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DRI, BSD, and LinuxDRI, BSD, and LinuxPosted Sep 2, 2008 21:23 UTC (Tue) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)Parent article: DRI, BSD, and Linux
Perhaps a bit off topic -- if Apple had chosen X11 instead of their proprietary display system, would they be contributing to DRI/DRM?
Even further off topic -- why did Apple choose their own proprietary system? It can't be for secrecy, since it must be the apps which they want to keep closed source. Was it something they inherited from Next, was it a Steve Jobs preference, was X11 too slow and/or limited?
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DRI, BSD, and Linux Posted Sep 2, 2008 21:45 UTC (Tue) by Darkmere (subscriber, #53695) [Link]
This post at Slashdot by Mike Paquette is probably one of the best explanations you'll ever see http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75257&...
DRI, BSD, and Linux Posted Sep 3, 2008 4:58 UTC (Wed) by quotemstr (subscriber, #45331) [Link]
At the risk of straying off-topic: in the past eight years, most of Mike Paquette's concerns have been addressed:
1. Font server support for antialiasing, vectors, etc. render/fontconfig/xft
Would it really have been all that much more work for Apple to implement the necessary X extensions?
DRI, BSD, and Linux Posted Sep 3, 2008 5:17 UTC (Wed) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
When did X split, after the big license change fiasco? If it hadn't split yet, maybe the X organization and their hidebound policies scared Apple away.
DRI, BSD, and Linux Posted Sep 3, 2008 8:29 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
"X" didn't split -- it's closer to the truth to say it reunified. XFree86 split. At the same time, the X organisation (formerly a hidebound organisation aimed at proprietary vendors, that hosted an antique X codebase containing almost none of the XFree86 improvements) saw the light and accepted the people who left XFree86 (which was nearly all the important people). The result is today's X.org.
Mac OS X is indeed from before the XFree86 split. But I don't think Apple would have cared to base their windowing system on X, either way. They do supply an X server for those who want it.
DRI, BSD, and Linux Posted Sep 3, 2008 8:31 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
Well, they probably didn't want to wait 8 years. And the XFree86 community (as it was then) probably wouldn't have been interested in a huge number of dramatic changes being dumped on them out of the blue.
DRI, BSD, and Linux Posted Sep 3, 2008 13:06 UTC (Wed) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
That's what I was thinking. If Apple had done the coding or at least paid for it, it wouldn't have taken 8 years, but the X group was so fractious that there would have been a more acrimonious split, possibly involving Apple keeping their changes to themselves.
DRI, BSD, and Linux Posted Sep 3, 2008 18:21 UTC (Wed) by pphaneuf (guest, #23480) [Link] Their current display system is based on the NeXT Display PostScript system. It's heavily reworked and improved, but the general architecture dates from back then. NeXT and X11 are from approximately the same era (mid to late 80's), XFree86 appearing years after (early 90's).
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