X Server 1.4.1 Is Released, No Joke

[phoronix]

Phoronix: X Server 1.4.1 Is Released, No Joke

Today -- just 212 days after the planned November launch date -- X Server 1.4.1 is finally released! Daniel Stone announced its release this morning on the xorg mailing list. X Server 1.4.1 has had 62 changes to it since the 1.4.1 pre-release, and that release had 46 changes, which brings the change total for this release up to 108. Even though X Server 1.4.1 has more than 100 changes, it wasn't enough to clear out the blocker bug, which still has two open bugs.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=12459

[gQuigs]

Just curious, does anyone else think that Xorg would attract more volunteer developers if it was using a copyleft license, possibly LGPL?

Stallman actually says X not being copyleft is a good thing, so I really might be alone in this opinion.

[Regenwald]

sad, sad. x11/xorg is an essential part of every linuxdistri. i don't understand why there are only such few devs. a slim & fast xserver with mpx is necessary for mulittouchscreens, umpcs, mobile phones and if you read news ticker, nearly every company plans to release touch screens etc. so how would they use them if xorg isn't able to handle them?

besides, i've read some articles about the "inner values" from xorg. a lot of latency time seems to come from the singlethreaded x11. it doesn't execute thing parallel, it does arange them (fifo) and execute them sucessively. this results in a latency time => "laggy" gui (and there are other reasons such as the x11 protocoll itself). plan 9 once had a x11-server which was massively multithreaded. perhaps this is a good idea...

i would like to see that someone moderns xorg-internals so that we all could use our dual-/quad/whatever-cores for a fast xserver with proper acceleration and a modern way to thread gpus. just think of opencl (apple "released" it yesterday, i liked the idea, perhaps something for linux/gallium, too?)

[seba]

really sad, X is the second most important component on a Linux distribution but yet it doesn't get the support that it needs. IMHO Vendors should put more effort on X development.

[[Knuckles]]

Same opinion here -- X.org has been a very big step up from the decaying Xfree86, but desktop distros like ubuntu, opensuse and others should try to contribute more for its development, as it has a key role in a linux desktop. Red hat is an excellent example here, their contributions have been very important.

On the other hand, I'm still rather amazed at the great work the X.org team does, even with very few contributors. Kudos to you all, and take my (our?) comments as "we need more people" and not "you are doing it wrong!".

[yoshi314]

i think X needs more support from companies developing products for linux. if a few more of these companies would provide one dedicated developer for X things would be way better (maybe except for those political arguments).

[henne]

Originally Posted by [Knuckles]

desktop distros like ubuntu, opensuse and others should try to contribute more

Egbert Eich, employed since ages at SUSE. Sits even in the Board.
http://egbert-e.livejournal.com/

Stefan Dirsch, SUSE X maintainer. You cant find X.org releasenotes without special thanks to him.

Matthias Hopf, payed by SUSE since 2004
http://emmes.livejournal.com/

Luc Verhaegen, newest X developer on SUSE payroll.
http://libv.livejournal.com/

and there are even more people payed by SUSE that contribute in one or the other way to X.org.

You might want to rethink your opinion about openSUSE.

[kingttx]

In a twist of irony, X11 is literally the most visible part of GNU/Linux and just doesn't get much love overall. It's like giving more attention to a car on the road than the road itself. You don't have a good road, you won't like driving ANY car over it ... except maybe a 4x4.

This is one project that does need some money thrown at it to attract more talent. I'm sure the developers there (paid and unpaid) would really like some relief.

[[Knuckles]]

@henne: You're completely right, so now opensuse has been removed from my "doesn't help much" mental list to the "does good work" one

And yeah opensuse rules, it's what I use on my desktop every day!

[conholster]

Based on the comments here and in the article you'd think there are no improvments or any real changes in the new release. Is this so or are most of you just concentrating on the 'bad' things?