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Enlightenment GUI Technology

Samsung Sponsors the Development of Enlightenment 199

An anonymous reader writes "The Enlightenment window manager project has shared on its website that it now has the backing of a major (top-five) electronics manufacturer that will be actively sponsoring the project and using Enlightenment on its devices. No manufacturer was named, but Phoronix has dug deeper and found out that Samsung is sponsoring Enlightenment. Phoronix provides independent confirmation along with citing a new Enlightenment program that Samsung sponsored and then released under the LGPL-3. They also have videos of some of the new work to this window manager that Samsung funded."
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Samsung Sponsors the Development of Enlightenment

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  • Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:28PM (#30146708) Homepage

    Samsung Sponsors the Development of Enlightenment

    That's pretty ambitious. ;-)

    So, a Buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor, and says "make me one with everything". :-P

    Cheers

    • Re:Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:56PM (#30147104)

      Samsung Sponsors the Development of Enlightenment

      That's pretty ambitious. ;-)

      So, a Buddhist walks up to a hot dog vendor, and says "make me one with everything". :-P

      Cheers

      The vendor hands him a fully loaded hot dog, and the Buddhist hands him a $20.
      After a few moments, the Buddhist asks for his change, and the hot dog vendor replies, "change must come from within".

    • Re:Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

      by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <roy@stogn[ ].org ['ers' in gap]> on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @02:25PM (#30147436) Homepage

      That's pretty ambitious.

      No, no, Samsung isn't funding an attempt to develop the attainment of a blessed state in which their customers can transcend desire and suffering and achieve Nirvana. That would be nearly impossible.

      Samsung is funding an attempt to develop for their customers a completed version of the Enlightenment Window Manager. That will be completely impossible.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Meh. Waterfall projects. Samsara with its continual release cycles is much more agile.

  • Seems Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Deliveranc3 ( 629997 ) <deliverance.level4@org> on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:30PM (#30146750) Journal
    Samsung is awesome, so is enlightenment.

    It's like Fluxbox in terms of resource use (and unfortunately on flashy little GUI indicators) but looks amazing!

    Kudos on this! Let's get windows management handled! It's been so many years of updates on something that should have been handled by now!
  • LGPL-3? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kartoffel ( 30238 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:31PM (#30146760)

    Enlightment is BSD licensed. You can't just change it to LGPL-3.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by mmkkbb ( 816035 )

      The copyright holders can change the license to new releases however they want.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 )

      Enlightment is BSD licensed. You can't just change it to LGPL-3.

      Actually, being BSD licensed, you can release a fork under a new license I believe since BSD is a permissive license.

      The reverse, however, would not be true.

      Cheers

      • Re:LGPL-3? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Disgruntled Goats ( 1635745 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:37PM (#30146850)

        Actually, being BSD licensed, you can release a fork under a new license I believe since BSD is a permissive license.

        The reverse, however, would not be true.

        What you believe is wrong. The BSD doesn't let you change the license terms of the source code at your will. You must have permission from the copyright holder(s) to do so.

        • Re:LGPL-3? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Disgruntled Goats ( 1635745 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:38PM (#30146864)

          To further add you may be confusing this with the fact that you can include BSD code inside other code that is licensed under another license, but this doesn't change the license that the BSD code is under.

          • To further add you may be confusing this with the fact that you can include BSD code inside other code that is licensed under another license, but this doesn't change the license that the BSD code is under.

            Which, other than the need for attribution, doesn't really restrict you much.

            But, yes, one occasionally forgets that Slashdot is well populated with semanticists and nit-pickers. ;-)

            Cheers

        • Re:LGPL-3? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by plasticsquirrel ( 637166 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @10:55PM (#30152798)
          Actually, I believe that the terms of the BSD license do not restrict a developer from adding another license such as the GPL, to a software project. This would not remove the BSD license, but still effectively change the terms of subsequent modifications. In the words of Theo de Raadt:

          GPL fans said the great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back. Nope -- the great problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock us out. Just like the Linux community, we have many companies giving us code back, all the time. But once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get it back.

          Personally, I think this is one weakness of relying on "do whatever you want" licenses like BSD and MIT. Linux can always use BSD and GPL'd code, but the BSD devs want to stick with BSD for their kernels and other projects whenever possible.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I think he means that the new program (=application) that Samsung created was LGPL-3 licensed (and not Enlightenment itself). Shouldn't that be possible despite Enlightenment being BSD licensed?
    • by Hatta ( 162192 )

      If you can take BSD code and re-release it under a proprietary license(as many companies have done), you can take BSD code and re-release it under LGPL-3.

      • If you can take BSD code and re-release it under a proprietary license(as many companies have done), you can take BSD code and re-release it under LGPL-3.

        As it turns out, you can do neither (legally). If you're not the copyright owner of something, you have no business licensing it. You can combine BSD code with LGPL-3 code or proprietary code (a right granted by the BSD license), but that doesn't automagically change the license to something else.

        • by Hatta ( 162192 )

          If you can't relicense BSD code, then any code that incorporates it must be licensed under the BSD license. That sounds a lot like the "viral" GPL.

  • Scooped (Score:5, Funny)

    by d34dluk3 ( 1659991 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:32PM (#30146776)

    Enlightenment already developed by Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire, among others.

    • by kellyb9 ( 954229 )

      Enlightenment already developed by Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire, among others.

      so, you're saying there's prior art?

  • v2.0? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MonsterTrimble ( 1205334 ) <monstertrimble.hotmail@com> on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:34PM (#30146798)
    This can only be considered a good thing - another well funded GUI to go against Gnome, KDE & XCFE. Myself I have been looking over OpenGEU for a while (even ran it for a week) and while I really like some of the features it's not ready for prime time. I partially blame the integration of GTK pieces into Enlightenment but I feel that is a necessity at this moment. If funding from Samsung can improve Enlightenment to where it has a stable, 100% native suite then only good things can happen.
    • Yes it's true that Linux's greatest failing was it didn't have enough DEs!

    • What do you mean by "100% native suite" and why does it matter?

      I always use some KDE/QT apps with XFCE and I used to use some Gtk apps with KDE.

    • This is good news. I'm always looking around for faster desktop environments. Enlightenment is one I keep occasional tabs on. Also Equinox and LXDE. And plain old windows managers too, such as JWM, IceWM, and Fluxbox. The Wikipedia list of these is handy.

      XFCE feels bloated and slow, but they brag that they're faster than Gnome or KDE. Just looking at XFCE's memory consumption was depressing. And who wants animation when slow screen repaints provide plenty of eye candy? One thing that makes XFCE so

  • by jlowe ( 907739 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:34PM (#30146806) Homepage
    While news on the site may have been sparse, quite a lot of work has been going on with E17 development. The developers had released a roadmap showing that perhaps it would be ready for a Christmas release. While I doubt that milestone will be achieved, it has made significant progress.

    I've been using it for months as my desktop at home and on my laptop. It is quite usable and I've had zero crashes for a while now. Rasterman has always had a focus on small-screen devices, so this development doesn't surprise me. But if you haven't checked it out in a while, you should.

    • by Tom ( 822 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @02:10PM (#30147260) Homepage Journal

      The developers had released a roadmap showing that perhaps it would be ready for a Christmas release.

      Did they mention the year? Or at least the decade?

      I remember waiting for E17. That was about two years before I switched to OS X, so it must be what, five years now?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by jlowe ( 907739 )
        I will not argue that it's been a long time. I've been waiting a long time, too. I gave up on it years ago before recently trying again due to some positive things I was hearing.

        But I follow the commits pretty regularly, and many of the component software and libraries are reaching a 1.0 and mature status. They have a very clear roadmap to reach a stable release. As I said, I'm not saying they will make a Christmas release. But to go from years of, "it will be done when it's done" to "possibly relea
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Alef ( 605149 )

        I remember waiting for E17. That was about two years before I switched to OS X, so it must be what, five years now?

        Nah, more like nine years. According to wikipedia: "Version 0.17, also referred to as DR17 or E17, has been in development since December 2000."

        I used to look forward to it during a couple of years at the beginning of this decade but have long since given up and lost interest.

    • I remember several years ago, Rasterman had posted on his personal website that he was working on E17 to work with mobile phones and had a picture of his own phone running some version or semblance of E17. All I know is if this phone works out pretty well in the next 2 years, my next phone is going to be running E17. The interface I'm sure is going to be fun to use.

      • My openmoko phone runs Illume (E17) and I am developing applications for it using the toolkit which comes with Enlightenment. On small screens its a pretty good environment. I tried E17 on my HP laptop and was less impressed. If I had been willing to tweak it before going back to Gnome I might have had better results.

  • Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jerrry ( 43027 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:38PM (#30146866)

    Now maybe we'll see the final release of E17 before the 22nd century. Who knows, it may even come out before Duke Nukem Forever.

    • by kwiqsilver ( 585008 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:44PM (#30146948)

      Now maybe we'll see the final release of E17 before the 22nd century. Who knows, it may even come out before Duke Nukem Forever.
      I'm sure the first thing Rasterman will do with this new funding is begin a complete rewrite of e from scratch. So once Mitsubishi starts sponsoring Duke Nukem, it'll be a tight race.

      • Now maybe we'll see the final release of E17 before the 22nd century. Who knows, it may even come out before Duke Nukem Forever. I'm sure the first thing Rasterman will do with this new funding is begin a complete rewrite of e from scratch. So once Mitsubishi starts sponsoring Duke Nukem, it'll be a tight race.

        The people who've modded you "funny" have obviously never followed Enlightenment's development. If they had, your mods would've been "insightful".

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by MrHanky ( 141717 )

      First they would have to re-implement Duke Nukem Forever. From scratch. DNF has always been the main dependency of Enlightenment. Remember when Rasterman ditched his entire EVAS library and starter again? It coincided with DNF's switch from the Quake engine to Unreal Engine. Every setback in E17's development has coincided with similar setbacks in DNF.

    • I suppose thats all dependant on whether E17 will come out at all.

      Duke Nukem Forever will never come out.

      You DO know the Development team at 3D Realms [3drealms.com] got sacked for not producing a game, right?

    • I was looking at the source in the latest CVS builds. The devs have commented (caveat this is not the exact quote): // This lib is for Holographic Projectors display. // E17 is running pretty well on LCDs but when // version 1.0 hits, we'll have to be ready // for the current tech.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:49PM (#30147020)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Haven't used it in years now, but was quite fond of it back in the day. Congrats, Rasterman!
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by six11 ( 579 )

        I last used enlightenment in like 1998 or so, and always felt like it excelled in gratuitous eye candy and infinite customization, but lacked in usability. But I always respected how Raster was willing to try new and sometimes completely wonky things, because that is how interesting interaction is developed.

        But I just tried it again, and was underwhelmed (with E16). It is entirely possible that I am just grumpy in my old age, or I'm no longer in the target audience.

    • by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

      It's funny that it was considered a "bloated eye-candy" wm back in the day and a "sleek and fast" wm today :P

      e16 is still my favorite WM, though I'm currently back to using WindowMaker at the moment because I managed to break e16 while tweaking the NeXTstep-ish theme to make it darker.

      There are several features I like from e16 that have been very difficult to find elsewhere:

      * compositing works : drop shadows, semi-transparent gnome-terminal, and semi-transparent window movements look great and work fast. S

  • Videos show (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @01:59PM (#30147126)
    The linked videos show that E17 has some nice rotations going on. Then they try to do some 3D effects and it's apparent that they're only doing affine transformations, so the perspective texture mapping is wrong on the 3D stuff. It feels so much like 1992. Didn't they learn anything from ID? There are even simpler ways to get the perspective right for large polys too.
  • Very interesting (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lemming Mark ( 849014 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @02:01PM (#30147156) Homepage

    Enlightenment generally seems reckoned to be very nice technology. I've been repeatedly surprised to see Enlightenment popping up in commercial products here and there; Edje-based wallpapers can even be loaded in KDE now. Evidently it's a strong piece of work and it'll be really interesting to see where this sponsorship gets them. It certainly seems an enlightened approach.

  • by argent ( 18001 ) <peter@NOsPAm.slashdot.2006.taronga.com> on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @02:02PM (#30147168) Homepage Journal

    I wish someone would do the same with Windowmaker and GNUstep, but I suspect the licensing has closed off that path.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tweek ( 18111 )

      Wow. I haven't thought about WindowMaker for years. I always enjoyed that wm. If I could be arsed to tear myself away from the joy of openbox + tint2 + conky, I would ;)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Qzukk ( 229616 )

        I've been using Window Maker for nearly a decade now, and have to admit that it's very nice that it's stable (not crashing AND not changing). Sure, it'd be really neat to have compiz or whatever support, but honestly it does everything I want from window management: provides window dressing, an application menu (at the pointer, even!), and a place to dock and/or launch apps from.

        • by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

          Word, bro'. I'm still using WindowMaker at this moment, since I managed to bjork-up my e16 NeXT-ish theme while trying to make it darker. It was much much easier to apply good-looking WindowMaker themes (but of course it's much simpler).

          There are actually a few features from WindowMaker that I really wish other WMs would adopt...

          I love the way you can name the virtual desktops, and the desktop names flash on the screen when you switch. This, in combination with the desktop-specific launchers attached to

    • I think GNUstep's problem is that porting between GNUstep and OSX keeps getting more difficult. Apple well-documented OpenStep, and it stayed static for a very long time (~10 years). OSX, on the other hand, keeps changing, and is becoming increasingly hardware-dependent since 10.2. Quartz, CoreGraphics, CoreData, etc. etc. all break backwards-compatibility. Many of the new features are also offloaded to hardware. Apple's attitude used to be that if you didn't have new hardware, the new whiz-bang stuff

  • In fact, the old Gnome/Enlightnement desktop paradigm is what originally convinced me to try Linux back in 2000 after hearing a bunch of "linux doesn't even have a desktop!" talk by coworkers. I tried it out and eventually learned that I could run with just Enlightenment and did that and never looked back. I've run AfterStep, Windowmaker, Black/Fluxbox, and a number of other WM's, but will always manage to come back to Enlightenment.

    These days, when I bring up new linux installs, the number one task on my l

  • by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @02:56PM (#30147802) Homepage Journal

    During my time on Fedora 11 I fell out of love with Gnome and switched over to KDE. During my transitional phase I played a bit with E. It was the window manager during the redhat 5.x days when I first started with Linux, and I was nostalgic to see how E had changed.

    I liked E's speedy response. It's a lightweight WM without much bloat. Very quick and responsive load times.

    On the other hand it needs updating. There's no support for compositing, and GL is software rendered. No acceleration. I'm a Blenderhead so this was not good. It doesn't have a good file manager. I found myself using MC whenever I was in E. No easy menu editing.

    I very much would like to see E take it's place again as a viable desktop option. It has so much going for it, be clearly developer resources haven't been available like KDE and Gnome.

    • It's a lightweight WM without much bloat

      There's no support for compositing

      They may be related.

    • by rwa2 ( 4391 ) * on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @04:00PM (#30148592) Homepage Journal

      Are you talking about e16 ? Compositing and GL work fine in it (I'm using the release packaged in Debian). I'm actually quite surprised that people don't list it as one of the compositing window managers like Beryl / Compiz.

      It doesn't have as many extra features as Beryl / Compiz, but it has the few I care about... namely - composited drop shadows, true-translucent backgrounds in gnome-terminal, translucent window movement, and composited miniature windows in the pager.

      It's actually been much more stable than Beryl on my system... eventually Beryl seems to exhaust the video memory and I get lots of video corruption, which seldom happens under the e16 compositor. It's also pretty easy to turn compositing on and off when I want more GPU resources dedicated to an OpenGL app or game.

    • Just fyi, your window manager has nothing to do with your Blender window not being hardware accelerated.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    You have Window managers and desktops and whatnot. X-windows, gnome, enlightenment, etc. From my reading it seems x-windows and enlightenment do overlapping things. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what to use, there is no consistency to this area.

    • by WaXHeLL ( 452463 )

      I can't figure out if this is a troll or if this is genuine confusion.

    • by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @04:04PM (#30148644) Journal

      They're different layers.

      X is the graphics system. It provides the video driver and makes pretty pictures show up on your screen.

      Enlightenment is a window manager, it gives those pretty pictures borders so that you can drag them around.

      Gnome is a Desktop Environment, which is a couple hundred programs that are designed to work together and work the same way. This includes a window manager, menus for launching programs and a place to hold minimized programs and icons, a file manager, network configuration tools, a terminal, calculator, scanning software, music player, cd ripper, graphics editors, etc etc.

      X is always there.

      The features that Enlightenment provides works using X.

      The features that Gnome provides works using a window manager and X. Gnome provides Metacity as its window manager by default, but you can use others like Enlightenment.

      This is highly consistent.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by slimjim8094 ( 941042 )

      I'm going to assume this isn't a troll, and instead is a real question. Crash course for everyone else:

      Unlike OSX and Windows, the graphics subsystem is (almost) completely independent from the core of the OS (kernel). This means that the graphics can be completely removed with little-to-no effort, leaving just a text-based system.

      This is because the X-windows system is implemented by Xorg the program. Like any other program it can be killed/removed, etc. This program just happens to take over a terminal wi

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