Keith Packard Talks About Sustaining X11's Development

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Keith Packard Talks About Sustaining X11's Development

While many users and developers out there are looking for a time when Wayland rules the Linux desktop, Keith Packard remains focused on bettering X11/X.Org and keeping it going...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...P-Sustaining-X

[vwtch]

I have great respect for and gratitude to Keith for all that he's done in his life.

However, about 13:50 Keith talks about the "cool, 3D effect" of the CDE interface, "the notion of using different shades of the same color to create this raised and embossed effect" which he calls "the innovation of the decade". Keith seems to think this first appeared in the SUN OpenLook and IBM/DEC CDE implementations of the X GUI for UNIX desktops, but no, that's not where it originated. I had all of this in 1985-86 when I used the Atari ST's bit mapped graphical display to create the interface for the first graphical touchscreen point of sale computer. I showed this interface and the point of sale software application to thousands upon thousands of people at many computer and restaurant shows between 1986 and 1995. I gave many clinics for many large and small companies, too.

http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv...obusiness.html

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comdex_1986.png

Interesting enough, and more than a little ironic, too, is that the modern day version of my software and interface, which was revised in 1995, is a touchscreen graphical layer which also sits on top of X.

--Gene Mosher

[scionicspectre]

Keith seems to think this first appeared in the SUN OpenLook and IBM/DEC CDE implementations of the X GUI for UNIX desktops

The info you shared is really neat, but I don't recall Keith saying he thought this originated with those systems, only that it was a big deal during that era in graphical computing. There's a very good chance he didn't know about that specific POS (Point of Sale) computer, but that doesn't mean he's making assumptions.

[vwtch]

There's a very good chance he didn't know about that specific POS (Point of Sale) computer, but that doesn't mean he's making assumptions.

Indeed, he would not have known about the groundbreaking work being done on the Atari ST and Amiga computers in the mid & late 80's. I was, frankly, stunned, and delighted, to hear his comments about this, in any case. X has been very, very good to me and I am a happy reader of the enhancements and fixes being chronicled daily on the xorg developers' mailing list. I'm one of the relatively few users of X who uses its remote display capabilities to the hilt. Without X I'd be nowhere.

http://www.viewtouch.com

[madjr]

I guess X will be needed for a long time. Sadly Steam OS will be sticking with it for quite a while. Probably games that support Vulkan will also be the ones supporting Wayland / Mir.

[scionicspectre]

vwtch That's legitimately awesome. I'm glad to see someone still making use of that functionality. Here's hoping Wayland's remote capabilities are... well, capable.

[Stellarwind]

I guess X will be needed for a long time. Sadly Steam OS will be sticking with it for quite a while. Probably games that support Vulkan will also be the ones supporting Wayland / Mir.

Devs will have to pick X or Wayland/Mir when porting to linux. Most will choose X or they loose some of the users, already miniscule. There is no connection to opengl/vulkan. If game uses opengl on windows, it will likely use it on linux as well.

[MartinN]

johnc would be proud

[edoantonioco]

I guess X will be needed for a long time. Sadly Steam OS will be sticking with it for quite a while. Probably games that support Vulkan will also be the ones supporting Wayland / Mir.

I have seen benchmarks where wayland provide some fps compared to X, so I dont think than Valve will ignore that. But probably they will support whatever Debian supports by default.

Devs will have to pick X or Wayland/Mir when porting to linux. Most will choose X or they loose some of the users, already miniscule. There is no connection to opengl/vulkan. If game uses opengl on windows, it will likely use it on linux as well.

Akaik, If they use SDL2 it will support X, mir or wayland, so I guess there should be any problem related to that, unless they choose to not use it