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Cygwin/XFree86 Leaving XFree86.org
Posted by
simoniker
on Mon Oct 27, 2003 02:00 PM
from the oh-the-shenanigans dept.
from the oh-the-shenanigans dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Cygwin/XFree86 project is leaving XFree86.org. For those that don't know, Cygwin/XFree86 is a port of the X Window System to Cygwin (which provides a *nix-like API on Windows). Here is the announcement and the start of the trouble. The XFree86 project has pushed away more developers than most projects ever have - is this the beginning of the end for XFree86?"
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Leaving? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes there is a replacement. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Yeah right (Score:4, Interesting)
Fresco has been bogged down in Alpha status for the last 5 years. Some people think that the only reason it is so slow in development is because no-one knows about it.
But the real reason is because Fresco sucks and no one wants to touch it with a 10 foot pole. If you think X is bloated, Fresco is 10 times worse. Its an over-engineered solution heavily reliant on C++, CORBA, GGI, and other crap.
X does suck, but 90% of the basic design of X is excellent. A new windowing system should focus on keeping the basic design, while (a) eliminating legacy crap that no one needs anymore, and (b) adding the stuff we DO need like Drag and Drop, Transparency, AA fonts, 3D, etc.
-- LD
Parent
Re:Leaving? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Not for a while.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not for a while.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not for a while.. (Score:3, Interesting)
However, some people are bound to complain at its integrated standard toolkit. I like the idea of a standard toolkit for consistency across applications, but to keep everybody happy (and for ultimate flexibility, which is what Linux is about, right?), it would be good for the choice of toolkit to be pluggable... Not based on top, as current toolkits are, but just swappable by Y. That way, we could all be using the same API and have things just the (consistent) way we want them.
Some nat
"beginning of the end"? (Score:5, Interesting)
slashdot story [slashdot.org] on the topic.
Re:"beginning of the end"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Xouvert is a development branch of the Xfree86 source tree. It's purpose is to provide wide testing and integration for third party patches, and to test and stabilize innovative new ideas for submission to the main Xfree86 branch.
Doesn't really sound like Xouvert marks the end of XFree86. Indeed, it sounds like Xouvert is dedicated to improving XFree86.
Dinivin
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Branch Becomes Trunk (gcc) (Score:5, Insightful)
Xouvert is a development branch of the Xfree86 source tree. It's purpose is to provide wide testing and integration for third party patches, and to test and stabilize innovative new ideas for submission to the main Xfree86 branch.
It's an interesting phenomenon associated with free software: enough talented developers get the perception that the current people in control are being unreasonable about release schedules, overall direction, features, bugs, indenting styles, etc. and fork their own branch.
A closely-related parallel here is how the egcs [gnu.org] folks wanted greater ability to change the gcc codebase than the gcc developers wanted to do.
Then, the egcs branch took off so famously that later it essentially became [gnu.org] the gcc development branch.
May the best X branch become the tree trunk.
Parent
Re:"beginning of the end"? (Score:3, Informative)
That's almost exactly what we said about egcs versus gcc when egcs started, to keep the FSF from flipping out. However, the result was that egcs ended up replacing GCC (what was originally planned as egcs 1.2 became gcc 2.95). This is good strategy for those who wish to avoid a fork: arrange that the fork can eventually become the main branch.
Whether xouvert will replace or take over Xfree86 depends on whether the majority of developers abandon the xfree86 ship and work on the xouvert branch.
Re:"beginning of the end"? Maybe not! (Score:5, Informative)
--
1.1 What is Xouvert?
Contrary to popular opinion, Xouvert is not a fork of the XFree86 project.
Xouvert wishes to provide a development branch of XFree86. What this means is, Xouvert is an attempt to create, implement, test, and bring new features and ideas to XFree86 sooner.
Xouvert has now just started. Currently, Xouvert simply is XFree86. The purpose of this document is to help people get to a point where they can help contribute to Xouvert.
Parent
Thanks for your "insight" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Thanks for your "insight" (Score:5, Informative)
"What this means for XFree86
Some will say nothing. Some will say good riddance. Some will say this is the beginning of the end. Who knows? Who cares? Let
Parent
Re:GNU seems cranky (Score:5, Informative)
Their problem is probably exactly what they said.
Why is it that GNU sees the need to fork *everything*?
Like what? Cygwin is not a particularly GNU project, and XFree86 has always explicitly been given support under its current license by RMS.
And who are these myriad other developers that have been turned off by the X group?
How many times does Xouvert need to be mentioned in this thread?
I can see arguments that X is unwieldy and archaic, fine
RTFA. That has nothing to do with it; it's a management problem, not codebase problem.
Parent
After reading the thread... (Score:5, Insightful)
These guys seem to care more about being able to brag about their commit access in their email signatures than streamlining development of their software and making things as easy as possible for those willing to devote their time and talent to the project.
If ever a project was in need of a fork, and if ever some project developers were in need of an attitude readjustment - this is it.
Re:After reading the thread... (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO David Dawes comes off sounding arrogant and uninterested in solving problems (yet again - he seemed the same way over the Keith Packard blow up). He seems to have the attitude that since he is a volunteer he has no responsibility to the other developers, in terms of improving the process or otherwise making their life easier. It's not a good way to run a project.
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Harry's right... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, what kind of nut must it be to crack to get X running atop of Windows? You'd think they'd give Harry some slack just out of the complexity of what he's doing.
Another poster mentioned that it's the fault of the tools, and I think this is a good point. A truly usable code management system would allow for Bozo the Clown to have commit privileges and it wouldn't impact the overall effort at all.
So uhhhh.... (Score:4, Funny)
What this means for XFree86
Some will say nothing. Some will say good riddance. Some will say this is the beginning of the end. Who knows? Who cares? Let /. figure it out.
So uhhhhh... who wants to tackle this one? ;-)
Yo la tengo: (Score:3, Funny)
Unite! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unite! (Score:3, Informative)
beginning of the end? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wish. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most likely, modern desktop users need much more of the advanced features (recent extensions such as video, OpenGL etc., in particular) than ever.
If you look at what the basic X11 feature set really is, it's really very simple.
Most likely the most complicated thing you aren't using is the color management stuff.
What most people experience as "X11 bloat" currently probably consists more of bloat on the widget toolkit side than on the XFree86 side.
XFree86 could use a lot of cleaning up, but it's not particularly bloated.
Parent
Re:I wish. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would wager that >75% of all software users don't need *any* of the advanced features of the software they use on a daily basis. I would also wager that those in the 25% range drive over 95% of the innovation and development, and that those users _need_ (as much as anyone can need anything) those advanced features.
Doesn't anyone know about the 10/90 or the 20/80 rule anymore? (If no, look it up).
I would like to see a completely modular, X-windows core-compatible windowing system for Linux. Want to use some of the advanced features? Add in the module, recompile, and go!
1st, to me, modular means you don't need to recompile. 2nd, who really cares how modular X is? That surely wouldn't help me get cut and paste working (by this I mean between all X apps and beyond text data). That surely wouldn't help me get drag and drop working. These little features that are over 20 years old are welcomed!
Until these basic needs are met, I don't want to hear another "Is Linux ready for the desktop?" questions.
Parent
Re:I wish. (Score:4, Insightful)
Screw those 25%. They're the minority. They lost the election. Their duty is to humbly follow the behind the victorious mob!
Oh wait... Those 25% are those that actually help product the software, unlike the 75% that merely sits around and soaks up freebies.
<derail>
Okay, all facetiousness aside. The 75% is not more important than the 25%, even assuming those numbers were accurate. This isn't a democracy where the winner takes all. This is a marketplace where everyone who participates has the opportunity to win.
Let's look at some of the "advanced" features. None of them, by the way, detract anything from the experience of those using the basic features. First, Xinerama. I don't use it, since I possess only a single monitor. But I know people who do use it, and they absolutely love it. Some recent reports show that their productivity is improved. If all you do is run a single game in a single window on a single monitor, you might never want it. But if you don't, someone else using it is not going to affect you.
Second, remote networking. I use this daily. Most people I know who are on a UNIX local network use it. It frees you from the physical constraints of your workstation. And like Xinerama, if you don't use it, it doesn't affect you. Contrary to myth, the overhead of networking support for local use is non-existant. Local connections use sockets, which are damned fast.
Before you start trimming off huge chunks of X11 because one out of four people are not worthy, start with the Linux kernel. I would be willing to wager that 75% of Linux users don't need the advanced features of the kernel. Ditto for glibc. Ditto for everything else in the system.
Parent
Perseverance (Score:4, Interesting)
I think not and here's why: I've been working as a consultant for one of the top banks in the US for the last 10 years. One of my roles is to maintain the COBOL-emulator for the VAX systems that we store customer data in. One of the integral pieces, as you may guess, is CygWin. We actively add elements and integrate third-party products with CygWin since it is the best at what it does.
The greatest challenge for our team is to enhance the Win32 abstraction layer so that it no longer interferes with the HAL on a multi-processor layer. We've made some progress and thanks to CygWin we're close to completion.
Which is nice.
We don't need more fracturing ... (Score:3, Insightful)
calling Chicken Little... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the scaremongering, anonymous submitter? Just because one project isn't getting access to XF86's CVS tree and will have to maintain one of their own somewhere else, doesn't mean that everyone will abandon XF86. It's mature, has a ton of features, and has no viable replacement; who is gonna leave and where are they gonna go?
good move - their whole patch system is whacked (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:good move - their whole patch system is whacked (Score:5, Insightful)
I certainly can't speak for XFree86, but this is normal practice within the engineering group at my employer, and AFAIK at other commercial development houses. Raising a bug for a feature means that it can be tracked as a commit, means people can make comments on it, means you have a common format for all commits, be they bugfixes or new features, and so on. No, I don't really like it either, but it makes a lot of sense.
Parent
Just like Gnome was the end of KDE (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when Gnome split from KDE? They fully intended to end KDE, yet today both are powerful desktop systems that have benifited from each other. (Last I cheked you can't even complile KDE with a couple GNOME libs - code reuse in action)
For that matter, linux was the end of BSD, or perhaps we should say OpenBSD was the end of NetBSD. Take your pick of history, BSD is alive in well despite what some anonymous cowards would have you believe.
This is a good thing, XFree86 has gotten a lot of criticism, let the critics go their own speerate ways and each prove their way is best. In the end the best way wins, or if there is no best way, all survive, and each focuses on the areas where its way of doing things is best.
Is this the beginning of the end? (Score:4, Funny)
That was easy! Ask me another one!
Maybe XFree has had its day (Score:3, Interesting)
I seem to remember there was a move to streamline X given this new reality. But I don't know what it's called. Could someone fill me in?
Re:Maybe XFree has had its day (Score:5, Informative)
That's not the reality at all. Real environments where X is widely deployed (i.e. not a few boxen on a geek's home lan) frequently use the remote display capabilities of X. Indeed, those capabilities are the among the main reasons X gets deployed in the first place. Only niche markets use X clients and servers exclusively on the same machine (notably the visual effects industry where SGI once ruled and Linux has taken over.) Even in these environments, the overhead of a networking layer is minimal. (And these are among the most graphics-performance-sensitive environments that exist.)
-Isaac
Parent
Re:Maybe XFree has had its day (Score:5, Funny)
That's why when an X client and X server share a machine, XFree86 doesn't use the network layer whatsoever. And every time someone complains about that nonexistant "overhead" when X11 is discussed, God kills a kitten. X11 and Free86 have enough genuine warts of their own without having to make up more. So think of the kittens and forget the "network overhead".
Parent
Wrong and wrong (Score:5, Informative)
No, the problem you imagine simply does not exist because X already has the "shared memory extension" [hp.com] to make it possible to write directly into the X-server's graphics memory bypassing the socket communications. In any case, XFree86 uses domain sockets for all local communications. Domain sockets are implemented extremely efficient on Linux. It is definitely not sockets that are causing any delays you may see on your user-interface. It is likely you are using a GNOME or KDE application which is badly implemented whether in itself or in the toolkit on which it is based.
"security implications this has as well"
No, there is no security problem. X defaults to have closed network access. Every PC should also use a firewall which provides a separate stronger access control mechanism. Nobody should be able to access your X-server remotely unless you have explicitly given them permission.
Parent
Not true at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, when the client and server are on the same machine, the data stream is NOT sent over the network, but is routed through local UNIX sockets or shared memory, making X essentially as slow or as fast as your system bus and graphics hardware. Only when you actually separate client and server on to different machines does X use the network sockets.
Overhead is simply not a factor on an average Linux desktop.
This feature bloat everyone is frightened of is in other places, like for example the KDE and GNOME architectures and the desire of most users to drown in pixmaps and theme engines.
With that said, on my own Linux desktop (a lowly 900MHz PIII) I use KDE 3 and play Quake III and so on and I don't find it to be any slower than Windows 2000.
Maybe there is just a small crowd (the ones who keep submitting "3D site" or "hardware site" stories) who won't feel elite at LAN parties until their Linux box can beat Windows boxen by at least 6fps in frame rate tests, 403fps. vs. 397fps.... and they're somehow convinced that if they can just get rid of that damn protocol and somehow drop "abstract" graphic ideas directly into video memory rather than organizing and processing them, that extra 6fps will be forthcoming.
Meanwhile, the rest of us continue to use the god-send network features of X to administer large installations from a single point of access, or to deploy narrow-application thin clients at greatly reduced cost.
Parent
Re:Maybe XFree has had its day (Score:5, Informative)
It's also worth noting the slowest part of X applications is in the badly implemented toolkits they commonly use which do their X event handling clumsily and sub-optimally (graphics exposures).
Parent
Re:beginning of the end? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:beginning of the end? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:beginning of the end? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder... do people say "X is going away" because they think it is, or becasue they hope it is?
I'd wager my bet on that in general people don't have a slightest clue..
Parent
Re:beginning of the end? (Score:5, Insightful)
But then I read it.
CJC
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Re:beginning of the end? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:beginning of the end? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have any proof to back that statement up?
Harold was requesting CVS commit access only for bugs that pertained to Cygwin only -- they had no impact on other platforms. Hell, if properly ifdef'd they wouldn't even compile into the binaries on other platforms. That doesn't mean they're not bugs though, and it doesn't mean they shouldn't be fixed in the main tree.
We're not talking about features here. And there's a long line of people that have tried to get XFree86 to fix bugs -- either in the core or in drivers -- that have not only been denied commit access but also had their fixes ignored, their questions ignored, and been passively shoved aside when trying to get things fixed. The number of actually active developers (i.e. - number of people with commit access and are actually spending time on the project) on XFree86 is absurdly low for the size of the project.
Parent
Re:beginning of the end? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem as cited through the list is that the core developers do not allow external commits by major commiters like the entire Xwin cygwin port.
These people have to wait weeks for any changes to possibly show up in the CVS because the core developers don't have time for it.
The core dev's answer: Shut up and stop complaining we are doing the best we can.
This has nothing to do with bloat and everything to do with control and workload.
Parent
Re:beginning of the end? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, guys like Keith Packard were just bloating Xfree!
In fact, it seems that KP was just about the only guy who was passionate about Xfree and REALLY worked on it. I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry when I saw KP being flamed by David Wexelblat (one of the founder of Xfree) in Xfree mailinglist. It was sad/funny because while Wexelblat was busy flaming KP, he also mentioned that he does not even use Xfree there days, let alone hack it! He uses Windows these days!
So, Guys like Keith Packard get kicked out, while useless deadbeats like David Wexelblat are members of the core-team. What's wrong with this picture?
Parent
Re:Cygwin rules, but asking people to fuck... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Cygwin rules, but asking people to fuck... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thomas Dickey says:
"well, when you graduate and (presumably) find a real job, you'll have a chance to get an idea of where time goes. the patches _are_ applied, right?"
Which is an extremely rude thing to say to anyone. Even more so when Harold has already spent several emails explaining, and also is apparently currently suffering some fairly serious medical problem.
"When you are in a graduate degree program and working 30-40 hours per week, that is a *lot* of time."
"Seriously, I don't know why I waste my time submitting patches that are specific to my platform and then wait up to three weeks for them to be committed."
"Can I please finally be given CVS commit access with the understanding that I am a moron and that I will only commit things that are cygwin specific,..."
All he wants is the ability to commit to CVS for the module that he is the expert on, and David Dawes and Thomas Dickey are unfriendly, insulting and rude to him. Not exactly a good way to run an open-source project. Did they not read the Cathedral and the Bazaar?
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