A Political History of X or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the GPL Keith Packard SiFive [email protected] Unix in !"# ● $SD Everywhere – $'t not actually BS% ● )*+* want, to make Sy,tem V real – S'rely they still matter ● .o Free So/tware Anywhere The 0rigins of 1 ● $rian Reid and Pa'l Asente at Stan/ord – - kernel → VGTS → W window system – Ported to VS100 at Stan/ord ● $o4 Scheifler started hacking W→ X – Working on Argus with Barbara Liskov at LCS – 7ade it more Unix friendly (async9, renamed X -AXstation 00 (aka v, 339 Unix Workstation Market ● Unix wa, closed source ● Most vendors ,hipped a proprietary 0S 4ased on $SD #.x ● S'n: HP: Digita(: )po((o: *ektronix: I$7 ● ;congratu(ation,: yo'<re not running &'nice=. – Stil(: so many gratuito', di/ference, -AXstation II S'n >?@3 Early Unix Window Systems ● S'n-iew dominated (act'al commercial app,A De,ktop widget,A9 ● %igital had -WS/UIS (V7S on(y9 ● )pollo had %omain ● *ektronix demon,trating Sma((*alk 1 B1@ ● .onB/ree so/tware ● U,ed internally at MIT ● Shared with friend, in/ormally 1 3 ● )(mo,t u,able ● %elivered by Digital on V)1,tation, ● %i,trib'tion was not all free ,o/tware – Sun port relied on Sun-iew kernel API – %igital provided binary rendering code – IB7 PC?2T support act'ally complete (C9 Why 1 C ● 1 0 had wart, – rendering model was pretty terrible ● ,adly, X1 wa,n't m'ch better... – External window management witho't borders ● Get everyone involved – Well, at lea,t every workstation vendor willing to write big checks X as Corporate *ool ● Dim Gettys and Smokey Wallace ● Write X , relea,e under liberal term, ● %i,place S'n-iew ● ;2eset the market= ● %igital management 4o'ght this plan X11 Deve(opment ● Protocol designed 4y cro,,Borg team ● Sample implementation done mo,tly at DEC WRL, co((aboration with people at 7IT ● Internet /ail're 7IT X Consortium ● Hired dev team at 7IT ● F'nded by Con,orti'm mem4er, ● Mem4er, al,o voted on standard, Where Was The GPLC ● We knew Richard too wel( – The GPL's worst sponsor ● 6orporate spon,or, dedicated to nonB/ree ,o/tware – Pay for say turns out to have power/'l contro( X Consortium Standards ● 1IE – 1 Imaging Exten,ion ● PE1 – Phig, Exten,ion /or 1 ● L$1 – Low Bandwidth 1 ● 1inp't (ver,ion 9 DECstation > 33 So/tware Framebu/fer Code ● Parallel development at DEC and MIT ● MIT code in open ● Proprietary code by D&6 NeWS 1 : NeWS and PostScript ● James Go,(ing and David Rosenthal wrote NeWS – -ery slow, 4't pretty coo( ● )do4e adapted PostScript interpreter for window system, – .ext: X and other, 8C9 – 6lo,ed so'rce ● 7erged X11?.eWS server – c(o,ed so'rce The Free Unix Desktop 0pen Look 7oti/ The X *oolkit 8Xt9 ● C library for building toolkits ● Base of Athena Widgets (Xaw) ● “Object Oriented” ● Flexible design to support many toolkits – Mechanism not policy → implement every policy we can think of 0pen Look ● S'n-iew → X-iew – Similar API, Open Look appearance – 6(osed ,ource ● 0pen-iew – 1t based toolkit – %riven by politics (;7ore open”) 7oti/ ● 1t – 0pen source common toolkit infra ● Motif – 6(osed ,ource, built on Xt 0pen Look vs 7oti/ ● $oth clo,ed ,o'rce ● ;,haring” Xt library ● )pp developer, had no good choice – Sun wanted Open Look – HP/DEC/SGI(C9 wanted Motif X Stagnates ● 6ore protocol not allowed to change ● .on-mem4er, p',hed o't o/ co(laboration ● Market fragment,: app developer, con/',ed 6ol(apse of Unix ● )pp market failed to thrive – So many Unix ver,ion, – So many UI want, – So m'ch grat'ito', reBengineering ● Window, happened – St'pid cheap hardware – 6omplete(y standard A$I – ;good eno'gh is good eno'gh=.