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Cygwin/XFree86 Leaving XFree86.org 446

Posted by simoniker 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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Cygwin/XFree86 Leaving XFree86.org More

Cygwin/XFree86 Leaving XFree86.org

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  • Leaving? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:04PM (#7320805)
    If developers are leaving the XFree86 arena, where are they flocking to? Is there a replacement readily available or is one in the works?

    • Yes there is a replacement. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Adolph_Hitler ( 713286 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @03:01PM (#7321372)
      XUOVERT is that replacement. Let Xfree86 burn in hell and lets make a fork. I'm sick of reading stories about how the Xfree core people are preventing drivers from being commited and closing themselves off to the world, if they dont want developer support we should fork Xfree86 and compete with them, if they are so good at coding that they make a better Xfree86 than the community does well props to them, but if they don't, well they lose. Survival of the fittest. XOUVERT [nongnu.org]

    • Re:Leaving? (Score:5, Funny)

      by aled ( 228417 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @05:43PM (#7323046)
      Why, yes. It is called Windows XP (see the X is moved to the end of the name and the P must mean something else). Millions of VB programmer use this version.

  • Not for a while.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mr Smidge ( 668120 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:05PM (#7320812) Homepage
    I'll certainly say that Xfree86 isn't going anywhere for a while, as it is all over the place now. But I do feel (and others probably do too) that it's about time we 'started again' with something like X but a whole lot neater and simpler.

    • Re:Not for a while.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cgranade ( 702534 ) <cgranade&gmail,com> on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:11PM (#7320871) Homepage Journal
      Like YWindows [slashdot.org]?

      • Re:Not for a while.. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Mr Smidge ( 668120 )
        Very much like Y.

        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
        • Why have the toolkit in the server at all. Additionally, let's rip out all the graphics code out of the server altogether.

          Make server nothing but a manager of windows, passing areas of shared memory for apps to write what their window contents will be. Then the server blits it to the screen.

          That is the way we are going with XFree86 anyhow.

  • "beginning of the end"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Horny Smurf ( 590916 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:05PM (#7320820) Journal
    The end pretty much happened earlier this year when the most talented and prolific developers forked to form the xouvert [xouvert.org]


    slashdot story [slashdot.org] on the topic.

    • Re:"beginning of the end"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dinivin ( 444905 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:15PM (#7320918)
      From their Savannah website: [nongnu.org]

      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
      • On the Xouvert side the supposid reason for the "fork" is certain short term commercial interests. On the XFree86 side its a deep personality conflict.

        The real issue however is one of roles (i.e. what exactly is the purpose of XFree86:

        a) The best implementation of X for the x86 plaform
        b) A very good cross platform implementation of X
        c) The real reference implementation of X
        d) The X implementation to support free software
        e) The best possible layer between the kernel and the widget sets for free softw
        • You neglect one of the most important issues plaguing X today:

          1. Implementing the latest a greatest into release code hoping not to break anything critical
          2. Implementing the latest a greatest into CVS hoping not to break anything critical; releasing stable code into releases
          3. Implementing the stable code into CVS

          Linux is (1)
          Xouvert is apparently (2)
          XFree86 is (3)

          Because of the incredible lag in getting anything int CVS, they are stagnating and frustrating developers that are MORE THAN WILLING to help o

      • Branch Becomes Trunk (gcc) (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:38PM (#7321121) Homepage Journal

        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.

      • 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.

    • From the Xouvert HOWTO on the very link you posted above:
      --
      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.

  • Thanks for your "insight" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pimpinmonk ( 238443 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:06PM (#7320828)
    is this the beginning of the end for XFree86?
    Is this the end of the beginning? Is it absolutely nothing? Jeez, talk about your random opinion. I don't see XFree dying, but more appropriately, I don't see this as possibly being the cause of the "beginning of the end." XFree-cygwin is definitely not propping the project up, nor are they the primary users.

    • Re:Thanks for your "insight" (Score:5, Informative)

      by Wakkow ( 52585 ) * on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:26PM (#7321017) Homepage
      He was quoting the announcement:

      "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."

    • XFree-cygwin is definitely not propping the project up, nor are they the primary users.

      Isn't that laughable? As if the switching of the Cyg-win userbase would cripple X. Why is it that GNU sees the need to fork *everything*? Is their problem with X that they don't release under the GPL? And who are these myriad other developers that have been turned off by the X group?

      I can see arguments that X is unwieldy and archaic, fine - but why the general "I'm taking my toys and going home" attitude here?

      And

      • Re:GNU seems cranky (Score:5, Informative)

        by dvdeug ( 5033 ) <dvdeug@NoSPaM.email.ro> on Monday October 27, 2003 @05:18PM (#7322795)
        Is their problem with X that they don't release under the GPL?

        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.
    • If it really is true that the project maintainers has turned off more developers than any other free software project then this high profile event isn't going to help things. I really haven't been keeping track of XFree.

  • After reading the thread... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) * on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:07PM (#7320834) Homepage Journal
    ...the core problem seems to be the rediculous difficulty in obtaining cvs commit access for the project. It is stunning and insulting that someone who has demonstrated their dedication to the project over two years is still not deemed worthy of being able to commit directly to cvs, after all, CVS is designed such that a problematic commit can be backed out very easily.

    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.

    • You make an excellent point.

      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.

      And open source minded as we are, I bet they want your help. Or maybe, no, ehrm, they don't.

  • Harry's right... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by corebreech ( 469871 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:08PM (#7320841) Journal
    And he presented his case well. These other XFree86 guys sound like the cast from Othello... way too serious for what is, after all, something that's supposed to be fun: working on an open source project.

    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)

    by DCowern ( 182668 ) * on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:09PM (#7320854) Homepage

    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? ;-)

  • Unite! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by molnarcs ( 675885 ) <csabamolnarNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:10PM (#7320859) Homepage Journal
    I think it would be best if all these projects that left Xfree86.org united - the Cygwin/Xfree86 folks, Keith Packard, and pull their resources to come up with a workable development model (yeah, and a workable X - all major projects - Gnome, KDE - are waiting for long promised features that all modern graphical subsystems exhibit except for X.)

  • beginning of the end? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by u19925 ( 613350 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:12PM (#7320882)
    how many XFree86 users are using Cygwin port? 1 percent? Let us face it, it is not the "beginning of the end" but is rather the "end of the beginning of the end".

  • I wish. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cK-Gunslinger ( 443452 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:12PM (#7320887) Journal
    Don't get me wrong, XFree86 is great and all, but I wish there was a replacement. I would be willing to wager that >75% of those of us who run a Linux desktop don't need hardly *any* of the advanced features in the X Windows server. 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!

    • Re:I wish. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:30PM (#7321048)
      What advanced features don't you need?

      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.

    • Re:I wish. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hackstraw ( 262471 ) * on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:36PM (#7321105)
      I would be willing to wager that >75% of those of us who run a Linux desktop don't need hardly *any* of the advanced features in the X Windows server.

      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.
      • When features for 10% of the users represent 90% of the bloat, you have a problem.

        Same for OpenOffice, Mozilla, and other large, feature rich programs out there.

        Microsoft is a little different in that they add in features to satisfy marketing people as much as for power users.
        • It's true that the average user uses at best 10% of the features of those applications listed. But, they don't use the same 10%--they use a different 10% slice of the pie. Mozilla, OpenOffice, Windows, and MS Office are considered "bloated" for this ignorant reason. The "bloat" doesn't harm anyone when implemented properly.
        • When features for 10% of the users represent 90% of the bloat, you have a problem.

          bloat is a non issue until it hurts performance. I often hear about new features being the key ingredients to a new release of software, I've very rarely heard of removing bloat as something significant for a new software release.

          Same for OpenOffice, Mozilla, and other large, feature rich programs out there.

          Yup, and these apps are the backbone of the opensource, freesoftware, (insert other I want more for less advocacy

    • Re:I wish. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @04:39PM (#7322338) Homepage Journal
      I would be willing to wager that >75% of those of us who run a Linux desktop don't need hardly *any* of the advanced features in the X Windows server.

      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.

  • Best quote: (Score:2, Funny)

    by Bombcar ( 16057 )
    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.

  • Perseverance (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:13PM (#7320894)
    The XFree86 project has pushed away more developers than most projects ever have - is this the beginning of the end for XFree86?

    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)

    by hobbs ( 82453 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:13PM (#7320897)
    One thing that arguably sparsely resourced open source groups need is more fracturing. Now, in addition to doing the porting work, the cygwin/xfree86 porters will need to deal with source and site maintenance. That's just time wasted essentially.

  • calling Chicken Little... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by X_Bones ( 93097 ) <danorz13@@@yahoo...com> on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:13PM (#7320901) Homepage Journal
    The XFree86 project has pushed away more developers than most projects ever have - is this the beginning of the end for XFree86?

    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?
    • You need to differentiate the Source from the community. The XFree86 community is quite stagnant compared to its importance and size. This can be blamed somewhat on the complexity of the system, but musch more blame can be put on the facist development paradigms of the core team.

      The code from XFree86 is basically BSD licensed, so anyone and their dogs can take the XFree86 source base and create a new community around that community.
  • I've been trying to figure out how to get this [webhop.net] fullscreen patch for Cygwin/X into the dist, but the xfree86 dev list tells me to submit to bugzilla. So what, I'm supposed to invent a bug and then solve it? Its a new feature and it would be nice to have a real place to discuss and enhance it (the xfree86 dev list is very aloof and hasn't been kind to me at all as a newbie x developer). I think it's a good move for Cygwin...

  • XFree are really stupid people ... read why! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can understand their decision. XFree has matured to be a really broken pile of software which is badly maintained after all. There is a known CMS and XLIB locking problem in XFree 4.3.0 and upwards which they reject to fix (and this is known for many months now). Even patches and fixes exist for it and they still reject to fix it. When you use GTK+ 2.3.0 on it then it heavily crashes.

    Read here the fixes [freedesktop.org]

    I can imagine that there are to many trouble but I think that the remaining people working on XFree

  • Great... (Score:2, Funny)

    by TheShadow ( 76709 )
    This will trigger 100 posts that mistakenly refer to it as X Windows.

  • Just like Gnome was the end of KDE (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bluGill ( 862 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:27PM (#7321025)

    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.

    • The libs you are talking about are not really GNOME-libs. They just happen to be created by some people that also work on GNOME.
    • Actually, this is more like someone submitting a decent patch to Linus, and then Linus refusing to accept the patch and giving a reply like "The weather isn't very good today for that sorta thing", as to a "No, because of blah blah technical reason ".

      The issue here is that Harold requested that the Cygwin/XFree86 project be allowed to commit patches directly to the XFree86.org CVS tree. Instead of a direct yes/no reply, he basically got flim-flammed by David Dawes.

  • Is this the beginning of the end? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ENOENT ( 25325 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:32PM (#7321063) Homepage Journal
    No.

    That was easy! Ask me another one!

  • Maybe XFree has had its day (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Whammy666 ( 589169 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:35PM (#7321095) Homepage
    I like Xfree. But it's still basically X. The problem I have with X is that it's overkill for most client desktops. It's nice that X allows remote windowing. But how many users actually need that? (I'm ignoring the security implications this has as well.) The reality is that 99.9% of X applications have both the client application and X server on the same machine. So why have such a complicated networking layer to draw a window on a screen? Seems like a lot of unnecessary overhead to me.

    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:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Have you actually looked at the X networking layer? It's not complicated AT ALL. Actual benchmarked performance on Linux shows that over unix domain sockets, the networking layer of X simply is not the bottleneck, badly programmed toolkits and applications are, as well as perceived slowness due to lack of update synchronisation between window frames and contents (both conventionally independent "windows" in the X sense).

      If more open source programmers actually read and understood the bloody X programming

    • Re:Maybe XFree has had its day (Score:5, Informative)

      by isaac ( 2852 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:56PM (#7321302)
      The problem I have with X is that it's overkill for most client desktops. It's nice that X allows remote windowing. But how many users actually need that? (I'm ignoring the security implications this has as well.) The reality is that 99.9% of X applications have both the client application and X server on the same machine.

      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

    • Re:Maybe XFree has had its day (Score:5, Funny)

      by tuffy ( 10202 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @02:56PM (#7321310) Homepage Journal
      The reality is that 99.9% of X applications have both the client application and X server on the same machine. So why have such a complicated networking layer to draw a window on a screen? Seems like a lot of unnecessary overhead to me.

      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".

    • Why would we want to remove the remote-windowing capability. Current reality is that one of the biggest headaches companies have is keeping all those installations of software updated with the latest patches. With X, you can remove the software entirely from the client machines and install it on one central server, yet still seamlessly have people run it and have it appear as if it was on their local machine. Updates only have to be applied to the central server's installation and they appear to users the n

    • How many times does this have to be said? X does not use the network for local display: it uses standard inter-process communication with shared memory. The overhead of remote display is only incurred when using a remote display.

      • Re:Maybe XFree has had its day (Score:5, Informative)

        by Wills ( 242929 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @03:33PM (#7321690)
        Yes, that's right except an X application must be programmed to use the shared memory extension to X [hp.com], otherwise it will use the default -- a unix domain socket in /tmp -- which is usually slightly slower than shared memory. However, it's worth noting that unix domain sockets are extremely efficiently implemented on Linux. The overhead in the X server for using domain sockets is so small it is insignificant compared to the graphics overhead in most toolkit libraries. If anyone's interested, it is tedious but possible to confirm the domain socket overhead is small either by analysing the output of strace -T Xserver_pid (on a separate display to avoid deadlock!) or preferably by recompiling X with profiling enabled.

        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).

    • Wrong and wrong (Score:5, Informative)

      by Wills ( 242929 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @03:10PM (#7321450)
      "networking layer ... unnecessary overhead"

      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.

      • BTW, they're called "unix domain sockets", or, more
        politically-correctly, "local domain sockets". As opposed
        to "inet domain sockets", though nobody ever says that.

    • Not true at all. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @03:34PM (#7321699) Homepage
      The X network layer is not a "bloated" bolt-on kit or added feature that someone wedged into X as a gimmick... X is itself just a specification for a data stream, like umpteen other protocols you have in your /etc/services file. At its core it is really quite simple and lightweight.

      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.

    • You are totally mistaken (Score:3, Interesting)

      by spitzak ( 4019 )
      X has lots of problems, but the network transparency is NOT one of them. This is a myth that comes up all the time, by amateurs that somehow picture it calling a central server at MIT for every graphics call.

      On a mondern system (with security) there HAS to be a context switch some time between a user program producing the graphics and the system drawing on the screen. The network transparency adds zero overhead on any modern system, in fact it encourages reduction of overhead by forcing the batching of req
  • As some people might experience /. problems on mail-archive:

    What happens when I assign patches in the "Cygwin Xserver" project to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"? Does an email go out to everyone with CVS commit access? Is there a single person that receives this email? Should I be assigning patches to a specific person to ensure timely commits?

    I realize that a feature freeze is in place now... this is a general questions for "normal" times so that I know how to assign my bugs to when I want them to get committed.

    H
  • Among XFree86's other problems is the apparent lack of any sort of regression testing. I only upgrade XFree86 when I'm forced to because of upgrading my Linux distribution, and over the years, about half the time this has caused something to break that used to work, causing me to lose many hours and days over the course of weeks trying to fix the problem.

  • Wow, what a jerk (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Kelmenson ( 592104 )
    That entire thread is about a guy who has spent years devoted to helping a project and being unable to make commits, despite begging for the access, to ease the load on both himself and the people currently in charge? And the people currently in charge take that as insulting?

    Seems clear that that David Dawes guy is just an egomaniac jerk... If I was working on that project, and he was acting in that manner in representing the project, I'd sure as hell quit the project.

    I sure hope the project does die, and M

  • Mirror of thread (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cee ( 22717 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @03:38PM (#7321728)
    Mirror of the trouble-starter thread [cola.cc].

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