replacement for X? No.

Replacement for Xfree86? yes.

The roadmap looks like this at the moment:

1. see if David Dawes backs down on the license thing.
2. if not, for now just keep up with xfree 4.3
3. when that becomes problemsome (new hardware, etc) move to another X server (brand new one that''s a result of this, or xouvert is already there, i think)
4. eventually fd.o''s xserver will mature, and looks very innovative.

quote:Original post by C-Junkie
1. see if David Dawes backs down on the license thing.
2. if not, for now just keep up with xfree 4.3
3. when that becomes problemsome (new hardware, etc) move to another X server (brand new one that''s a result of this, or xouvert is already there, i think)
4. eventually fd.o''s xserver will mature, and looks very innovative.

Even the early releases of XFree86 4.4 were under the nicer old license. I''m sure Xouvert will not be accepting the newer brokenly licensed code (just look at the people running Xouvert), so Xouvert may unintentionally become a "clean" XFree86, as it did seek to mostly share its code base with XFree86 originally. FreeDesktop''s Xserver is pretty nice already, it just needs a lot of drivers (XFree86''s drivers can''t be directly ported because FreeDesktop''s Xserver requires additional features from the drivers). FreeDesktop apparently wants to use OpenGL to accelerate the entire X server when possible, which also requires changes from the driver architecture of XFree86 4.x.

So, in the end, it''s no big matter when it comes to the average user''s X experience. While I don''t know Dawes'' inspiration for dirtying the licence for new code, he isn''t going to get much leverage for his plans through XFree86; there are just too many ways to work around the issue almost painlessly rather than just put up with it.

quote:Original post by aftermath
/. had some interasting news about a new replacement project for XFree that was started: The Y Window System.

The Y Window System isn''t meant as a replacement for just "XFree", but for the whole X Window System. Like the so many other seeking-to-be-X11-replacements, I''ll wait until I see real results before giving it much real attention. While it may just be personal opinion, I think it attempts too high a level of abstraction which makes it prone to design flaws that are impractical to remove (if the level of abstraction doesn''t count as one on its own). Seems like it made many of the same decisions as Fresco. While some of their changes from the X11-way-of-doing-things are probably good ideas, there''s a couple big ones that just put me off from liking the projects.

Just about the only X11 alternative I give any heed to is DirectFB, but it''s obviously not meant to altogether replace X11 (it just doesn''t have some of the capabilities that X11 does). It is an alternative is some situations though. Mostly by focusing on simpler goals, they''ve been able to make a design that doesn''t bother me somehow . It doesn''t hurt that the GTK+ (GDK) and Qt people seem to give a decent amount of support to DirectFB either.

i looked at Y back at the original announcement months ago.

it has a NICE client side API (libY++), but as an x server replacement, it sucks.

quote:Original post by clum
What I don''t understand, though, is why we can''t, as an open source community, just pick up XFree86 and go on on our own where they left off.

There''s nothing stopping anyone from maintaining XFree86 from before it was tainted. That''s what I now kind-of expect of the Xouvert project in the short term, at least. All the code that was under the nicer original license is still under the nicer license.