Re: About the future of X (Windows)

[linas linas org (Linas Vepstas)]

On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 04:19:28PM +0000, Alan Cox was heard to remark:
> On Fri, 2003-03-21 at 02:25, Linas Vepstas wrote:
> > -- X.org has abdicated control over the future direction of X11; not
> >    formally, but by means of inactivity.  All innovation is now 
> >    de facto in the hands of XFree86 and related developers/projects.
> 
> False. Most of the innovation is coming from Keith, and from other
> organisations outside of XFree86.

Sorry, yes, I agree with you, I failed to wordsmith the original 
correctly.  By "related developers/projects" I meant "all those 
other people doing X11-related things."  Of whom none seem to 
be sponsored in any way by X.org.  

> > Much if this is relevent to Gnome and to KDE.  Gnome does depend on 
> > X11, and Gnome would benefit from lots of lively innovation in X11.
> > Gnome should side with the forces pushing for innovation and
> > responsiveness and growth.
> 
> Also false (DirectFB for example)

Huh?  What's false?  What do you mean?  Do you mean X11-related projects 
are not relevent to Gnome? That Gnome will not benefit from X11 innovation?
Should Gnome side with the forces of conservativism?  Is Direct FB
is bad for Gnome?  Surely you meant something else ...

> > But the tangled issue of 'what is the future of X11, and who controls
> > it' really really is important, and its one to watch.
> 
> For new display technologies X has to go beyond 16bit co-ordinate space.
> I don't think XFree can deliver on that. I'm also bothered (but less so)
> about its ability to deliver on pure 3D acceleration hardware people are
> moving to, and on floating point colourspaces

X11 has many faults, and some of these stem from a habitual denial of 
innovation and of putting down the graphics advances that SGI pioneered
in the late 80's and early 90's.  Something about X11 fails to inspire
visionaries.  Core X11 developers are never innovators.  Why is that? 
Maybe thats the problem?

--linas


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