Status of xserver/debrix/modular tree?

[Adam Jackson]

On Wednesday 09 February 2005 19:28, Bernardo Innocenti wrote:
> The Xserver wiki page says the project is dead, pointing
> users to Debrix.

i don't know where you're reading that from, Xserver is very much alive.

> The link to Debrix, however, has 
> disappeared from FreeDesktop's Software directory and
> the Arch repository doesn't work any more.

fdo breakin, debrix arch repo pulled down, hasn't come back up yet.  also not 
enough people were ready or willing to switch to debrix while we were working 
on it, and then we all stopped working on it to start working on the 6.8 
release and never got back to it.

all documented on the mailing list, btw.

> The modular xlibs and xapps trees seem to receive very
> little development.  It also looks like they're not
> being kept in sync with the monolitic tree.  The XCB
> enabled libX11 would be a nice new feature which already
> works fine today.

XCB support is _only_ in the modular libX11.  the modular xlibs have very 
recently been resynced with monolithic; the monolithic xlibs are going away.

scratch that.  the monolith in general is going away.

> I'm curious about the future deriction of these projects?
> Is there a plan of some kind?  If so, where is it being
> discussed?

here, on the list.  check the archives:

http://lists.freedesktop.org/pipermail/xorg/

> Unlike other OSS projects such as the Linux Kernel and
> GCC, there's very little talking in Xorg's mailing-lists:
> most are just dead, with the exception of xorg which
> has very little traffic.  Things just seem to "happen"
> in CVS as if there was private mail exchange between
> a few developers.

i subscribed to xorg@ in july 2004.  since then there have been over 4800 
emails.  that's about 23 per day, on average.  we're no lkml but we're also 
far from dead.

> Reviewing patches in Bugzilla contributes to the lack
> of communication of this development model.

i strongly disagree.  bugzilla allows anyone to watch the bugs they care 
about, and equally, not watch the bugs they don't care about.  this is a 
feature.  if you really want to see the traffic for all unassigned bugs you 
can read the xorg-bugzilla-noise archives, and probably even subscribe to 
that list.

you don't sound like you've looked very hard for the information you seek.

> Both Linus Torvalds and Mark Mitchell periodically write
> status updates of some kind to keep people focused on
> a common goal.  The KDE and Mozilla projects publish
> long-term plans.

Xorg has existed in its current form for barely one year.  the other projects 
you've mentioned have much longer histories, broader and more active 
communities, and more developers.  it's not exactly a fair comparison.

> Never seen anything similar for the Xorg family of
> projects.  It's not even clear what the management
> roles are and who is in charge for them.

you're assuming we have management. ;)

> I know Xorg is based on volunteer work.  All OSS
> projects are.  I might have overseen something, but
> in order to be successful and attract more developers,
> Xorg appears to need more coordination/PR work.

what have you done for Xorg recently?

i don't mean that as a personal attack, i think your point is valid.  but 
afaict this is the first post you've ever made to this list.  perhaps this 
would be an opportunity to start working on some of the things you've 
mentioned, status reports, roadmaps, and so forth.  apparently no one else 
has had the time to do so yet (myself included), so this would be a major 
contribution.

- ajax
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