Re: A Call For Open Governance Of X Development

Sorry for the late jump to the thread, but late ris betetr than never. :-)

On Saturday 22 March 2003 22:33, Keith Packard wrote:
|  Around 0 o'clock on Mar 22, "Rich Murphey" wrote:
|  > That's because you didn't raise any issues to the core team.  Even when
|  > asked what the issues were, you didn't raise any.
|
|  I wasn't prepared to state my views at that point.  I've now stated them
| as you requested.  The issues I raised are:
|
|      * Limited development resources
|      * Slow release schedules
|      * Lack of cooperation with other projects

I have to agree with all 3 points listed above.
* XFree86 should be released on regular basis, and it should be splitted to 
separate modules in such a way that upgrad eof one module doens't force you 
to upgrade other modules too.

As about limited development resources - I am not sure that we can radically 
change this in current economical environment.
I wish I could code or contribute in some other way, but I recently had to 
change job in order to have stable income, and basically all my time is eaten 
by daily job.
I tried hard to find some kind of "services/consultant" job or start own 
business, but haven't succeeded.  I beleive many people are in th esame 
situation.
What we should do for now is to estabilish some communication processes with 
companies which can support XFree86 development (hardware, developers 
funding, etc.) for the next few years.
I beleive Linux (and XF) would have much broader acceptance in 2-3 years, so 
problem of financing would be more-less fixed at that time.

* Re: Lack of cooperation with other projects
While cooperation with some projects is not that bad, there is HUGE 
possibility to work better here.
Both KDE and GNOME (two leading Desktops) have quite reasonable release 
shcedules, and XFree86 should support those releases with own release 
schedules/feature planning.
This basically means that XFree86 should be released twice per year, with 
minor releases (new drivers, driver updates, extensions updates, etc.) in 
between.
I also think that we shoudl release XFree86 4.4.0 *shortly* after 4.3.0 
release, with one major target: to get rid of .pcf and .bdf fonts.
FreeType backend should be completly integrated into XF, as a replacement for 
legacy backends and default handler for non-PS, non-TTF fonts.

This would trim about 60MB of sources (check Fonts folders in current XFRee86 
CVS) and about 20MBin distribution.

I'd like to see as well Xr/Xc integration into default XFree86 tree, or 
transparent mechanism of "parallel releases" for thos extensions, with 
natural XF integration and without breakage of installed RPMs. (or .deb 
packages)

|      * Opacity of development processes
|
[...]
|
|  Again, I ask the core team and board members to consider changing the
|  governance of XFree86 to meet the needs of the X community.
|
|  -keith
|  _______________________________________________
|  Forum mailing list
|  [email protected]
|  http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/forum

-- 
Best Regards,

Vadim Plessky
SVG Icons * BlueSphere Icons 0.3.0 released
http://svgicons.sourceforge.net