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whorgoaparl

XFree86 Politics & Keith Packard

Submitted by sbutle on Fri, 2003-03-21 06:45. FreeDesktop.org

PCLinuxOnline is reporting that Keith Parkard wants to fork the XFree86 effort and has subsequently been removed from the XFree86 core team. The issue in general. and if GNOME should send out a statement supporting Keith, is currently being discussed by various GNOME community members on the GNOME Foundation mailing list. The issue is also being discussed on slashdot.

Exposes three conflicting groups, may have a solution

Submitted by Anonymous George on Fri, 2003-03-21 11:46.

I think it may be a good thing, *if* XFree decides to actually work at the heart of the problem.

It seems to me that there are three main self-interests in X development:

1) one group wants to keep things as they are because X compatibility is important

2) one group is flustered because the releases are so slow that drivers take a long time to get in

3) one group wants to extend X so it meets the needs of modern desktops like GNOME and KDE

These are three separate groups with different needs. Group 2 isn't necessarily an ally of group 3 since new functionality often means new drivers. Groups 2 and 3 are in opposition to 1 because slow releases that change little cause stagnation in these two groups.

It seems to me that X needs to be split up into three modules/distributions.

Distribution 1 is the core of X and it's protocols. It's governed by the current XFree committee and follows it's current schedule

Distribution 2 maintains the list of all current drivers. They will make frequent releases against the most current Distribution 1 and are maintained by group 2 developers.

Distribution 3 maintains all X extensions and has members from both the GNOME and KDE communities and other people in group 3. These extensions may be pushed into Distribution 1 eventually, but they don't have to be. This distribution is made against the most current Distribution 1 & 2 releases. Distribution 3 most likely has frequent releases and is likely broken up into several optional modules that have their own release schedules. The purpose of this distribution is to provide a consistent environment. Basically, Distribution 3 follows the GNOME philosophy of distributions.

Linux distributions would then take the most current stable versions of XFree Distributions 1 & 2 & 3 to build XFree as it is today.

IMO, this approach will allow each group to be happy and keep XFree unforked, up to date, standards based, yet innovative.

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