XFree86 Core Team Disbands

mumumu was among the many to write with this news: "XFree86's release engineer David Dawes has announced that "a majority of the XFree86 core team has voted in favour of my proposal to disband the core team". XFree86's News Headline has a short message about it. Why, all of a sudden? What is the successor of the XFree86? Xouvert? freedesktop.org?"

Why a successor?

Why would a successor for XFree86 be needed? As I understand it, this is only a change in the "political" structure of the project, not its end.

Re:Why a successor?

I can't se anything in the article that would indicate that the core developers have stopped working on it. The message by David Dawes gives me the impression that the "core team" and the core deveolpers aren't necessarily the same people.

If you ask me, xfree86 doesn't need much "inovation". It works great the way it is! Of course, that shouldn't stop other people from taking the xfree code and do radically new stuff with it. If someone manages to come up with something that is significantly better than xfree I'll be more than happy to switch.

Re:Why a successor?

I wouldn't even say "significantly better" if someone came up with something that did everything X does and even one or two more things I'd probably switch. I just use a lot of features of X11 and use several of the advanced features of xfree86. but if another project could do it better I have no real brand loyalty.

Re:Why a successor?

Because, basically, every software project needs to evolve or it will die. And there is a lot of room for improvement in X11 ! Apple has developed a very nice system (Quartz) and even Microsoft is constructing a very modular and IMO quite interesting Avalon system. There are some good techniques in there that will benefit the entire X11 community.

Re:Why a successor?

Yes, and when it says, "the core team was no longer representative of the active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developers," it actually sounds like they might be opening up the project a little more, rather than disbanding it. Given some of the negative comments I've heard in the past about the rigidity and bureaucracy of core team, this could well be a very good thing for XFree86 overall.

Re:Why a successor?

I really wish these kinds of announcements were a little less ambiguous. Judging by the post, we know the core team is disbanding. Great! Now what?

There is nothing in it about the future of X86, which would be mine and many others big concern.

It's all Slashdot speculation right now. Unless someone can provide us with more information on the subject.

Any Xfree86 developers out there?

Re:Why a successor?

There is nothing in it about the future of X86, which would be mine and many others big concern.

Did you read the post? It basically said that the people involved in the "core team" aren't the ones driving XFree86 development.

Given that statement, why would you ask them to describe the future of XFree86, which is something over which they explicitly announced that they don't have control?

Re:Why a successor?

possibley because:

Not everyone knows what a core team is in relation to this project

Given the above some may want a little reassurance that this isn't a major problem and that development will continue

Considering how ambiguous the release was, to most people, a little news on how this affects the direction of the project couldn't hurt anyone could it?

Re:Why a successor?

(SMACKS AC upside the head) Looks like a press release [xfree86.org] to me, since it is it the "News" section under "Headlines".

Re:Why a successor?

There is nothing in it about the future of X86, which would be mine and many others big concern.

Don't worry - Intel, AMD, etc have far too much money invested in x86 to kill it off anytime soon

Re:Why a successor?

> Great! Now what?

Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, biblical?
Ray: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor... real Wrath-of-God-type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies.
Venkman: Rivers and seas boiling!
Egon: 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanos.
Winston:The dead rising from the grave!
Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together... mass hysteria!

Re:Why a successor?

Of course it is -- anyone claiming this to be the end of fxree simply don't understand the difference b/w "core team" and "developmetn team" -- the former is like a board of directors, if you wish, while the latter is what makes or breaks the project.

Core Team Disbands

Sounds more like the "core" team weren't actually doing the development anymore, and that they felt it was unfair to be the "core" team when they weren't doing the work.

Nothing to see here folks, keep moving.

Re:Core Team Disbands

"keep moving" aside, I actually do believe this to be a bad thing. While the core team was not active in the development they did still help steer direction. These are the folks that would say, "that will break things" - when it otherwise may not be obvious that "n" change could break things. This is a loss of experience, but the core team obviously feels that there is enough checks and balances to keep things from breaking.

Re:Core Team Disbands

Personally, I'm a little more cynical about the core team-- overall core team competency has been questioned of late, resulting in several branches of the code. I'm not so cynical to call them incompetent outright-- I've no experience with them directly, so how could I say such, but in either case they've decided to let things go in the direction they have.

Now we just need to see how the structure holds up and see where the actual 'power' in the organization is going to be. In plain english, to see who's going to be OKing the executive decisions now.

Re:Core Team Disbands

From what I've seen it appears they were slowing development more than steering it anyway, do you have any idea how many patches the Debian X package maintainers had to maintain because the X team was so slow at accepting patches?

Re:Core Team Disbands

The thing is XFree86 ALSO has a Board of Directors. The Core Team was like a Board of Directors, only they didn't do anything but add bureaucracy and private list discussion of issues that would then be cited as authority for decisions made. These are the fuckers that attacked Keith Packard for being "low class" because he set off to work on X outside of the XFree86 organization because they simply couldn't adopt their bureaucracy to accept innovative new patches and extensions to X.

Keith for those of you who don't know, wrote the Xft/XRender extensions that do anti-aliased font rendering and is generally the leading force pushing X (kicking and screaming, I might add) into the 21st century. The Core Team was one of the leading forces doing the kicking and screaming, next to the Board of Directors. I would be happy to see them go to, replaced by a more forward thinking, less bureaucracy-minded group of leaders.

From the link...

"core team was no longer
representative of the active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developers"

That leads me to suspect it isn't XFree86 that is dying, just the current core team is giving up their posts- and probably to be reorganized with new members from among the referred to "active, experienced... developers"

I wouldn't panic yet.

Just a formal thing.

This has nothing to do with XFree developement. In fact the non-relation between XFree 'core team' and Xfree development was the actual reason to dispand.

Related to the Cygwin blowup?

Is this related to the Cygwin/XFree86 blowup a few months back?

Re:Related to the Cygwin blowup?

I think it's related to the "firing" of Keith Packard from the core group, when he was one of the few people trying to move X11 into the 20th century.

Re:Related to the Cygwin blowup?

Jesus Fucking Christ. How many times are people going to trot this shit out?

/flame on

You haven't been using Linux or X very long, have you? Or if you have, how have you failed to notice how many times someone says "X is slow/boated/sux for 3d/etc"? If you did, did you ever follow the discussion after that point, or did you just say, "Yep, I agree with them, I can stop reading now"?

Because if you had, how did you miss the amazingly lucid explanations as to just why X does not suck; just how incredibly extensible it is; or how it does not suck at 3d, but that the real problem lies in the card manufacturers who won't release the necessary specs to allow open driver development? No, really. The fundamental problem with 3D driver development is that the card manufacturers have a limited pool of developers who can only acquire so much knowledge/expertise, and can only spend so much time developing drivers for each platform. How much better would things be if they would allow more experienced X devs to look at their code and suggest or write some improvements? We know the answer to this question; if you don't, what are you doing using Free Software?

/flame off

X works. X works well. X, properly equipped with the right drivers, even does 3d well. If you can't configure it yourself (no shame there; I was scared as hell the first time *I* did it), there's all these nice distros from RedHat (oops, Fedora), SuSE, Mandrake, even Debian that have tools to do it for you.

Allright, I'm done. Back to browsing at +3...

Re:Is that why...

You say X doesn't suck, but then explain how it doesn't fully utilize graphics cards.
-----
X doesn't not fully utilize graphics cards because it can't, but because manufacturers don't make optimized graphics drivers for it. If you use vendor-written ones like NVIDIA's, you'll see what X can really do given quality drivers. With proper drivers, X's drawing performance is easily comparable to the GDI's, an for stuff like bit-blits, it attains performance that you can only get in the GDI by using DirectX.

X doesn't work. I hate dragging a simple window and have a trail of tutti-fruity after it,
-----
Are you using GNOME by any chance? Because I never have that problem in KDE. In fact, KDE behaves better than WinXP in this respect, because I do see expose lag in Windows sometimes. I'm running 3.1.4 on a P4 2GHz with NVIDIA drivers.

or waiting 5 seconds for a menu to popup.
-----
I've never had to wait 5 seconds for a menu to pop up. If you're seeing that, there is something wrong with your configuraton. Anyway, X has nothing to do with how long it takes a menu to pop up. X is just the drawing layer. As a drawing layer, it is quite fast. But even if it was slow, it still wouldn't take long to draw a menu, which is basically just a color fill and some bit-blits. If your menus are drawing slowly, it's because your application is taking its sweet time responding to input events. GNOME has problems with this. It won't load icons until the first time they are actually used. That means when you open a menu for the first time in a given app, you can see each icon being drawn as they are loaded one at a time from disk! Again, this is a problem with the app, not X.

Here's the part where you blame the window manager, or the graphics library, or the desktop environment.
-----
Well, X *is* the graphics library, and it's fast, which is all you can really ask of a graphics library. So it *is* the fault of the window manager or DE. On my machine, KDE is about as fast as WinXP (except for some apps that haven't been well optimized for display performance, like Konqueror), while GNOME, Mozilla, and OpenOffice are dog-slow. If they both are using the same X, why does KDE run fast while the others don't? Start up Qt designer and abuse the UI. Try resizing with the resize bump in the corner. Try moving windows over it. Qt Designer has a complex UI with lots of widgets. But it performs just as fast as the best Windows apps. That's why X can't be the problem! Maybe its X's fault for not making it easier to write fast apps, but that's different from saying that X is slow.

Hold on while we hack on yet another "extension,"
-------
Let me guess. You're not a programmer, right? An extension is not a "hack." An extension is a way of extending a codebase to support a feature that was not concieved when it was originally written. An extension is a clean way to extend a codebase's functionality while preserving compatibility. A hack is entirely different.

and then meanwhile in a Microsoft discussion complain that you can't hack on things that weren't in the core design of Windows.
----
Because Windows wasn't designed to be extendible. X was designed from the beginning to be extendible. Thus, new features were added on cleanly. Windows wasn't, and thus new features were sometimes hacks.

Full text of email & analysis.

Here is the email:

I'm very pleased to announce that a majority of the XFree86 core team
has voted in favour of my proposal to disband the core team.

I believe that this is an acknowlegement that the core team was no longer
representative of the active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developers,
or a place where technical discussion happens.

Happy New Year to all!

David
--
David Dawes
developer/release engineer The XFree86 Project
www.XFree86.org/~dawes

So, this means that XFree86 is not disbanding, simply that the core group has recognized it was not really needed anymore.

That is a relief, as I almost thought for a second that XFree86 was going to disappear... *eek*

Re:Full text of email & analysis.

The abundance of abandond projects on Sourceforge would appear to disagree with you. Open Source projects are usually NOT the domain of hundreds and thousands of globally diverse developers but rather a very small and very active "core" team. Once that core team leaves (and I'm not talking about XFree86 here) then the project usually dies. Why? Because even though the code is in the public domain there is a lack of willingness to get involved or a lack of skill of those who ARE willing or a lack of time for those who are both skillfull AND willing.

Re:Full text of email & analysis.

The abundance of abandond projects on Sourceforge would appear to disagree with you

Do you think, perhaps, that the reason there are so many abandoned projects is because they suck, are irrelevant, outdated, or duplicative? How many half-assed winamp clones does the world need? Do we really need 2000 different email clients, or yet another piece of desktop eye candy?

Open source development is a Darwinian process. The strong prosper and the weak either die off or adapt themselves to survive in an isolated niche. If a project is so uninteresting or so obscure that it can't attract a new maintainer, then it deserves to die. The carcass remains part of the ecosystem -- scavangers are free to pick the bones for anything useful, or someone can come along and breathe new life into it.

Doesn't really matter. Quality stays for years.

A lot of big companies still use COBOL, and COBOL is over fifty years old, which means we can keep using X even if it's not being developed anymore. If something is worth using, then it must have a good solid base which can be used for many years to come. We don't need to worry at all for another fifty year or so, when we'll probably need a new system. Why panic now?

Many systems have lived beyond their original development schedules. Financial software written in COBOL, for example, which has caused no problems at all since it was developed, Windows 3.1 which is still more than good enough for most schools and small businesses and has no security flaws despite all thsi time, and the B programming language, which many an OS kernel is written in.

Re:Doesn't really matter. Quality stays for years.

False. Enterprise financial apps don't depend on changing hardware every year like graphics applications. And "just plain works" doesn't mean is maintainable. And I would doubt very strongly that someone knows 30-year-old-multi-million-lines-apps of financial code in Fortran well enough to be sure that it does what it is supposed to do...

Don't overreact

Read the message:

I believe that this is an acknowlegement that the core team was no longer representative of the active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developers, or a place where technical discussion happens.

In effect, nothing is going to change. There are still active, experienced and skilled XFree86 developers out there, who will continue to work just as they always have.

So if this is just a political change...

then perhaps it's a good thing as there has clearly been a fair amount of rankling lately.

So Keith won?

Wasn't this what Keith Packard [xwin.org] et.al wanted [slashdot.org]?

Re:No. We won.

From here [dwex.org] and here [dwex.org]:
"XFree86 I helped create it, along with David Dawes, Jim Tsillas, and Glenn Lai. I haven't done any work on XFree86 in about five years, but I'm still on the Core Team, and on the Board of Directors, and I kibitz a lot. " and "...but I'm a Windows user, not an Open Source user (hence why this page is built with FrontPage)"

Whoa Keanu... that link you posted clears up the news release for me quite a bit. I can forgive anyone for choosing to run Windows if they need/prefer to... everyone has different values and goals. But if a core team member has disavowed Open Source altogether and builds his simple website in Windows and Frontpage... perhaps a shakeup of the core team was more required than an outsider like myself could ever guess.

"Core Team" models need to die.

Face it.

"Core Team" Development models are out-dated and sound more M$'ish than Open Source'ish.

While several projects continue to use the "Core Team" model, like FreeBSD, in my opinion, the politics involved ain't worth it.

For XFree86, it's time for change. Hopefully, in years to come, we will see a more efficient graphics subsystem for Unix (MacOS X may be an example) weather it be by a XFree86, XF86 Fork, or some other system (NOT framebuffer because fb doesn't work well with some hardware)

Re:"Core Team" models need to die.

(NOT framebuffer because fb doesn't work well with some hardware)

Purely out of interest, what kind of hardware does the framebuffer not work well on?

Re:"Core Team" models need to die.

"Core Team" Development models are out-dated and sound more M$'ish than Open Source'ish.

While several projects continue to use the "Core Team" model, like FreeBSD, in my opinion, the politics involved ain't worth it.

Uh, say again? Are you saying that open source software favors one political structure over another?

So if a core team is bad, what about Linux with essentially a technical dictator^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdirector? And do you believe the MS uses a core team to direct development of their software? They have a simple hierarchy, like most succesful businesses.

While it may be warm and fuzzy to say that open source == no core team, the simple fact is that different political structures are good for different projects during different phases of their life. Linux has gotten too large to be developed by a single developer, so Linus has changed the political structure to fit his needs.

Furthermore, this doesn't mean the end of the core team for XFree, only the end of a core team. They haven't spelled out a change in structure, only a change in personel.

-Adam

Slashdot trolling?

After comparing the /. headline with the actual content of the email, I wonder what exactly /. *does* check on before they post these...I feel like they're trolling for a bunch of misinformed readers to overreact.

It may be newsworthy, but considering the length of the message, why not just post the original email and be done with it?

When open source dies?

This brings up a good point: is anyone to maintain xFree86 anymore? Sure, the source is still available, but is the project documented well enough that another team could pick up in a year where this one left off? Interesting questions that the open source community will have to answer if proprietary source is to be defeated once and for all.

Re:When open source dies?

gcc.

gcc was dormant, Cygnus picked it up and forked off egcs.

egcs is now known as gcc 3.

Cathedral and the Bazaar

Given the tenor of many comments it seems not everybody has read this seminal text! Mind you, some of the politics is pretty much off the wall - especially in the post-bubble world. The other issue is that the model highlights the extent to which we are all dependent on a few good citizens to give up their time and life to make this happen. Core teams work when people are being paid to do the job, but not when whn you are relying on the generousity of a few talented individuals.

Didn't they already replace X

with NC-17?

The rise of project K12 : XouverK

This is are opputunity, to Kombine, Konquer and rise to a new age in GUI design!

Look at the projects such as KDE 3.2 beta, Cairo, Looking glass, Karamba for example. They are researching new and innovative GUI's, but there is one problem, the X11 limitations are hurting them. Some of them are pushing X11 to the limit, looking at some sourcecode gives me nightmares!

Xouvert, KDE, Gnome and all other interested parties should join up to make it happen.

We need to update and break the current X11 protocal since there is a lot of kludges and write a new faster one, call it X12, unify GTK, Qt, Motif and more into one universal licencing freindly toolkit to run on X12. Integrate all the new technology such as vector widgets, antialasing, and stuff into this X12 toolkit and to symbolise this new change, rename it K12. There should be X11 compatibillity layer, like Mac OS Classic on OS X, just for the old apps such as propreitrey ones.

Then release KDE 4, rewritten in K12, along with the enhancements. K12 should be similar to an existing toolkit so it will be easy to port applications such as Gimp, OpenOffice, Mozilla and the rest. Since there is no more licencing issues with the new toolkit, no need to have seperate gnome/kde anymore, just one desktop environemnt. This will make things consistent, and allow stuff like copy and paste work PERFECTLY!

Then, integrate with Linux 2.6, and other technologies to make the Open Source Desktop dream come true : One unified desktop that is easy to use, yet MORE powerful than the command line.

This Neo-GUI plan may feel unreal, and maybe almost imposible with all the holy wars between X11, KDE, Gnome, and the others, but XouverK could come true if we realise we are only hidering ourselfs as of now! For example, why dosen't gimp use the KDE file dialog!

read the "Insightful" article

I'm going to forego the opportunity to use my moderator points today on this story because every odd-numbered post in the list is already "Score:5 Insightful". There's just a wealth of wisdom here, and I have precious little to add.

In all fairness to those who questioned the future of X, I was momentarily confused by the announcement, too. It appears this little group of developers has finally just gotten out of the way. I'm hoping there's still a person or two to moderate code additions while the rest of the community keeps up the project.

willful release of power?!?

A good example of hope for the future that a group can decide it is no longer required. Look at this hypothetical email in comparison:

I'm very pleased to announce that a majority of the United States House of
Representatives and the United States Senate has voted in favor of my proposal to
disband the United States Congress.

I believe that this is an acknowlegement that the United States Congress was no longer
representative of the active, experienced and skilled population and local governments,
or a place where meaningful legislation happens.

Happy New Year to all!

Dennis
--
Dennis Hastert
Speaker of the House of the United States Congress
speaker.house.gov/

No real changes

Just some folks will have one less title on their business cards.

Move along folks, nothing to see here.

Letter from Darl?

Maybe SCO sent the developers a letter, after all SCO claims anything that looks unixy.
(is unixy a word?)

That's Impossible!

How will XFree maintain control without the bureaucracy?

Re:That's Impossible!

The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear... will keep the local systems in line.

XGGI ?

If someone is looking for alternatives, look at XGGI, part of the the GGI project [ggi-project.org]. Together with directfb or KGI [sourceforge.net](currently focussing at BSD, but the Linux core is there too) it's really powerfull.

XDarwin not affected apparently

Well, at least Apple's support of XDarwin [xdarwin.org] is still around. I doubt Apple will ever get support the freedesktop.org efforts because that would mean supporting alpha-channels for non-Mac platforms.

Don't worry!

They're sure to appear on an upcoming VH-1 "Behind the Music" special and be on the verge of a reunion tour. Playing smaller venues supposedly in order to "get back to their roots" and "get closer to their fans."

Predictions

You know... Nostradamus predicted all of this.

Core Team Members

The XFree86 site has a page that says they disbanded. Here is a mirrored list of core team members [linuxforum.net]. Some have been around a while ... easy to loose interest.

http://www.directfb.org/

http://www.directfb.org/ is a very good answer... Look at the gtk-directfb implementation. The GNOME desktop could quickly drop the X11 dependency using a directfb backend gtk implementation.

Core disbands does not mean the end

The disbanding of the current XFree86 core team does not mean an end to the continuing development of XFree86, it means a change of people recongised as being key players.

The biggest remaining question IMHO is whether there will be a expansion of cvs commit access. I think the former core team realises that new up and coming developers need to be added to the project to subtain the continuing improvement and work with others groups such as X.org, and freedesktop.org. To say nothing of expanding access to video card manufacturers so they can maintain and improve open source drivers for their cards (Most companies are at least partial supportive of 2D drivers, the real issues occur over 3D accelation).

I expect it will end up being a good thing.

This is only good news for Xfree86

Back in the day Xfree86 needed to be a corporation to trademark the term "Xfree86" so they created this weird organization with a constitution and everything. There was the board and there was the core. Later another group was added, people who had commit access to the CVS repository, but weren't on the core. Then at the bottom there were regular developers.

The problem is that no one really new what the core does except that it had a private email list. Even people on the core didn't know. (I'm not making this up).

Historically XFree86 has had closed developement. If you wanted to read the developers emails or look at the development code you had to apply and be approved. A couple years ago they openned up the CVS repository to the world. Then earlier this year they openned up all the development email lists.

But once in a while when during code discussions people would say, "Oh that. We discussed on the core email list and we decided it sucked. Case closed." That kind of thing gets annoying.

Some people said that the core email list should be destroyed, but the answer was that, "Why do you care? All the development discussion is on the developers email list." This was probably true in theory if not in real life.

To be on the core you had to be selected after coding for 3 or 4 years. It's not worth it really because as I said, no one knows what the core does and all the real power is held by the people with CVS commit access anyway.

The whole idea of a core group was stupid and pointless. The reason it stuck around for so long was that XFree86 developers are stubborn people. Everyone (often not developers) was telling them to change and have elections and so they said, "Screw you. We'll do whatever we want." Another reason was that some people on the core group weren't active developers and didn't follow the lists closely. They didn't realise how frustrated people were.

I've been getting more and more upset as I write this post thinking about how XFree86 used to be, but I started out just wanting to say that it was a good thing. I believe it is a good thing for XFree86. It's a sign that the project is becoming more transparent and responsive to developers. It takes humility on the part of the core members to give up the extra privileges.

This is a good thing for everyone.

maybe we need a new X server (or two)

I think we really need a new X server, dedicated to desktop use. It looks like the RENDER model is going to be the primary graphics model these days and applications expect both multithreading and lots of bitmap storage from the X server.

Yet, the existing X server originated out of a code base that highly optimized the traditional X11 graphics model and assumed a completely different mix of clients and applications. That means that a lot of complexity in the existing server is devoted to optimizing things few people still care about.

A new implementation could replace that code with simple, generic implementations and focus on making the stuff that everybody uses these days efficient.

It may also be worth using C++ for such a new X server. That's not because C++ is "object oriented", but because C++ standardizes a number of facilities that big software systems need, like exceptions and resource cleanup, but for which C has no single standard.

Actually, at the same time, it might also be good to create a second, minimal X server from scratch that is aimed at handhelds and machines with very limited resources. Some existing work on such servers is based on XFree86, but I suspect one might be able to cut things down to an X server that gets by with 100-200k of code and data with careful coding and choice of features.

Re:maybe we need a new X server (or two)

The problem with using C++ because it has resource management is that assumes the resource management model that C++ uses is appropriate for the problem space.

C++ doesn't "have resource management", it has standardized hooks for implementing whatever storage allocation and resource management strategies you want.

You wouldn't use C++ resource management for buffer cache handling in an OS, would you?

Using C++ would give you identical performance to what kernels currently do in C, yet it would greatly reduce the risk of bugs.

In any case, more generally, I see no problem using languages that actually have resource management built in. Some of those are badly designed or inefficient (VisualBasic, Java) and are therefore unsuitable, but others are perfectly fine (Modula-3, C#). Automatic resource management (garbage collection, etc.) is almost always more efficient than anything C programmers do by hand, and it is far less error prone.

A German article, translated by Google

This is the English translation of http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-31.12.03-00 6/ [heise.de]
by the Google translater:

Core team of XFree86 separates on David H. Dawes, one the founder of the XFree86-Projekts for the development of a free x-server and present president of the company, which cares for the project, communicated in a Posting on the mailing list XFree86 Developer that the core team of the project will dissolve. Also on the Website from XFree86 meanwhile a short note with the announcement appeared. It is pleased that the majority core of the team its suggestion agreed, writes Dawes. This represents an acknowledgement of the fact that the core team does not represent no more the active, experienced and adept developers. Also it was no more place, at which technical discussions would have taken place. So far there are no further data, who is to resume the tasks, which the core team had actually taken over. In addition above all the supervision belonged over the general development of the project -- which probably the board OF Directors and/or the project responsible persons could carry out with XFree86, Inc.. David Dawes had supplied itself however already lately with some fellow combatants violent arguments, which led also to the door of individual project participants. Thus separated only in October Cygwin/XFree86 von XFree86.org. And Keith luggage pool of broadcasting corporations, over several years member of the XFree86-Kerntruppe, criticized for example already for a long time the development as too slow-acting and too closed -- and in March from the core team was excluded. Luggage pool of broadcasting corporations opened a new branch of development with Freedesktop/X server and supports the project Xouvert, in order to make a faster integration possible of new techniques and advancement (jk/c't)

It appears that Keith Packard is translated into "Keith luggage pool of broadcasting corporations"

Don't know why people don't do any research

If anybody was honestly curius about what this meant, you might have checked the mail archives of the devel list. Here [mail-archive.com] is a more detailed message from David Dawes. 'Nuff said.

obligitory simpson's quote...

Flanders: "Well, I guess this is a case where we'll have to agree to disagree."
Principal Skinner: "I don't agree to that."
Ms. Krabappel: "Neither do I."
Ned: Ho, ho, this is a dilly of a pickle.
Man: Oh my God...the PTA has disbanded! (jumps out a window)
Ned: No, no! The PTA has not disbanded. (the man reverses his path through the window and sits down)

CB

Follow Keith Packard...

He's the only one with any really good ideas.

Congratulations

I think we should congratulate the core team for doing the right thing. Its pretty rare for any institution to volintarily disband no matter how irrelevant it becomes. I can think of a few institutions a lot less relevant than this group that have continued plugging along for generations.

These people are showing maturity and class usually missing in the software industry. Just by taking this action, the team has refuted one of the more subtle FUD points out there, that projects will eventually peter out or be consumed by internal bickering.

freedesktop.org

The fdo.o X server is most likely going to be the successor to XFree86, even if development of XF86 continues. They fd.o X server project is led by Keith Packard, who did a lot of the work on Render and Xft, basically bringing XFree86 into the 20th century. He is also getting help from people who really know what they are doing, like Jim Gettys. They are working on the following features:

- A core X server based on the lightweight kdrive codebase (formerly TinyX).
- Back-buffering of all windows, like OS X. This will enable OS X-style fancy window effects like shadows and whatnot.
- OpenGL accelerated 2D rendering. This is a big step up from Apple's system, because it will accelerate actual drawing via OpenGL, not just window compositing. As a result of this, there is a lot of talk about seperating OpenGL from the X server, and allowing the X server to be just another OpenGL app running on top of a low-level OpenGL acceleration layer.

Re:Bringing it into the 20th century?

I love how people always compare things to Windows, which is the most backwards, un-advanced OS ever.

If you want to compare GUIs, compare with Mac OS X. OpenGL-accelerated drawing? Check. Incredibly rich graphics in apps? Check. No need to wait until 2006. And of course, by definition, right now X is still where it is now.

If Linux always strove to play catch-up with Windows, it would be horrible. Fortunately, it doesn't do that, except in the area of the GUI. It's no surprise, then, that Linux's GUI isn't very good.

X11.app

Not trolling, but for me the successor to XFree86 is turning out to be Apple's X11.app.

X Replacements

It seems that the tone of this article is misleading; X development will continue on in good health.

However, I always find myself thinking about Y as an X replacement [ic.ac.uk]. It's certainly not the most mature option out there, but reading throught the PDF [ic.ac.uk] is a pleasure, as the author seems to have struck a great balance of power and simplicity.

Cheers.

You shall have your successor to X!

step 1: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mbt99/Y/
step 2: grab the Y .1 source
step 3: hack hack hack

X-Windows is here to stay.

I don't understand why people want to ditch X-Windows. The X-Windows system is a fine window system. It's not slow, it's extendable, it's networkable, and it runs in every Unix system/clone.

The problem lies with the layers above xlib: the toolkits. Actually, not the toolkits themselves, but how they are used. For example, the Linux GUIs suffer from bad fonts and bad font sizes, bad placement of text, bad placement of buttons, too much info on the screen, improper colors, and usability issues like cut-copy-paste etc.

To those that they request a new window system based on accelerated 3d graphics, I have to say this: it does not fit with the Unix mentality. Unix can run in minimal hardware. I can run TWM on a 486 and the machine will just fly. But if a new window system comes along that is based on new 3d accelerators, lots of old systems will be left out...and not forget other unix systems that might not have 3d acceleration at all. And the truly impressive effects that Quartz can achieve are just eye-candy...most professionals will turn them off anyway.

good

Good, maybe we'll get something that doesn't suck now.

Cathedral Vs Bazaar

XFree86 was the Cathedral, now it looks like they are recognizing that the Bazaar model of development may be more applicable to their software.

I don't understand

the negative thinking here. The 'core team' philosophy as a whole was the straw that broke many camels' backs, including freedesktop.org.

The rigid holding of control (as it appeared) by the core team has now been relieved and the actual developers, movers and shakers in the XFree86 project now have less red tape to cut through to make the project what we would all like it to be!

Re:I hope something replaces X

It will be called XX.

But I suggest you wait a bit for what will replace XX!

Re:WOW

read.
the.
exceedingly.
short.
article.

Re:WOW

Look at Windows, it's never been supported and that doesn't seem to stop anyone from continuing to use it.

Bull. If you buy Windows retail, you get 90 days (iirc) of free technical support from MS (limited to some set number of incidents, of course). If you get it with a system, your OEM is supposed to support you - most do, in my experience, for a similar amount of time. MS also offer paid-for support, of course, if you're so inclined.

Re:Bumpy times ahead for XFree86 users?

Maybe you should understand what we are talking about here before you predict anything.

The XFree86 core team (of which some of them isn't even *nix users anymore) have been disbanded because of there lack of interest in the project. It's really no big deal for XFree.

Re:WOW

What new core team?
The post indicated in the article said nothing about that.

Quality open source never dies

It just picks up where somebody left off.

I can guarantee you something will replace it. Actually, the project has already forked.

Besides, most posters aren't even interpreting the statement as the "end of XFree86", just a reorganization of "official roles/titles" within the team.

Re:Obviously....

*sigh* must we be blamed for everything?

We've seen that code and it's not like ours, if you're looking for your core group you might want to check the looney bin. ::)

Re:Jesus.....Thank God.

If even some of their time was spent preventing others from contributing working code which addressed problems or added new features (code developed by the time of others) for personal/political/spurious reasons, they deserve a certain amount of chastising.

Not saying I know the ins and outs of the project, but the above still stands in any project. When leaders become an hindrance to problem solving rather than a facilitator, that's a bad situation, especially for projects like this. It's probably good they disbanded , if this was starting to be the case.

Re:Bad Timing

There are places where the day analogous(sp?) to april fools is celebrated the 28th of december.
That would be 3 days late anyways.

Re:Jesus.....Thank God.

No, we need more of those people as well.

You've got to understand, that whatever your archievements are, that doesn't entitle you to behave as a moron. For example, I have great respect for Alan Cox. But, if I ever see him trolling slashdot while I have points, I'm going to mod him down.

The thing that the X team did were great of course, but lately all I've been hearing of them is that they got lazy, advertised their CVS privileges as if it was some god-given privilege, while not doing almost anything at all with it, and made it difficut for people who were at that time doing much more useful work the possibility of making it easier. I'm very glad to hear that now they finally recognized that they were only stalling the development.

Having created something Open Source shouldn't mean that you're free to be dictator of that thing. In Open Source this especially makes little sense, because the point of it is the development of a program, not the exhaltation of its authors. I remember that Linus himself said once that if he believes that Linux will advance better without him, he will resign.

Re:Best of the worst

In this case, perhaps posting the story is better than no information at all, which was what I experienced when I saw the one line of information on xfree86.org

Not everyone has knowledge of what ever the source is of that email which clarifies it further. If you want to complain about anything, complain about Dawes leaving us in an information vacum!

Re:Bumpy times ahead for XFree86 users?

This guy shouldn't have been moderated down. XFree HAS forked, so fragmentation could be a real concern.

> make it hard for driver vendors like NVidia to target XFree86's derivatives as a platform

XFree has a standard "driver model" that they use, and dislike of that actually one of the things movtivating the forks. So, new X servers won't use the same drivers, but the argument is that it will be easier to implement better drivers without being hamstrung by backward compatibility.

> Unless they agree on an API or similar framework

That API is X11R6 + extensions. Ultimately it matters little if you use XServer1 and I use XServer2 -- the difference wouldn't be visible to end users except maybe with some eyecandy features like transparency effects.

This is a far less serious problem than (say) KDE versus Gnome, which affects the end user in all sorts of ways, but yet people manage to survive.

Re:Jesus.....Thank God.

Hey, just sharing what I know..Jesus. Go and throw a hissy fit why don't you.

I spent alot of time with the Xouvert crew. From what I understand, Xouvert was formed largely out of this same frustration -- Neither developers nor companies could even get a word in edgewise with them, with means the whole project sits and stagnates... Well, until things like today's event, that is. :)

The core team dissolving is a good thing, as I see it. It clears the way for XFree to be less Cathedral and more Bazaar.

Re:Will this stagger and kill Linux?

Do the BSDs use some X server I don't know about?

Re:This is THE most irresponsible post I have ever

Yea, like most CIOs get their tech, political, and business news from /. You grossly overestimate /.'s influence.

Re:This is THE most irresponsible post I have ever

Accord, article was unbellyfeel verging thoughtcrime. Slashdot, duckspeak opsource futurewise!

Re:Best of the worst

I second the nomination !

In my most redundant day ever, I post again: When will we be able to mod entire stories down ??

Re:This is THE most irresponsible post I have ever

I suspect many people (ie the CIO we are trying to win over) will react badly to this.

This happens all the time in both the closed world and the OSS world.
Remember the big "tiff" between Alan and Linus? It was ridiculus that the press picked it up.
Likewise, at the large companies that I have worked at are far worse than what is happening. At USWest, a VP had to be physically restrained and removed from the premise, and only THEN was fired (he was later found to have a handgun in his desk, but that little info was kinda kept quiet).

Don't see anything wrong with that

Perfectly working code should definitely be refused if it's too complicated, breaks consistency, ignores development basics like code reuse, comments and proper class design or will cause lead developers to loose understanding of their project, without the author being willing/able to take over.

It's another question if XFree code team were no longer lead developers, or if another group of people can do the job better. But a project with a lot of contributers and without any moderators will degenerate to chaos before you can say Bazaar.

Re:People, it's XFree86!

We know. But nobody gives a fuck. XF86, Xfree, etc. are just informal abreviations. Slashdot is just a discussion board - relax dude. Everyone also knows that X Windows is not the correct way to write The X Window System. But we use it anyways because its easier. If you have a problem with that then fucking sue us. Now go get a life - we have more important things to worry about than inflaming your emotions over such a petty thing.