freedesktop.org Platform - preparing for Release 1

[Luciano Montanaro]

On Wednesday 28 January 2004 19:39, Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
>
> your mail is quite terse, I guess that's the reason why there wasn't much
> response.
>
> On Tuesday 20 January 2004 11:03, Daniel Stone wrote:
> > Hey dudes,
> > I've just been appointed freedesktop.org release manager and am looking
> > towards a freedesktop.org Platform release. I'm in the middle of tying
> > up all our xlibs stuff (working out where existing modules are, cleaning
> > them up, importing Xpm/Xaw), and making an xlibs release, then we get to
> > look towards the fd.o Platform.
> >
> > Basically, the platform will contain:
>

I'm not the original mailer, but I have tried to follow what's giong on on 
freedesktop Xserver land. So, I'll try to answer.

> What is the "freedesktop.org Platform" ?
>
I guess it's a collection of software that could be used as a common layer in 
upcoming desktop efforts.

> > 	* xlibs - our xlibs repository, maintained by Keith/Jim;
> > 	* xserver - our X server, maintained by Keith/Jaymz/Eric;
> > 	  + probably won't release with first platform
>
> Doesn't X come from xfree86.org ? Or is this Xouvert ? Or yet another X
> software ?

X seem to come from a number of vendors.
Xfree86.org being one. The freedesktop Xserver is based on Keith Packard 
Kdrive server, which has been distributed with Xfree, but has been designed 
originally to run on small systems. Since it is small, it's also quite easy 
to hack, so it is the base for current experimentations, like the Composite 
and the Damage extensions which together enable the eye candy everyone seem 
to drool over. Some work on accelerated RENDER is in progress. I think the 
general plan is to use Mesa and OpenGL as a way to obtain compositing 
acceleration. 
The freedesktop xlibs modue contain the X libraries, and they are, more or 
less, your usual X libraries. libX11 can be configured without the 
internationalization part, which is rarely used anyway, and it can be 
configured to run as a layer over libXCB, which is itself a thin layer 
wrapping the Xprotocol.
Both modules use the autotools now, making configuration/compilation a bit 
easier for those used to confugure and friends.


>

> > 	* Cairo - this thing rocks;
>
> What is it ?
>

It is a library which should help using the RENDER extension - it should 
implement the primitives needed to render SVG graphics, as I understand.
I don't know how far the development is however.

I don't know much about the rest...
> > 	* D-BUS - pretty fundamental, desktop-wise;
>
> Ah yes, D-BUS will probably be a nice thing :-)
> But probably not before KDE 4. Or can we support it earlier ?
>
> > 	* intltool - the GNOME folks want to move it anyway;
>
> Something about internationalization ? Does KDE need/can KDE use it ? AFAIK
> i18n works quite good in KDE.
>
> > 	* scrollkeeper - ditto;
>
> What's that ?
>
> So, at least for me to many unknown things to get to excited about the
> news. Maybe you can clarify a bit ?
>

Well, the good news is that X11 development is going on in interesting 
directions, for a change. And it's not eye candy only, but for that, you can 
have a look at 

http://freedesktop.org/~keithp/screenshots/

Luciano