Question: Status of Xegl Project

[Mirko Klemm]

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Hi,

I am interested in the Xegl project from an architectural point of view, not primarily because of the eye-candy you get with it.

With Xegl, X on Linux for the first time will have a true layered model, with the hardware drivers seperated from the windowing system aspects. This is a gread advance and IMHO is crucial for further development of Linux as a desktop OS.
However, I haven't heard or seen anything new from this project since quite a few months. The project X.Org WIKI article seems to be pretty old, and in the media you can find hardly more than rumours about this project.

Is someone actively working on it? What is the status of the driver interface specifications? Are there any statements from hardware vendors as to when and how they will support the new Xegl driver architecture?

As I see it, the driver interface specification could be conducted in parallel to the OpenGL-implementation of the X-Server "surface", which is already pretty much working in the fields with Xgl.

As far as NVIDIA is concerned, I found a document in which the state that basically they are happy with the current driver architecture and that they see some issues with the Xegl approach:

http://download.nvidia.com/developer/presentations/2006/xdevconf/compositing-with-current-framework.pdf

But IMHO this document is pretty much short-sighted and their point are just based on the implementability of eye-candy features, obviously they don't see the benefits of a clean driver architecture with a clear separation between windowing and hardware concerns. It's really hard to imagine how a company like NVIDIA just ignores that. 
Although not explicitly stated in the above document, it seems to me that this paper is mainly motivated by the cost aspects of driver development for a new architecture, now that they have finally managed to release more or less stable GLX drivers...
Any of the other issues they mention could easily be solved technically, sometimes they are rather shallow...

Regards,
Mirko