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0 pointsdialamac5y ago0 comments

> I seem to recall reading at the time that the XFree86 core team was unhappy that a sole contributor was attempting to modernize the system by introducing extensions, without building consensus around them to their satisfaction.

This is a kind of odd retelling/interpretation of events, considering the “rogue” contributor version is the only one that lived and XFree86 is history.

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asveikau5y ago· 2 in thread

You may find it odd, but that is what the other, now long forgotten side said at the time, and I'm describing that without taking their side. I noted neutrally as I could that they were "unhappy" and consensus was not built "to their satisfaction", but then that their project soon died because interesting work was going on in the fork.

They envisioned a world in which they needed license changes to block the fork from stealing all their work... And worthwhile contributions from their side did not materialize.

dialamacOP5y ago

I mean I think the “sole” contributor your are referring to is Keith Packard? Don’t see any reason to not name names here. In any case I guess what I find odd is that while he did a shit ton of work in spearheading a fork, it’s not like it was just him. There were a lot of people, greatly outnumbering the XFree86 steering committee that were unhappy with the direction of the project. It’s not like it was just Keith. That’s what I find odd about your assessment. Obviously there was enough consensus to fork.

asveikau5y ago

Yes, I am talking about Keith Packard, but as I do not personally know anyone involved I didn't feel like dropping names.

Spurred by this discussion I read this old email thread linked by Wikipedia: https://web.archive.org/web/20030821073445/http://xfree86.or...

This is a year before the license change I think?

You will note that Keith is directly blamed for the fork and undermining XFree86. It sounds like there is also resentment for how XRENDER was done, also driven by Keith, but it would seem with more cooperation within the project. We know that the fork was the victor in history and XFree86 looks unreasonable to most observers but I was merely trying to accurately convey the other side in the dispute, without taking their side.

It does seem like there were a bit of tensions between "Linux on the desktop" types (driven by end user visible features and represented by the fork) and more conservative "old hand at X" types present in the thread, resisting such changes, maybe sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for bad. Though when I google around, it seems Keith and others were active in X before the rise of Linux.

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