The Future of XFree86 [LWN.net]

[This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

Sometimes a good argument is necessary to get everything out in the open and to make a little progress. That seems to be the case with the current XFree86 controversy.

If you haven't been following it, the furor started when XFree86 developer Keith Packard was ousted from the Core Team. Apparently, Packard was trying to start a fork of the project without discussing the issue with other Core Team members first. After the dust had settled, somewhat, the XFree86 Project's board issued an open invitation to discuss "Any topics...from those related to administrative and management issues through to technical issues." In just eight days, more than 700 messages have been sent to the list. A lot of ideas have been thrown around, including a joint statement from the GNOME and KDE projects.

Packard has now made public some of his complaints with the current status of the XFree86 Project. His "A Call For Open Governance Of X Development" posits that there are a number of problems with development of XFree86. Specifically, Packard writes that XFree86 suffers from limited development resources, slow release schedules, a lack of cooperation with other projects and a lack of information on how to get involved with XFree86 development. Packard concludes that XFree86 needs to be a community-governed project.

The XFree86 Project has already responded to Packard's complaint that there is a lack of information on becoming a developer by adding a prominent link to the front page titled "How to become an XFree86 Developer." Short and to the point, it nevertheless provides some guidance for interested developers: "Get and build the latest XFree86 code from the CVS repository, subscribe to the XFree86 developer list (devel@XFree86.org) and participate."

David Wexelblat, one of the Core Team members, notes that the issue of infrequent releases, at least in terms of card support, is a non-issue:

I will ALSO point out for the record that ever since we did the loadable driver thing, there is NO NEED for XFree86 to put out a release to get new device support (or so the theory goes). The card vendors can do it. Nvidia does it, and ATI does it, right? Yes, there is more work to do on ABI-type issues to make this work better, but the drivers are not built into the server binaries any more.

David Dawes, head of the XFree86 Board of Directors and leader of the core team has committed to tagging regular snapshots, every two weeks, of the CVS trunk. This doesn't address the question of more frequent stable releases, but it should provide a way for more people to be involved in testing XFree86 and providing feedback.

Wexelblat also disagrees that XFree86 should be community-governed. "There is no reason to change the meritocracy, other than to work on promoting sufficient people through it, of sufficient skill/quality/integridy [sic] to get the work done." Rich Murphey, another member of the XFree86 board, agrees that "sweat equity" is the best way to have influence on the direction of the project. "Join devel, write code, join core. That's how it works...I don't see a more effective solution than that."

Both Packard and Wexelblat agree that XFree86 could benefit from additional resources. Wexelblat raises the issue of poor support for XFree86 by commercial companies:

Another thing to note is that XFree86 has dramatically less commercial support than just about any "cornerstone" Open Source project. Maybe that's because of our "meritocracy" and focus on individual contributors; I dunno. I know that these companies have LOTS of people working on Linux kernels, databases, desktops, whatever, and bloody few pay very many to work on X. So it mostly falls to a very small handful of people. Who are pretty much volunteering, and doing what they can when they can...For many of the things commercial entities complain about, I say "put up or shut up".

Given the importance of XFree86 to the long-term success of Linux on the desktop, now might be a good time for some of the Linux companies to step up support for XFree86. It seems clear that, regardless of other changes, XFree86 development will remain a meritocracy. However, the attention now being focused on the project is likely to produce some long-term benefits despite the initial unpleasantness.

The Future of XFree86

Posted Mar 27, 2003 4:40 UTC (Thu) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link]

Any ideas what Keith decided on his plans? Is he really going to start a new branch off?

The Future of XFree86 - like gcc v. egcs?

Posted Mar 27, 2003 9:07 UTC (Thu) by tjasper (subscriber, #4310) [Link] (2 responses)

Doesn't this sound a little similar to the gcc v. egcs issue that came about a few years ago. Since then, gcc has come on leaps and bounds with it's support for x86 based processors. Hopefully the same will happen to X development.

Also, regarding the lack of commercial support for X development. Maybe Keith is right that the hurdles to get onto the core team are too high and hence the lack of commercial interest. Could it be that it's easier for developers to be influential in other projects, hence commercial funging to push for their own ends?

Just my comments from a grateful user of all this free software....

Trevor Jasper

The Future of XFree86 - like gcc v. egcs?

Posted Mar 27, 2003 9:08 UTC (Thu) by tjasper (subscriber, #4310) [Link]

OOps, funging should read funding!...

The Future of XFree86 - like gcc v. egcs?

Posted Mar 27, 2003 20:03 UTC (Thu) by hazelsct (guest, #3659) [Link]

The analogy of gcc vs. egcs may be a good one, as far as assuaging fears of "duplicated effort". Egcs forked in order to bring a more bazaar-like development style to the project for bug fixes, optimization improvements, etc., but never strayed far from the original interface. As gcc continued its infrequent releases (like 2.8.1), egcs folded in the changes. Eventually, the gcc people saw the light, decided to adopt egcs as gcc, and everyone was happy.

But a major difference is that everything egcs did was in the open, here it seems one person worked behind the scenes to start a fork, and also made very large changes to CVS without consulting anybody. He hasn't replied (AFAIK) to the charges of dishonesty (which is apparently backed up by the email record).

The point of all this being, X forks are not necessarily bad, but at least to this outsider, Packard's way doesn't sound at all like the right way to do it.

Bugzilla@XFree86

Posted Mar 27, 2003 9:48 UTC (Thu) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link]

They have also just started a bugzilla bug database: http://www.xfree86.org/#bugzilla

The Future of XFree86

Posted Mar 27, 2003 19:22 UTC (Thu) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link] (1 responses)

There is more at stake here than simply competition. The big issue is which
group will create *new* "standard extensions" to X11. Having two popular
groups creating and not supporting each other's extensions would be a
disaster. People are not going to boot a different X server to run different apps,
even if it is only a question of switching virtual terminals.

The Future of XFree86

Posted Mar 28, 2003 19:00 UTC (Fri) by spitzak (guest, #4593) [Link]

They need to write extensions with a library that will use the extension
and EMULATE it when the extension is missing. The emulation can be really
crude (ie draw a colored box the same size as the graphic). As long as
the program works at all and does not crash, people will use the
extension, and the competing versions will be forced to add it.

Xft is an example of an extension where it will use old X fonts (however
badly) when the XRender extension is missing.

Such emulation has been missing from virtually every "extension" for X
ever made. Even the first SHM image extension failed to provide emulation
on old X servers, which is almost inexcusable (since it is trivial)! This
is a serious problem with X and why almost no extensions added since 1989
are in common use (GLX and Xft are the only ones I can think of).