XFree86 and GGI

Hello all,

I've been pointed to the recent discussion about XFree86 and ggi. I'd just
like to clarify a few things, because I've actually tried implementing a
ggi Xfree86 driver. I'd like to describe the real issues that convinced me
that implementing a separate Xggi server, as opposed to an XFree86 driver,
is that way to go.

First of all, libggi applications don't require any special privileges.
XFree86 does. The relevant check is in xf86OpenConsole where the 'must be
root' requirement cannot be disabled.

Just removing that check is unfortuntately not enough. In InitOutput,
there is a call to xf86EnableIO which requires root privileges. I think
the call to xf86BusProbe also didn't work without root privileges.

And then there's the issue of VTs. XFree86 assumes it is running on a VT
and it should use its features. Starting from opening new VT in
xf86OpenConsole to using VT ioctls to control various things about
keyboard input lnx_io.c. Libggi applications shouldn't worry about such
things as in many cases (such as using the X-target) touching the VT does
the wrong thing. They should only use apis provied by ggi/gii.

Forgive me if any of the above is incorrect because it's been a few months
since I've done the experiment and I have unfortunately not kept the code
around.

My goal was to produce a ggi_drv.so that users could simply put into their
drivers directory of their standard XFree86 install and have it work. But
after hacking around all of the above, I've decided that this simply
wasn't possible. I would have to produce a custom XFree86 server and at
that point making an XFree86 driver simply didn't make sense anymore. So
I've decided to stick with the separate ggi X server.

I suspect that a lot of the above could be made optional and it might be
possible to make ggi_drv.so work. But at the time, I was subscribed to
Xpert mailing list and from the atmosphere on that list I gathered that it
would be futile to ask for such intrusive changes do be incorporated into
XFree86. Perhaps things have changed now.

Finally, I'd like to say how extremely sad I am to still see posts
proclaiming greatness of ggi and how it will obsolete all other apis.
While it was before the time I got involved with ggi/kgi, I am fully aware
of the original Flame War on LKML that took away much of ggi's
credibility. When I started contributing to kgi and ggi, it was my
intention to just get the stuff to work and let everybody decide for
themselves from the code whether it is worth anything. Such trolling and
flaming seriously makes me want to just give up on the whole thing.

-Filip