X.Org Foundation Releases X11R6.7 X Window System 443
Several folks submitted the press release announcing the formation of the X.Org Foundation and the release of X11R6.7 of the X Window System. The XOrg Foundation is the successor to the X Consortium, formed by many of the most notworthy participants in the XFree86 Project. This code release is a tree forked from the last XFree86 release not troubled by that pesky license change. Since Mandrake, Gentoo, OpenBSD, and Debian have already rejected the new XFree86 license, this new code tree will likely become the default X11 for most Linux users. I've attached the press release that explains more details about the code release, as well as the X.Org foundation itself.
XOrg Foundation writes "X.Org Foundation Announces Formation and First ReleaseThe new X.Org Foundation will help drive the X Window System to support
state-of-the-art desktop technologies
San Francisco, CA., April 6, 2004 - X.Org Foundation today announces their first release of the X Window System since the formation of the Foundation in January of this year. The new X.Org release, called X Window System Version 11 Release 6.7 (X11R6.7), builds on the work of the X.Org X11R6.6 and XFree86TM Project Inc. V4.4RC2 releases to combine many of the latest developments from a large number of the participants and companies working with the X Window community. The X Window System X11R6.7 release can be found at http://www.x.org/.
We have made great progress in creating a framework upon which further development of the X Window System can be based, agreed the Interim Board of the Foundation. We expect to provide the desktop community with at least two more releases of the X Window System before the end of this year to encompass all of the new technologies and ideas that we are developing.
This release marks the return to community development of the X Window System under governance open to all contributors for the first time since the founding of the X Consortium in 1988, said Jim Gettys, co-founder of the X Window System, Interim X.Org Foundation board member and member of the research staff of HP Labs.
We welcome the formation of the X.Org Foundation and are looking forward to support this group to bring the work on the X Window System to a new technological level, said Egbert Eich, X Window System developer at Novell's SUSE LINUX business unit.
Matthias Ettrich, Director of Software Development at Trolltech, said As a multi-platform GUI toolkit vendor, we appreciate the value of a powerful underlying windowing system, and as such, we are excited about the direction X.Org is heading. We are very much looking forward to supporting new technologies around X, and we will do our share to make the advances of the platform accessible to software developers.
Being an underlying technology to the most popular desktops on all GNU Systems, in particular GNOME and KDE, the X Window System is indeed an essential part of most Free Software operating systems, said Georg C.F. Greve, president of the FSF Europe. It helps many users to access and enjoy the freedom of Free Software. We are glad that X.Org will from now on watch over this enabling technology.
Red Hat is pleased to be working with the new X.Org Foundation to build a vibrant open source community around X Window System innovation. Look for X11R6.7 in the upcoming Fedora Core 2 and future Red Hat Enterprise Linux products, said Havoc Pennington, desktop development manager at Red Hat.
As one of the largest GNU/Linux distribution projects in the world, the Debian Project is delighted to see that freedom and diversity are alive and well in the X technology sector. We're also delighted that the X.Org Foundation is dedicated to retaining the licensing model that has made the X Window System an enduring success, said Branden Robinson of the Debian GNU/Linux Project. Like us, the X.Org Foundation is a member-driven organization devoted to Free Software. We cannot help but be enthusiastic about them and the work they're doing for the X Window System and Free Software communities alike.
An open source project works best with a large community of active contributors. OSI welcomes the return of X to open source development by the entire community. I'm looking forward to contributing myself, said Russell Nelson, Vice-President of the Open Source Initiative.
Cygwin/X is benefiting heavily from the community-building spirit of the X.Org Foundation and their open development environment. We are pleased to be basing our releases on the good work of the X.Org Foundation, said Harold L Hunt II of the Cygwin/X project.
The XonX Project is very pleased that the X.Org Foundation has been eager to support Darwin and Mac OS X. X11R6.7 adds new features that will be appreciated by many Mac OS X users, said Torrey Lyons, XonX Project Founder.
Membership of the X.Org Foundation is free to all participants. Applications for membership are now being accepted, and active participants in the further development of the X Window System are invited to visit: http://www.x.org/XOrg_Foundation_Membership.html to complete a membership application. Participation in the Foundations Sponsor Group is also available to those who wish to financially support the activities The X.Org Foundation. Current Sponsors include Hewlett Packard, IBM, and SUN Microsystems.
About The Foundation Release
X11R6.7 is the first official X.Org Foundation release. It is the successor release to X11R6.6 from X.Org. To assure consistency with industry and community requirements and practices, it was developed from the X.Org X11R6.6 code base and the XFree86 V4.4RC2 code base, with the addition of bug fixes and enhancements. These enhancements include: new IPv6 functionality, Freetype V2.1.7, fontconfig V2.2.2, Xft V2.1.6, Xcursor V1.1.2, and Xrender V0.8.4, with corresponding changes in documentation and notices. Additional source and binary releases are anticipated during 2004.
About The X Window System
The X Window System provides the only common networked windowing environment bridging the heterogeneous platforms in today's computing. The X Window System is one of the most successful open-source, collaborative technologies developed to date and is the standard graphical window system for the Linux and UNIX operating systems. The inherent independence of the X Window System from the operating system, the network and the hardware, as well as its successful interoperability, have made it widely available and deployed with more than 30 million users worldwide. All major hardware vendors support the X Window System and many third parties provide technologies for integrating X Window System applications into the networked computer or personal computer environments including Microsoft Windows, UNIX, Linux and Mac OS X. Further, thousands of software developers provide X Window System applications, and with the continued growth of Linux and the emergence of Mac OS X, the number of users is growing rapidly.
About X.Org Foundation
X.Org Foundation L.L.C. is a recently formed Delaware company organized to operate as a scientific charity under IRS code 501(c)(3), chartered to develop and execute effective strategies that provide worldwide stewardship of the X Window System technology and standards. The group is currently managed by an Interim Board of Directors that includes: Stuart Anderson (Free Standards Group), Egbert Eich (SUSE), Jim Gettys (HP), Georg Greve (Free Software Foundation Europe), Stuart Kreitman (SUN Microsystems), Kevin Martin (Red Hat), Jim McQuillan (Linux Terminal Server Project), Leon Shiman (Shiman Associates) and Jeremy White (Code Weavers). The website for the X.Org Foundation can be found at http://www.x.org/.
Note to editors: UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries. LINUX is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. XFree86 is a trademark of The XFree86 Project, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mac OS is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. All other company names are trademarks of the registered owners.
$"
Re:Y11 Release 6.7 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Y11 Release 6.7 (Score:3, Informative)
whats new - the releasenotes :-) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Licenses. (Score:5, Informative)
This was discussed ad nauseum in the previous Slashdot articles about this, such as the one linked to in the story, above.
But to spoonfeed you the gist of it, since you're not going to get off your duff and read the previous discussion: it's not that it's not a free license. It's the practical ramifications of being incompatible with the GPL that are the issue. It's the opinion of some lawyers and legal-types that the GPL incompatibility means trouble for software that's built upon the XF86 framework and therefore must be consistent with the terms of the XF86 license. To build GNOME, KDE, etc. against XF86, and then release them under the GPL, would violate the terms of the XF86 license, since the GPL permits things that the XF86 license does not.
For more, see the previous stories.
Re:new X with gentoo (Score:5, Informative)
And since the "new" X is just a fork of the last "Free" XFree86, it should be no different than previous XFree86 upgrades.
That's my understanding, FWIW.
Re:Licenses. (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe the GPL is not flexible enough but as it is now thats the way it is. XFree should have calculated the pure force of GPL before the license change, now they got a fork instead.
Re:So what's left for XFree86? (Score:5, Informative)
They also have an "interview" with David Dawes about the license change [theinquirer.net].
Re:So what's left for XFree86? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Licenses. (Score:1, Informative)
Perhaps NOW they aren't, but the new license is considered the official one. XLibs using old license are expected to change to the new one.
Consider that if distributions as Redhat or Debian, or people like Stallman say there *is* a license problem there, you'll have to do a pretty exhaustive work to prove the contrary better than them.
Re:alphablending etc. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Licenses. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:NVidia (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Politics! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NVidia (Score:3, Informative)
From the X.org FAQ:
Pine Problems and Alternatives (Score:4, Informative)
Personally, I use Mutt [mutt.org], and I love it. Other people seem equally pleased with elm [instinct.org]. With both of these clients, "all you need is an xterm".
If you really prefer Pine, there are two projects to create an Free replacement for it: Hydrant [gnu.org] and OSERP [berlios.de]. I don't know how far along and usable either project is. If you just miss Pico, there's an excellent Free clone called Nano [gnu.org], which is very usable and included in most Linux distros already.
Re:Con job? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think anyone has been duped at all. I do think that people have been considering for quite a while how to escape XFree86. It's development structure had become a farce, cygwin had stopped submitting patches because it was too much work trying to figure out when and if they were ever applied, ati it seems were annoyed that their patches spent months sitting in XFree86 with no reply, and then out came a new major update with no sign of them! Because even XFree86 could see this coming, they made a few changes but they didn't address the issues. Finally they decided they wanted more credit and everyone shouted back that this was too much, they continued and now there's a fork.
Having said all that, I will be very interested to see what complaints will arrise about X.org over the next few months, if they really are a commercial orientated body making decisions for the companies then perhaps another fork won't be too far away! Having a FSF member of the interim board suggests though that the people coming in here have learnt from mistakes of the past and simply want to provide some financial backing to make sure this new co-operative gets of and running smoothly.
X12 already exists... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NVidia (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Licenses. (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, but Debian is no longer supporting nonfree software with their next (sarge) release. Doesn't that put XFree86 back on the Outs with Debian?
Hi. You've got two independent issues here.
First of all, your statement about nonfree in sarge isn't exactly correct. The developers recently held a vote about this and voted to reaffirm their support for the nonfree section of the archive [debianplanet.org].
Second, you are right that XFree86 is on the outs with Debian. At least, that's my understanding. Putting it in nonfree is something I never thought about, and I suppose it's possible (maybe if there's a DD here, he/she can say whether it is or isn't). But I'm not sure what the point would be; if all the GUI apps in main are built using the libraries from an X.Org release, what would you use an XFree86 in nonfree for?
Hopefully, a DD will step in and comment if I've missed something here.
Re:Licenses. (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but Debian is no longer supporting nonfree software with their next (sarge) release. Doesn't that put XFree86 back on the Outs with Debian?
Sorry, but your first sentence is completely wrong. The amendment to remove support for non-free in Debian didn't even get a majority, let alone the 3:1 majority it would have required to win. See these links: Debian Planet [debianplanet.org], official Debian vote results [debian.org].
It is true that no one on Debian's X Strike Force has intentions to package any of the XFree86 releases that the new license is applied to. But since Debian is an entirely volunteer project, conceivably a developer who really wanted to embark on this thankless task could do so, although the packages would probably have to go into non-free [debian.org].
sigh, so much for moderating this discussion...
Re:alphablending etc. (Score:2, Informative)
"On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Erik Harrison wrote:
>I think the poster is asking if it's primarily an experiment in
>X extensions and reimplementation, or if fd.o XServer intends to
>compete for the same ecological niche as XFree86.
'kdrive' itself is an experimental X server for development of
new experimental technology. It is useful also in embedded
systems.
>For example, pretend he is an OS vendor. A legitimate question
>of an OS vendor is "I've already got XFree86, but I like
>XServer. Is this a viable replacement?"
Right now 'xserver' is 'kdrive', and the answer is no. kdrive
itself is not intended to be a replacement for XFree86.
--
Mike A. Harris"
Re:NVidia (Score:5, Informative)
I wish they would join wih the freedesktop.org X-server folks and bring true alpha to the desktop before redmond does...
cu,
Lispy
Re:NVidia (Score:5, Informative)
To build a custom kernel on Fedora: install the kernel-sources package, create your
Now waiting for the trolls to come boiling out of their caves, holding this up as a shining example of why Linux will never make it on the desktop. To forestall them: 1) this is a test release, and 2) this is the risk you take with binary drivers. I expect FC2 final will have worked around the problem (and hopefully a newer release from Nvidia will fix it).
Re:Licenses. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:XFree86 (Score:5, Informative)
So the entire argument is about being forced to give credit where credit is due?
Only if you oversimplify. Here's an executive summary that I hope isn't oversimplified:
There is nothing morally wrong with the new XFree86 license, and it is probably even "free software" or "open source" by most definitions. The problem is that it is NOT COMPATIBLE with the majority of existing free software. If the situation were reversed, most free software were licensed under what we call the new XFree86 license, and suddenly XFree86 wanted to relicense all of its code under a radical new license they called the GPL, the complaints would be exactly the same: the new license would be incompatible with the vast majority of existing open source code.
Re:Licenses. (Score:2, Informative)
Gentoo e-build (Score:5, Informative)
The only thing I've seen so far, that I don't like, is a little bit of degradation of quality in the AA of fonts. I'm sure this is just a configuration issue, that I haven't found the answer to yet. But it's definitely usable right now. You will have to unmerge xfree and xft, as they are blocked by "xorg-x11" which is the name of the new e-build.
Cheers, and please share any useful info you might come up with.
Re:great! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pine Problems and Alternatives (Score:1, Informative)
> I was using imap with mutt back in 1999. I haven't needed to use imap since 2000, but I don't imagine the support has gone away.
Parents claim was that the Pine implementation is superior, not that support in the alternatives does not exist. For example, I found that Mutt took much longer to display large inboxes through IMAP than Pine.
Re:NVidia (Score:4, Informative)
I wish they [X.org] would join wih the freedesktop.org X-server folks and bring true alpha to the desktop...
They already have, and they are. One of the big accomplishments of X.org so far is to split the system into multiple isolated modules: you can now easily package, compile, and run the Kdrive server as an alternative to the X.org server on platforms supported by Kdrive, without affecting the rest of the X tree. Work is underway on several freedesktop.org/X.org projects to bring the Kdrive alpha compositing into the X.org server infrastructure.
Good job distributions (Score:3, Informative)
This just gave the GPL a lot more strength, and all non-conforming licenses a lot less. You can bet that nobody else is going to test Redhat/Debian/Mandrake/etc, or else your project is done for.
Re:Gentoo e-build (Score:2, Informative)
Re:GPL question (Score:3, Informative)
1. Ask every contributor whether he agrees on the license change. Only if everybody agrees, the license can be changed.
2. If not everybody agrees, then they can remove your code and write their own, and change license anyway.
So no - once your code has been GPL'ed, it cannot be relicensed, unless you agree.
Re:XFree86 to lose multi-platform? (Score:3, Informative)