Re: About the future of X (Windows)

["Ciaran O'Riordan" <ciaran member fsf org>]

This line of debate is pretty irrelevant.  Telling eachother
our opinions on how to run other peoples software development
isn't achieving anything.

Instead of having one X-window-system project, we *might* soon
have two.  Do we have to choose which one to use? no.
Neither group is going to change the existing API.
A change of license is the only thing either project
could do that would effect GNOME.  If one does become
non-free, we simply use the other.

It is good to be aware of these things, the information Daniel
Veillard posted was useful but there is nothing to debate.
The merits and flaws of each project should be visable in the
coming months.

Ciaran O'Riordan
(If you are interested in the status, I'd suggest reading
the xfree86 ml archives (http://www.xfree86.org/mailman/listinfo)
and typing relevant words into internet search engines)

On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 04:28:42PM -0600, Linas Vepstas wrote:
> 
> Well, what is the status?  Is there a large body of patches which
> XFree86 has been ignoring/dissing?  In this case, there should be
> some sort of 'experimental' branch where these can be integrated, 
> tested & developed.   There are multiple versions of the Linux kernel,
> and that seems fine.  Or is this a fundamental disagreement with
> direction?  e.g. have the current maintainers said something like 
> 'we will never integrate such a thing, ever'?
> 
> Maybe this is competition between two proposals that implement
> more-or-less the same function?  I participated in the X11 
> double-buffer vs. multi-buffer debate, and while it was irritating,
> either proposal would have been 'adequate', and the debate was more 
> or less healthy, based on technical merit. 
> 
> If there are extensions that KDE would use, but Gnome wouldn't, (or vv)
> what are they?  Why wouldn't both GUI's have a generic interest in the
> same X11 extensions (maybe deploying on different timeframes)?
> 
> The debate seems to be about XML.  Exactly what benefit is there
> in adding XML to X11?  In what sense does this 'move X11 forward'?
> How do we get enough info to take sides?
> 
> --linas