DRI, BSD, and Linux [LWN.net]

DRI, BSD, and Linux

Posted Sep 2, 2008 21:45 UTC (Tue) by Darkmere (subscriber, #53695)
In reply to: DRI, BSD, and Linux by felixfix
Parent article: DRI, BSD, and Linux

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&...

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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
2. Drawing with PS-like path operations cairo; XRENDER
3. Dithering and phase controls moot: Apple has dropped paletted mode supported
4. Color calibration could use some improvement
5. Compositing COMPOSITE, DAMAGE, etc.
6. Affine transformations of windows Compositing window managers
7. Mesh-warps of windows Compositing window managers
8. OpenGL video playback XvMC
9. Performance Better drivers

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.