-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Saturday 10 April 2004 17:07, Philipp Thomas wrote:

Richard Bos [Sat, 10 Apr 2004 20:50:34 +0200]:

...

What's happening with Xfree? It's being updated to what 6.7.0???

Seems like the move from XFree86 4.4 prerelease to the X.org 6.7.0 release because of that unbelievably dumb advertising clause XFree86 added with 4.4 and which IMNSHO will ultimately lead to the death of the XFree86 project.

Philipp

Yep, that's pretty much my take on the situation as well. This was a hot topic on /. and my impression was that if XF86 doesn't change the license clauses that are giving many such adverse concerns that indeed the demise of XFree86 project is going to spin in and crash due to lack of interest. Keith Packard took a chance by trying to get the core team to open up to other needs and possibility and they booted him - so off to X.org he went. To be honest (flame protective suit on) the sort of poilitical infighting and wrangling I have heard about XF86's project managers reminds of the same sort of stories about the unrest in the certain BSD committees. It's not as if XF86 team could respond to some of the more placid and moderate requests from those outside of them - it's seems to boil down to power issues and egos. Pity - XF86 has provide some nice code that I as an end-user have been very happy to have access to. However, I myself, have desired more innovation related to the manner in which developers in other corners of the development world have mentioned. I refer to the section in "The UNIX-HATERS Handbook", Part 1: User Friendly? #7 The X-Windows Disaster. How to Make a 50-MIPS Workstation Run Like a 4.77MHz IBM PC: <quote> If the designers of X Windows built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which folled the same principles - but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that. --Marcus J. Ranum Digital Equipment Corporation X Windows is the Iran-Contra of graphical user interfaces: a tragedy of political compromises, entangled alliances, market hype, and just plain greed. X Windows is to memory as Ronald Reagan was to money. Years of "Voodoo Ergonomics" have resulted in an unprecedented memory deficit on gargantuan proportions. Divisive dependencies, distributed deadlocks, and partisan protocols have tightened gridlocks, aggrevated race conditions, and promulgated double standards. <end quote> And this opinion: <quote> X was designed to run three programs: xterm, xload, and xclock. (the idea of a window manager was added as an afterthought, and it shows.) For the first few years of its development at MIT, these were, in fact, the ONLY programs that ran under the windows system. Notice that none of these programs have any semblance of a graphical user interface (except xclock), only one of these programs implements anything in the way of cut-and-paste (and then, only as single data type is supported), and none of them requires a particlularly sophisticated approach to color management. Is it any wonder, then, that these are areas in which modern X falls down? <end quote> The client (in X) is "the remote machine where the application is running", and the server is the local machine that displays output and accepts user input. Counterintuitive on most counts - since everywhere else in the IT world the "server" runs the app and the "client" is where user input and output is generally done. I really think this is why so many companies avoid Linux/'nix on the consumer end - it runs bass ackwards from a programmers sense. This also probably explains why Video drivers such as provided by nVidia and ATI can be so painful to use (especially ATI of late). On the upside, because of this, one might come to the opinion that nVidia and ATI (especially nVidia) do put a concerted effort to provide functional drivers (9it probably takes a lot more work to get functional than it should). It is my hope that X.org will be able to rectify some of these dificiencies - though to a degree XF86 has addressed these as well - but not to the degree that is could be and I believe that the political arena at XF86 is the primary reason that we are seeing this (excuse my bluntness) "Brain Dead" license clause that has the rest of the community up in arms. If SuSE/Novell back X.org (as well as others) I have a strong belief that the benefits to Linux/FOSS would be very substantial. <end diatribe> Cheers, Curtis. - -- Spammers Beware: Tresspassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again! Warning: Individuals throwing objects at the crocodiles will be asked to retrieve them! If pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of progress must be congress! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAePOX7CQBg4DqqCwRAsGjAJ4vAGLjNrMN+MRMATCE0XuMypBWFwCbBBFU xrIcBU0qQy83iHg3ZvVa03I= =nL93 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Sunday 11 April 2004 04:28, John Andersen wrote:

On Saturday 10 April 2004 23:28, Curtis Rey wrote:

...

The client (in X) is "the remote machine where the application is running", and the server is the local machine that displays output and accepts user input.  Counterintuitive on most counts - since everywhere else in the IT world the "server" runs the app and the "client" is where user input and output is generally done.

I really think this is why so many companies avoid Linux/'nix on the consumer end - it runs bass ackwards from a programmers sense.

Add to this all the nebulous layers and arbitrary divisions of labor (X windows, Display managers, widget sets, GTK, KDE, Gnome, fwvm, xfce... It goes on and on.

Remember these "nebulous layers" are what make the system stable and robust and give you the choice to use what you like. This is how things are separated in process space as well as divisions of labor for building them. This is why a misbehaving application can't take out the entire OS or even the entire GUI. As for the backwards portion that Curtis wrote about, who cares which is the server and which is the client when the system is working? It is a display provider and an application provider. It doesn't matter what they are called, end users would never call them the right thing anyway. They could never tell you that the app server was down or the database server was down, they can just say that my "xyz" isn't working today. Or my drive "w" isn't there. -- Kelly L. Fulks Home Account near Huntsville, AL

On 2004-04-11 09:28, Curtis Rey wrote:

It is my hope that X.org will be able to rectify some of these dificiencies - though to a degree XF86 has addressed these as well - but not to the degree that is could be and I believe that the political arena at XF86 is the primary reason that we are seeing this (excuse my bluntness) "Brain Dead" license clause that has the rest of the community up in arms.

Excuse my ignorance O:-) What is that license problem, in brief? (If there is a link explaining that, and why the X project has divided, I'm interested). -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

On Sunday 11 April 2004 17:11, Curtis Rey wrote:

On Sunday 11 April 2004 04:23, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2004-04-11 09:28, Curtis Rey wrote:

...

It is my hope that X.org will be able to rectify some of these dificiencies - though to a degree XF86 has addressed these as well - but not to the degree that is could be and I believe that the political arena at XF86 is the primary reason that we are seeing this (excuse my bluntness) "Brain Dead" license clause that has the rest of the community up in arms.

Excuse my ignorance O:-)

What is that license problem, in brief?

(If there is a link explaining that, and why the X project has divided, I'm interested).

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

[forum] Announcement: Modification to the base XFree86(TM) license. http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-January/001892.html

XFree86 4.4: List of Rejecting Distributors Grows http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/02/18/131223.shtml?tid=104

XFree86 License Change in 4.4.0 http://pcburn.com/article.php?op=Print&sid=203

A new XFree86 license http://lwn.net/Articles/68841/

Stallman on XFree86 License Change (OfB.biz) http://lwn.net/Articles/72053/

Stallman Responds to XFree86 License http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=297

That should keep you busy for a while. :) :) :)

Cheers, Curtis. -- Spammers Beware: Tresspassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again!

Warning: Individuals throwing objects at the crocodiles will be asked to retrieve them!

Tempest / Teapot. Sort of reminds me of the whole Trolltech bruhaha that spawned Gnome, which (i think most would agree) is a totally moot issue these days. This is not to say that a little competition and housecleaning would not do wonders for X. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

Op zondag 11 april 2004 02:07, schreef Philipp Thomas:

...

What's happening with Xfree?  It's being updated to what 6.7.0???

Seems like the move from XFree86 4.4 prerelease to the X.org 6.7.0 release because of that unbelievably dumb advertising clause XFree86 added with 4.4 and which IMNSHO will ultimately lead to the death of the XFree86 project.

I actually wondered how the 6.7.0 relates to the 4.4 version. I though that version 4.4rcX was just forked? Oh wait, it has always been XR6, is it coming from there? -- Richard Bos Without a home the journey is endless