Time for me to say something

[Brad Hards]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:52 pm, Daniel Stone wrote:
> As for xlibs, I don't think there's a whole lot of explanation needed.
> XFree86's license is GPL-incompatible. This includes the libs, so it's
> actually illegal to run KDE now if you use anything under XFree86's 1.1
> license. We're also actually maintaining these libs upstream, and are
> working on trimming their size, making them quicker, et al.
How about making the X libs (and perhaps the server) (L)GPL'd? That could help 
in a few cases (eg getting tight tie-in for the VNC server).

> As for Cairo, there's really no competition in the space: GhostScript
> and libart are terrible. If you don't believe me, check out Keith's
> presentation from LCA. I think having these sort of primitives around is
> pretty important; then again, I'm not a graphics programmer. Nor do I
> even resemble one. I'm just deferring to vast experience here. ;)
I was at that talk. Remember you could re-implement GhostScript using cairo...

> > I'm thinking that some of the really common libs are also worth
> > packaging, even if you don't hold them locally. bzlib, libpng, that sort
> > of thing. Given a kernel, a compiler and libc, get the stuff I'm going to
> > need to build KDE or Gnome. OK, so it won't be that clear....
>
> Interesting; I think a lot of this ground is covered by distributions
> already, but I'm having trouble thinking of 'why not'.
You are already in overlap with distros.

> > Just to be clear, does this mean only Xlib? Or other standard X libraries
> > as well?
> > Needs a strong maintainer. Who ya got?
>
> It's most of the core X libraries. In our 1.0 release, we have ICE, SM,
> X11, Xau, Xaw, Xcomposite, Xcursor, Xdamage, Xdmcp, Xfixes, Xfont, Xft,
> Xi, Xmu, Xpm, Xrandr, Xrender, Xres, Xt, Xtrans, Xv, XExtensions, and
> Xproto. These are maintained by a variety of people, including Keith
> Packard and Jim Gettys (almost all of the libs between them), Jeremy
> Reed, and myself. I think the first two are at least reasonably strong.
> ;)
Looks damn good.

> > >   * Cairo:
> >
> > I liked it too, but it isn't clear where it is going to fit into KDE.
> > Probably needs to mature - maybe a couple of separate releases?
>
> Cairo will need at least one release before it gets in, yeah. As for
> KDE, doesn't it do a whole bunch of SVG stuff? AFAICT, KSVG could
> (should?) also be migrated to use Cairo instead of libart.
Should it be a KDE thing? Or a Qt thing? KSVG isn't that big right now, but 
might be more important later.

> The thing about a platform, though, is that it's a single unified
> platform. You don't have 'optional' bits. Or do you?
I think you'll have to, at some stage.

> Yes, definitely. Anyone know some good collections?
Jim G. did some important work in this area, and has some very important 
lessons.

Brad
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAILb7GwwszQ/PZzgRAihnAJ9PJ5C0L4j2hio1qexgMs4x2vUy3gCfaPvT
K1lA6EM0gL69cIAQtNWh8fo=
=gccv
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----