Fedora Prepares For Xorg Instead of XFree86

ZuperDee writes "I noticed in the development branch of Fedora today that they appear to be in the process of creating new xorg RPMs, and from the looks of the changelogs in those RPMs, it looks like their ultimate plan is to switch from XFree86 to the XOrg Foundation's implementation of X11. Anyone else here think this could signal the beginning of a new trend in Linux distributions, and that XOrg could end up becoming the new de-facto X11 implementation?" (See this earlier story,too.)

Great

[HappyCitizen]

Just when Linux was getting to the point where it could overtake Windows, even in the desktop (www.mandrake.com) environment, XFree86 changes its license. Now, Fedora is switching its Graphical Display. No matter the security, the stability, etc. the average home user will probably remain with windows. He wants his program to be work with his computer. It may not be that simple once more distro's use more widely varied XFree86 implementations

I'm confused

[Mr. Darl McBride]

Someone clear me in:

Is this the same thing as Xouvert, or something new?

Can someone give a ten second summary of the differences in the goals and developers of XFree86, Xouvert and Xorg?

Re:drivers

[Fallen Kell]

That is what I am wondering as well. Supposedly, if their drivers are built to the X11 spec, then I would think they would be easy to port over without much trouble. If, however they have all kinds of hooks into XFree86 specific libraries, then there might be problems.

De Facto Standards

[tomhudson]

It's just become another standard - not the de facto one. De facto implies that it is, in fact, the standard, as opposed to, say, de jure, which is a legal standard (cf. "laws more honoured in the breach").

Fedora switching just means we have more choice. This is a good thing, just like KDE vs. Gnome is a good thing.

Most people will settle for whatever comes with their distro, so maybe this will give an impetus for the X group to clean up the licensing issue :-)

Variety is good

[Anonymous Coward]

While I don't think the X world will turn on its ear just because Fedora may start using Xorg, I think the fact that one or more distributions are currently/going-to try it out is A Good Thing(tm).

Drivers could be a problem for a long time.

[meldroc]

Both NVidia and ATI keep their driver sources and hardware-level programming information closely guarded secrets. This means unless NVidia and ATI decide to support the new X server, we're gonna be stuck with lousy 2-d drivers, maybe with accelerated blitting if the mfgrs decide to throw us a few crumbs.

De-facto?

[Nimrangul]

Why is it everyone insists there must be a de-facto standard for everything?

It's X, X is for the most part X whichever X you run. If feature y on server z of X doesn't make it the standard, what make anyone think license clause w for server v will?

Having two equally used Xes would be better I'd think, after all they follow the same X standard.

If it's compatible, they will use it ...

[molarmass192]

XOrg could end up becoming the new de-facto X11 implementation

It's a little early to make that kind of prediction. However, the key is compatibility. If XORG maintains full compatibility such that it's still X11 and we can just a recompile and go on our merry way, then anything is possible. Personally, I don't think people care which code base their X server uses so long as it's an X11 server. Reality is that the XF86 group will wake up an smell the coffee sooner rather than later, they're expendable, they just don't know it yet.

Re:For the ignorant (like me)

[Omnifarious]

Also, there has been some internal strife with the XFree86 organization. From my external viewpoint, it seems like the people own largely control the organization are somewhat slow about changing things or adopting new ideas into XFree86.

XFree86, up to this point, has been a defining implementation of the X11 protocol. Most new things in the X11 protocol have come from the XFree86 project. But, I suspect that's no longer going to be the case.

Re:drivers

[RLiegh]

I don't see why. Isn't it possible to find out what hooks they have and then port the old XFree86 code over? Or would the DMCA prevent us from finding out what hooks are called?

Re:Great

[jared_hanson]

That's why we have the X11 protocol -- so there can be multiple implementations that remain compatible. The end user will never be aware of the switch, assuming the previous and current X server correctly implements the protocol.

I wouldn't dare to imagine the number of times that MS has replaced or retrofitted (read: ugly hacks) technologies found in previous versions of Windows. Only in there case, its all closed so you aren't aware of it. In all liklihood, the MS situation is worse, since it leads to bloat and security risks.

Just because open source development airs its dirty laundry in the wind does not mean it yeilds worse software than closed source development. Quite the contrary, I think if you researched your position you would find better software.

Re:Great

[Jahf]

You state that the end user won't even notice AFTER USING HTML as an example?

Let's go back a bit and look at the history of browsers implenting the HTML standards differently. Differing implementations can make a tremendous difference to end users and also (especially) to developers.

Re:X11 is Bill Gates's best friend

[SillyNickName4me]

I guess that is why MS and others are still replicating one of X' most important features, being usable over a network to provide a remote desktop. Don't get me wrong, it is definitely time to kick out some outdated stuff or at least bring in replacement for many of the things X does when used locally, but generally X is very usefull and there is no reason to throw that away.

Re:Will THIS be the wakeup call to XFree86?

[Telex4]

What WILL it take to wake them up?

Furthermore, should we care any more? With XOrg, xserver and xouvert all at different and useful stages of maturity, and apparently enough developers now working on each to guarantee that they won't stagnate too soon, XF86 is looking increasingly irrelevant.

How to kill your prjoect...

[Supp0rtLinux]

Funny, but it seems that really don't need bad reviews, freezes, or crashes to end the life of your software project. All you need it a sucky license.

As I understand it, Xfree changed their license to make sure more credit is given to its developers. But who gives a crap when no one will use because of the license itself.

The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers [nccomp.com]

Re:De Facto

[mabinogi]

There's nothing wrong with having hundreds of forks - usually it's pretty clear which one you want to go with.
A fork started over a minor difference of opinion is unlikely to get much backing...and it's existance does not really affect the main project.

The main difference between Free Software and Proprietry projects is that when a bunch of developers decide they don't like the way a proprietry project is being run - they either leave for good, or leave and start from scratch, with Free Software they can fork the project and carry on from the point they left off.

Yes forking can hurt an existing project if a large number of developers leave, but the alternative is that they leave and don't fork.

The future...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I think that this is silly if it's for Licensing reasons alone. I predict that more and more people who actually make a living making Open Source software are going to move away from the GPL and it's permutations, for Open Source licenses that actually make sense, that are not based on RMS's gigantic ego.

Re:Great

[tverbeek]

Who modded up this as "Insightful"? It's nothing more than clueless bashing.

Who modded up this as "Informative"? It's nothing more than clueless pontificating.

That distro A uses XFree86 and distro B uses XOrg means absolutely nothing to end users. Everything's still interoperable because X11 is a standard. Everything will still Just Work(tm) and the end user won't even notice something has changed.

Until he tries to install a driver that was written only for one implementation on a system that uses the other. Or he tries to turn on a new extended feature that only exists in the other one. IE for Windows and Safari for OS X may both implement the same HTML spec, but that doesn't mean their rendering of it is the same, or their plug-ins are interchangeable.

Re:De Facto Standards

[Spoing]

1. It's just become another standard - not the de facto one. De facto implies that it is, in fact, the standard, as opposed to, say, de jure, which is a legal standard (cf. "laws more honoured in the breach").

*grumble*

A nit: Standards are based on specifications. Implementations of specs are called 'Standard' by convention but are implementations, not standards. The implementation can shape an existing standard or even create a de-facto standard.

A popular de-facto standard is Microsoft's .doc format that is documented incompletely or impractically since even Word does not implement the format the same way the documents describe or even consistantly in different implementations of Word.

Other programs that also implement the de-facto standard .doc format are variably sucessful in creating and/or reading .doc files created using Microsoft's implementation.

Re:De Facto

[x0n]

Funny? Mod parent insightful! This is closer to the truth than most realise.

As much is it one of the great pluses of the Open Source movement to be able to branch like this, in reality, it's another truckload of headaches for compatilibity issues in the future. The X server has been one of the only invariables recently in the layering of our systems; now we have just witnessed another variable which doubles the possible combinations (read: problems) from the X server layer up. For those of us who want linux on the desktop (read: useable by noobs), this spells ever more woe. Ah well, at least sysadm salaries might increase out of this one.

My two cents.

- Oisin

Re: Drivers

[Rex Code]

this is a fork so it should be compatible

At some level, all distros are forks, so they're all compatible, right? My worry is they'll put some wierd X extension in it, and then make GNOME require that extension.

Anyway, what was the big deal with the XFree86 license again? Buncha massive overreaction if you ask me, but I think certain groups were looking for any excuse to hijack XFree86.

at least an option..

[xot]

Ther is at least an option in the X marketplace, uptill now (or whenever) there was no option to Xfree86 for all unix based distro's.Now with the xfree86 messing up the license theres some hope for a Mandrake and his buddies, don't you think? ;-)

Re:De Facto Standards

[chromatic]

Dictatorships tend to be more efficient than democracies (especially representative democracies), but democracies tend to be more pleasant for everyone outside of the ruling class.

Re:drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this thread proves that freedesktop.org need to hire a marketing director.

Re:De Facto Standards

[tomhudson]

Re: windows market dominance:

Because people can point at it and refer to its characteristics. Developers can write an app and be reasonably confident as to how it will run, what environment it will run in, etc.

Really? Many closed, undocumented APIs. Inconsistent behaviour across versions. An environment that is constantly changing w. every new virus, worm and trojan. DLL hell. Patch-o-matic games. Registry corruption.

Developers write an app, and are SURPRISED when it runs ... on non-developer machines.

Okay, so I bit :-)

It just goes to show...

[cjpez]

... what the Linux world needs to conquer the desktop is even more fragmentation! Yay!

(yes, I know that X is hardly Linux-specific...)

Re:drivers

[be-fan]

I think they need to come up with a name for their damn X server. Up until now, calling it the FD.O X server was okay, cuz there was only one X server on freedesktop.org. Now there are two, and all hell has broken loose. It doesn't help that the new X server is called the X.org server, when there is already another X.org server (the X11R6.6 reference implementation).

Would NVidia follow RedHat or XFree86.

[ron_ivi]

If RedHat switched, I think a better question is will NVidia keep supporting the XFree86 version?

I think they'll follow whoever the biggest commercial Linux distros, and today that means RedHat and Novell/SuSE.

Why support XFree86 if the big distros are dropping it?

A good explanation

[eean]

I good explanation for it that I read at osnews.com was that the XFree86 and the Distros (commercial and community alike) started to increasingly have differences in priorities and culture. The license change was a like message from XFree86 to the distros that they didn't care one way or another for their support. The distros response is logical. Additionally while most of the distros have pleny of software incompatible with the GPL, it is not ideal to have something as central to an operating system as the X server to be GPL-incompatible.

As an end user, I don't care which license it has!

[jarich]

While the license matters to a lot of people, I care if it works.

If it doesn't have accelerated support for video card X (and forking the tree will have that effect as development resources get divided), I don't care how open it is.

Does is matter how far you can open the hood of the car? I'd rather be able to open it three quarters of the way open to see a nice eight cylinder 450 than to be able to open it compeletely and see the hamster and his wheel.

too bad we're talking about X and not OSX

[dankelley]

As a long-time unix/linux user and sometime x11 developer, and as somebody who has switched to Apple's OSX (for reasons unrelated to this thread), I wish open-source desktops would stop weilding x11 to imitate/extend the mswindows interface, and instead imitate/extend the OSX interface.

For the user, OSX it is a dream. But for developers, it's a wet dream. Creating slick interfaces is simple, the PDF-inspired graphical model is a breath of fresh air, and the interfaces inherit impressive functionality automatically. Because its code-development process leverages effort powerfully, perhaps more so than for the comparable GNOME/KDE tools, I think OSX offers good potential for the open-source movement, given well-fashioned attitudes and licenses.

I make these remarks with some trepidation, since I think the fragmentation across GNOME and KDE dilutes developer momentum. Also, I make these remarks to evoke discussion by those more technically-aware than myself.

Re:For the ignorant (like me)

[Welsh Dwarf]

I am thinking, and I can't see your reasons, could you please elaborate?

If you're going to state that X11 is slow, then I suggest that you rmember that on a local box, we're talking about unix sockets, which are mmaped in the kernel, hence 0 performance loss.

If your going to start asking about alpha blending etc then your confusing X11 and XFree, since their is no problem with haveing a blendable X server.

Please elaborate

Re:De Facto Standards

[cubic6]

Compare that to Linux.

Many open, undocumented APIs. Inconsistant behaviour within the *same* version on different distros. An environment that is completely different between machines. Package dependency hell. Patchy driver support. Config files that only programmers can understand.

Developers write an app, and have to work their asses off to make sure it runs on anything besides their machine.

I'm not saying Windows is perfect in this regard, but Linux ain't much better. It's just representative of the vast numbers of different configurations out there. If I write a program on Linux, and I want it to run on every Linux computer, I have to jump through a few hoops. If I write a program on Windows, and I want it to run on every Windows computer, I have to jump through a few hoops. Neither is the silver bullet when it comes to easy deployment of applications.

If they don't work, it will testify to...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the folly of relying on binary-only drivers.

Simplistic Explanation

[RichiP]

Please refrain from using overly simplistic arguments to support your cause. In my opinion, it wasn't JUST the license change that lead to this seemingly spiralling downfall, but the head developers of XFree86 itself (David Dawes, to be specific).

I've read and re-read various threads on the XFree86 mailing list (please look it up in archives and past posts on /.) and the man strikes me as positively arrogant, with no respect for the opinions of others (unless he was actually majorly outnumbered, and sometimes not even then). He has repeatedly ignored input from other people including his own co-developers and loves to portray himself as the righteous leader. His posts are nothing short of antagonistic and he has very selective memory.

Would that be sufficient reason for a project to fail? In this case, I would say so. He insists on having and keeping all control of the project to himself. If he had good sense, that wouldn't be a problem, but he's already shown that all he's interested in is recognition and retaining control over the project (rather than the project's welfare).

Past posts have shown that several suggestions and patches had been ignored which led to the project's stagnation. You may argue that the project is successful and works even now, but the point is it could have been so much better under a different type of leadership.

The recent license change is but one manifestation of how callous the head developers are.

Re:For the ignorant (like me)

[Gumshoe]

To expaned even futher, X11 will be what makes certain Linux will never be able to compete with Windows for the Desktop user.

Think about it for a few minutes before modding me as a flame or troll. Mind you, it seems that /. has become more about moderation than discussion for many. Sad, really.

I can't see what you want me to think about. You've presented an assertion but provided no reasoning. If you could elaborate: why is X11 an obstacle to the desktop?

Flame with more fire and less smokescreen, please

[cduffy]

What have you done for Free Software?

I'm the maintainer of CSCVS, a tool for breaking CVS repositories into changesets, reporting on them, and importing those changsets into TLA. As such, my familiarity with CVS (and Arch) goes beyond that of the average user.

Now, about the issues that Arch is designed to fix: Revisioning renames and moves is not something that comes up only infrequently. Revisioning metadata is not something that comes up only infrequently. Mutually merged branches are not something that come up only infrequently. Taking forever to do a "cvs update" on a 10,000 file tree because the tree needs to be walked to look for updates is not something that comes up only infrequently. I've had the lead developer at work bitching in my direction because CVS is coming up with spurious conflicts that Arch would ignore.

I have a leg to stand on right now, and if you'd care to stand up and try to argue your position on its merits rather than firing off some angry rant, I'd absolutely love to do so.

Re:Uh

[DeathToBill]

Hmmm, let's review a little history here...

For some time now, I have been able to login to a Solaris box from a Linux box, start an Xterm on one and display it on the other. *Gasp* Interoperability! And these don't even have much common history (except, of course, the Solaris distros that use XFree86, before some pedant points it out). And you know what, the exact same thing works with Tru64 Unix... and NT X servers... gosh, just about the whole X11 world is interoperable! Conspiracy theorists, arise!

And these are only the ones that I've actually tried.

As for driver compatibility, do you expect Linux kernel drivers to work on BSD? Do you expect Dia plugins to work in OO.o? Of course not. They are parts of different projects. Saying this is going to confuse Joe User is ridiculous. What, one day Joe User just decides to download the source to an XFree86 video driver and compile it, and finds it doesn't work in his FD.O X server... I'm not seeing a realistic scenario here. As if some clueless user who can't tell the difference between a BMW and a Peugeot might try to install a BMW engine in his Mercedes...

Think before you post. I do it and, believe it or not, this post actually got a lot nicer to you after doing so.

Re:Time to go copyleft?

[niittyniemi]

> Perhaps now XFree86 decided to go GPL-incompatible, some even say
> non-practical even while free, it would be time to go LGPL or
> even GPL? Thus proprietary vendors would have to either stick
> with XFree86 and its advertising clause, or pay and thus help
> develop (X.org|XOuvert|FreeDesktopX).

Proprietary vendors and the *BSDs would prefer the advertising clause.

In the case of proprietary companies; why pay/help for another
implementation with a more illiberal license?

And for *BSD; why change all the dependencies for BSD ports that
currently depend on XFree to instead depend on a different X server
with a different license? After all most *BSDers are pretty much
license agnostic and don't like unneccessary work.

BTW/FWIW, I've seen no discussion about the Xfree license change on
the primary FreeBSD newsgroup. I don't think it's anything we lose
any sleep over, it's not in the base system so it doesn't really matter.

If the functionality of the differing X servers changed to any
degree, then folks would jump on the more featureful ... maybe.

What the posts here seem to indicate is that Linux users seem to
think most of the time that they are the only people who use
X/XFree, they're not! They're the only ones who go through
prolonged & tortured discussions about the licensing of it.

Re:drivers

[chowells]

Nope, because the licence change was done just before 4.4 final, at the release candidate stage, so the fork contains the most recent code just before the licence change took place.

Re:For the ignorant (like me)

[Jexx Dragon]

You think of the license issues with XF86 as stopping Linux from gaining popularity... Alright think about this: The reason Linux eventully will compeate with (and possibly beat) Windows is because of X11. Think about it, X is far more customizable then the windows GUI and if you don't want it you can strip it out. And of course, there is a Window Manager for everyone, if you don't like the one you got with a default install, replace it. And lets not forget the power of the command line, Windows has nothing even remotely similer.

A small lisence problem will not stop Linux, simply strip out XF86, replace it with something else and the problem is solved. In fact, the OS may benifit from a new X implimentation.

hm, lets watch

[SubtleNuance]

it would be a nice demonstration of the claim that opensource software can adapt quickly to 'breaks' in incompatable licenses (and unwanted behaviour).

Lets see how flawless this comes off -- will it cause confusion or can RedHat (the leading distro) make the change, leaving others, will it 'fork' and provide two distinct servers or will One Fail?

Should be interesting to watch.

Re:Y-Windows

[TopherC]

As long as people are running with X11R6 servers, they will want new apps compiled against Y-windows or whatever to run. Does the planned X11R6 compatability layer work both ways?

I think the optional extensions are great -- this allows for multiple implementations of X without an unbearable burden of supporting *everything*. If the process of natural selection is going to work, you want a protocol that's not overly demanding.

By separating the widgets and toolkits from the X server, you again reduce complexity and allow for multiple implementations at these different layers. I guess the widgets and themes could somehow be linked into the X server, but now I'm rapidly entering the realm of speculation.

I keep hearing the argument that X is bad because it's old. Unix is even older, and look what happened with it! I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to hear about the details. Is it necessarily true that the entire protocol is insufficient and cannot be satisfactorily extended? Why not?

I guess efficiency could be the main issue. In part it's a matter of how the clients are designed. I've seen some relatively simple (just stock widgets) Java programs that, with Sun's VM, absolutely crawl over a 10 MBit connection. I mean that it takes half a minute to redraw a quarter of a window or pop up a menu. Compression seems not to help much because it's all limited by latency. (I can imagine the communique: "Can I draw this pixel here?" "What color?" "Red." "Okay." "You sure?" "pretty sure." ...) On the other hand, I've seen glitzier programs (emacs, even Mozilla) perform just fine through the same network. But I can see room for improvement. VNC seems to be faster in some ways. And Microsoft has some technology that does a similar thing fairly quickly, but that's relying on a higher-level protocol passing Windows API calls or something. So that's what you mean about integrating the widgets and toolkits somehow.

Re:De Facto

[wfberg]

Get a whole bunch of Linux advocates in a room together with a bunch of BSD advocates. Casually mention licensing. Shortly before all hell breaks loose, one or two people will mention that Linux has not forked because it's under the GPL, while laissez-faire BSD has at least a dozen forks in it. Whereupon Alan will hit Theo over the head with a copy of the GNU Manifesto, rendering him unconscious.

Forking has happened with linux. In fact, linux comes pre-forked. Truly bleeding edge early adopters only use kernels with AC patches, don't they? And don't a lot of people use RedHat's kernels, which are usually older kernels with patches back-ported. Sounds forky to me.

Now, because of the GPL nature of derivative kernels, kernel patches often make their way into the mainstream Linux(R) kernel in due time, as with most journalling filesystems for example, but that doesn't necessarily happen; so people who adopted early to some bleeding edge feature that never got into the mainstream kernel need to keep on patching. That's a fork, baby.

In reality, which fork you use depends on to whom you swear allegiance; RedHat, Linus, TheoDeRaadt, etc.

Re:De Facto Standards

[viktor]

To sum up what you're very eloquently describing: GNU/Linux isn't an operating system like Windows or Mac OS X. GNU/Linux is just the basis upon which operating systems can be built. Like Mandrake or Red Hat. They are operating systems.

And in there lies not only a value but also a big problem for any wider acceptance of GNU/Linux-based OS:es. As an application developer, you must not support one, but more like ten different operating systems in order to "run on Linux". At a minimum, you must create one KDE and one GNOME frontend, lest your application "looks wrong" for the end user that has a Linux OS installed which uses the other.

Let us not even begin to ponder that each Linux OS seems to invent its own slightly different file system layout. Because they all need to be different from all the others. KDE/GNOME, Xfree86/Xorg, /etc/foo.bar or /usr/etc/foo.bar...

Nice as it is to have many different Linux OS:es, the diversity between them is a major deterrent to many software development companies.

Re:too bad we're talking about X and not OSX

[Psiren]

Look at the difference in the screenshots between MacOS X and Linux versions. GNUstep is really, really ugly. Perhaps if they tarted it up a bit, they might get a little more exposure. From what I have heard and read though, the internals are very good. Nothing wroing with getting the core stuff working right first, but don't underestimate the benefit of a purty interface.