From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stewart Subject: Re: Rant [Was: Re: changing color depth in XFree86] Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 11:21:17 -0400 Sender: linux-admin-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <3EA2BAED.2030308@snerk.org> References: <200304171748.h3HHm4E16745@photon.hao.ucar.edu> <16031.3423.437052.927106@cerise.nosuchdomain.co.uk> <3EA0CC2B.50602@snerk.org> <16033.21074.906637.184724@cerise.nosuchdomain.co.uk> <3EA17156.3070009@snerk.org> <16033.55677.468295.618116@cerise.nosuchdomain.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <16033.55677.468295.618116@cerise.nosuchdomain.co.uk> List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: Glynn Clements Cc: linux-admin@vger.kernel.org Glynn Clements wrote: >>Then the applications will have to remove their legacy code and catch up >>with the needs of the users, rather than the programmers. > > Oh right; we'll just re-write all of the existing X applications and > libraries. No problem. Melodrama isn't going to help your case, I dare say. >>Actually, the same is true of resizing the root window; however, fewer >>applications actually care about that and, for those which do, any >>failures are likely to be less critical. > > Few applications (except window managers) are concerned with the > screen dimensions, and most of those which are will exhibit relatively > minor faults if the dimensions do change. The real problem is changing > the *depth*. So it's not going to be done because it's "hard"? Perhaps what I've been saying all along is true; OSS really isn't ready for prime-time desktop use. If you're going to claim that the world's most revolutionary programming model is fundamentally flawed because it won't tackle "hard" problems - problems which are already overcome by all of their closed-source bretheren - then just come out and say it. Or are you going to find a better reason why this is a bad idea? > I'm a long-time Linux user/admin/programmer who has progressively > become more sceptical of both Linux and free software generally; > primarily because of a growing tendency to sacrifice important factors > such as compatibility (both with previous versions and with real > Unix/X11 systems) in favour of non-critical features and gimmicks. > > Every time that I hear the Slashdot crowd enthusing over the fact that [...] And every time I hear a legacy supporter throwing the "Slashdot crowd" out as if it were a valid argument, I roll my eyes. > such-and-such now has an animated alpha-translucent drop-shadowed OK > button I just wonder which rational property was sacrificed for that > piece of nonsense. Performance? Reliability? Portability? Memory > consumption? "Who cares? - we have animated alpha-translucent > drop-shadowed OK buttons, yay!" We're talking about the X server, not KDE/GNOME. Focus. >>Changing resolution on the fly has come to be expected from >>any modern desktop environment. > > That sounds like "Windows has it, therefore we should". No, actually, it means that these are desired (nay, required) features for many settings, and we don't have it. >>It's taken far too long, IMO, for XFree86.Org to catch up and >>implement such functionality in their server. > > When it comes to breaking compatibility, the longer they leave it the > better. Compatability at the cost of being ten years obsolete, merely for the sake of compatability, is ridiculous.