isn't to say that things would necessarily be going faster if they did, but they'd be much more likely to get people using the snapshots if they were obviously working on them. I'm not going to use development code unless I can be fairly sure that any bugs that are found are going to be fixed _and_released_ in good time. That's why so many people are happy using development kernels - they can see the improvements between versions, and if they find a bug they can see the fixes going on in real time. This just isn't happening with X at the moment, unfortunately.
Oh well. At least they're still working on it, even if it's not as open as we might like.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
How are people supposed to "shut up and code" on XFree86 when the application process to become a developer intimidates the casual bug-fixing C coder, and when the releases are so infrequent that released code is probably too far behind the current code for an outside developer to work on?
I say this here every time mention of XFree86 4 comes up, but I'll say it again: now that they've got a modular architecture that they can split NDA'ed drivers away from, they need to open up the bulk of XFree86 development to the public. How much of the work that goes into other open source software projects comes from people who download the latest bleeding-edge CVS and fix one little instability? How many now-full-time coders on other large open source projects started as people who simply liked poring through bleeding-edge releases and hacking on them?
There are two ways to recruit development for free software projects: you can plead for more full time developers on your web page like XFree86 does, or you can give people something bleeding edge to develop, like most other projects do. It's a shame that the most important free software project out there is hurting for lack of interested developers, but I think they're partially bringing the problem upon themselves.
For certain cards, you can get PDGood accelerated 3D under Linux now. See the Linux GLX site.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's going to be released in Q12000!? Quarter 12000 is like the year 3000! And I thought Mozilla development took a long time.
Luckily, though, with the beta releases, we have a 1000 years of testing, so it should be stable and feature rich.
NOTE: This post not for the humor (or humour) impaired
DGA has been around for years. It's analogous to DirectX minus Direct3D. It's used in vmware, and emulators such as vice and UAE, as well as games that use SDL on linux.
DRI is in XFree 4.0. It's analogous to Direct3D
GLX provides network-transparent 3D accelerated rendering by encapsulating OpenGL in X-protocol calls. That is to say, I can run a 3D program on a computer in Paris, and have it display it output on a computer in London, using the 3D hardware of the computer in London to render the 3D, rather than trying to send an entire rendered screen from Paris to London, which is horrendously inefficient and slow. This is very cool, and comes from the SGI high-end graphical workstation world, and is not something that's easy on windows (to do it on windows, you have to use X on windows - I think Hummingbird Exceed X server supports GLX. I might be wrong.)
...now that they've got a modular architecture that they can split NDA'ed drivers away from, they need to open up the bulk of XFree86 development to the public. How much of the work that goes into other open source software projects comes from people who download the latest bleeding-edge CVS and fix one little instability? How many now-full-time coders on other large open source projects started as people who simply liked poring through bleeding-edge releases and hacking on them?
Yes - and there's another big advantage - opening up the non-NDA hardware drivers will put a lot more pressure on the proprietary holdouts to open their specs, because the open-spec drivers will improve a lot faster.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.