Aaron’s recent
blogentry about the closed development process of Xgl made me reflect on the whole development
process of XFree86 and Xorg during the last years. The result of that is that people might say
“Well, if that brings me a working OpenGL-based X server any sooner, I’m all in for it”,
but sadly, those people miss the whole point. It’s not like removing external developers from the
developing process and closing your doors is going to make Xgl development any faster. Quite the
opposite. (For those not in the know, Xgl is an X server that uses OpenGL for rendering graphics.
Rendering graphics via OpenGL is much faster and allows for nice
effects.)
Funny detail, tonight, a double release of Xorg is planned. A traditional, monolithic
release, numbered 6.9 will be made available to us mere users, and another one, a modular tree with
the magic version number 7.0 (read: seven-point-oh). The modular will further enhance the
development process of Xorg, in the future, release cycles will be much more flexible. Those two
releases are the result of hard work during the last year, and have only been possible because
development of XFree86 has opened up in a fork, the Xorg. Yes, read again: Opened up. An open
development process is a good thing. The most popular free (and open) implementation of the
X11 protocol would never have happened if the small team of developers hadn’t been broken
open, resulting in more developers contributing to the project and X finally receiving the love it
had longly needed. Development of XFree86 and Xorg has never before happend at such a fast pace. X
on free operating systems has always been slow and dodgy, no fun at all. The last months especially
show progress (e.g. EXA).
The screenshot shows using recently added features of composite managers that make
translucent windows possible. In the screenshot, I’ve setup my desktop to make inactive windows
translucent, so that the focus is automatically attracted to the active window. The settings are
overdone to make the effect more clear. As soon as you move the window, it becomes translucent.
Newly opened windows fade in smoothly, it’s a pretty slick thing — and this is just the beginning
of what’s becoming possible on with the new X servers on the horizon.
By the way, if you’re not
comfortable with X terminology, here’s
a good read on the status of Linux graphics.
So stop smoking crack and Open up!