which is better -- Xorg or XFRee86?

SentralOrigin · 10-25-2005, 02:08 PM

I don't think it matters

jtshaw · 10-25-2005, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by foo_bar_foo
An interesting question to answer if xorg is in fact a fork of xfree as everyone claims, and i would be very intrerested in the answer, is.

I personally can't comment on whether it was a fork or not. I've never said it was, and I don't know for sure if it was. What I do know... when I look at the xorg-x11 source, is a great deal of it is directly from the xfree86 project. This doesn't necessarily imply it was a fork though, I'll give you that.

At any rate.. as far as a "which ones better" standpoint, which was the question asked in the first place. It appears, for the time being, that there is more interesting development going on within the freedesktop.org developers that are working on the xorg-x11 stuff. As has been mentioned a couple times, Keith is working on a composite extension and there is some other neat stuff in the works (new rendering system, better damage extension, ect).

If it makes any difference to anyone, much of the xorg-x11 code happens to have the following copyright:

Code:

/* $XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/cfb24/cfbmodule.c,v 1.8 1999/01/26 05:53:49 dawes Exp $ */
/*
 * Copyright (C) 1998 The XFree86 Project, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
 *
 * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
 * of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to
 * deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the
 * rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
 * sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
 * furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 *
 * The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
 * all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
 * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
 * XFREE86 PROJECT BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
 * IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
 * CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
 *
 * Except as contained in this notice, the name of the XFree86 Project shall
 * not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other
 * dealings in this Software without prior written authorization from the
 * XFree86 Project.
 */

This only speaks to the fact that at some point the xorg-x11 implementation used a great deal of code from The XFree86 Project, Inc..

tkedwards · 10-25-2005, 06:24 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFree86

Quote:

The first version, X11R6.7.0, was a fork from XFree86 version 4.4 RC2, with X11R6.6 changes merged in

I don't see where the whole conspiracy/propaganda comes in. The X.org foundation that was created in 2004 used a lot of the Xfree code from the last version before the licence change, plus some code from the original X.org. Many of the distro makers and developers jumped ship because they didn't like the new Xfree licence and the cathedral-style development model at Xfree.

My personal opinion is that X.org is now better because of the more rapid development its undergone since the split, and I think that's an opinion shared by a lot of the major distro makers judging by their switch to X.org over Xfree. You may feel differently but it'd be nice to hear why you think Xfree is technically better, rather than these confusing conspiracy theories.

KimVette · 10-26-2005, 02:11 PM

DRI actually works under X.org. The same cannot be truthfully said about XFree86
X.org offers higher framerates (in general)
X.org is more modular and the development team is working to make it even more so (what does this mean? Eventually you will be able to insert plugins more easily, future bug fixes will be more localized and possibly avoid a full recompile, etc.)
X.org offers the composite extensions, which allows for true alpha blending (transparency) in accelerated video modes
The developers who jumped ship to X.org want to continue active development rather than rest on their laurels
Countless other thread for XFree86 vs. O.org exist already - here and elsewhere (just a google/yahoo query away) with plenty of other points identified.