Feel free to ask the Android Linux teams why they didn't feel Xorg was a good fit for their distributions. The answers might surprise you.
Sending from a mobile, pardon my terseness. ~ C. On Jul 16, 2011 6:43 PM, "David Jackson" <[email protected]> wrote: > Has the X.org organisation ever thought of promoting X.org for use by > companies on thier handheld devices such as phones? X has really missed the > boat on this one. Years ago, in their infinite wisdom, X.org developers > removed monochrome support and low colour support, things that would have > been perfect for many handheld devices such as kindles. > > There is really no good reason why X cannot be used on handheld devices and > it woule encourage more use of a standardized platform like X rather than > yet more proprietary systems. > > Another issue with possible use of X by other companies is the need to > provide a device driver facility that supports backwards compatability, that > a device driver will continue to work on newer X servers, without being > recompiled. That would go for all drivers for all parts of an OS. One thing > corporations do not want to do is have to distribute 40 different versions > of a device driver and end up with a huge mess where device drivers packaged > with older devices no longer work. > > In relation to Linux and X, the only way to get these systems to be useable > for most people is to have hardware companies provide drivers for it, since > they can do all of the testing to make sure the driver works well with the > hardware. This is the only way to get timely hardware support. Average > people dont want to use Linux because of how shoddy the hardware support is. > If its anything slightly unusual, it wont work. Some corporations may want > to distribute binary drivers, thats just a necessary evil to help get an > open source OS more widely used, and as well, eventually open source > replacements would still get developed anyway. In fact binary drivers from > companies would make Linux more useable to more people, so we would see in > increase in user use of Linux, and more opportunities for open source > companies to be able to fund open source driver development. > > Ive been watching Linux for over 10 years and I have seen virtually no > progress on the desktop. The big reason it still is not useable is the > hardware problems. And the attitude of the Linux community as a whole is the > cause of that, the reason why so few people use Linux today, I have to > recommend people who want to use Linux to not use it and stay with Windows, > because I know what a hassle it is, it really is still hard thing to use > because it does not work right with so much hardware out there. And thats > due to the attitude of Linux developers who have a knee jerk reaction > against 3rd party drivers, when 3rd party drivers could make Linux useable > to far more people and actually increase potential to fund Linux > development. Both Linux kernel itself and X.org, if they were really serious > about making Linux practical to common users, would make it easier for third > party drivers to be developed, including better documentation of the APIs so > a company does not need to spend a year trying to understand it.
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