On Jul 27, 2005, at 12:47 AM, Jimen Ching wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Jim Thompson wrote:
However, the protocol, the thing that defines X11, unfortunately, is
broken for many interesting imaging applications. This was really
in response to Wayne's cheerleading on X.org's recent moves. If X is
to survive, I'm afraid we'll need X12 (a protocol rev) built around
new graphics primitives.
I think Wayne's point is that X.org is providing a 'good enough'
solution
for the majority of its users.
X.org forked the server and managed to make the politics go away.
Kicking Packard to the curb was a huge mistake on the part of
whatever group (@ XFree86) did it. Restricting the license (to be
GPL-incompatible, and therefre "open", but not *free*) was fatal to
XFree86. (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/18/131223)
But the real damage is that, at the end of the day, the entire
XFree86 team was no match for the combination of Gettys and Packard.
(Yes, other people helped, but these two are (still) the core of X11.)
And it is improving at an acceptable rate.
When I say majority, I'm talking about those who are just looking
for a
good web browser, mail user agent and word processor. Most of these
people don't need a wiz-bang render engine.
True, but they don't need x11, either.
For the things that X is good at, it's doing a fine job. There are
always
room for improvements, and when those improvements arrive, the
group that
brought it about should be praised. I think, ultimately, that's what
Wayne was trying to do. And isn't that the FOSS way?
Sure. Heck, for the things I (used) to use X for, (emacs and
xterms) it does fine, great even. I'm one of those throwbacks who
will run windowmaker with no KDE or Gnome anywhere in sight.
But I've been using X (X6) since my days at UNLV and BYU, and later
X10 and X11 at Convex, Sun, etc. Various boxes that I own still run
it, but none are my primary desktop these days.
Its ok... but you still have to fsck with it too much.
jim
