From: dwex@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (david.e.wexelblat)
Subject: Synopsis of the X Technical Conference BOF
Organization: AT&T
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 23:24:50 GMT


			X For Intel-Based Unix BOF
				Synopsis

			7th Annual X Technical Conference
				January 20, 1993


Well, the BOF was an overwhelming success.  It was held on the last night
of the conference.  I had expected the participation to be reduced, figuring
that people would have left by then.  As it turned out, it was standing room
only.  There were 50-60 people there, in my estimation (I had 50 copies of
a handout, and didn't get any back).  The BOF was scheduled to run for
an hour and a half, but actually went for about 3 hours (if you count the
large group of us that went out for dinner afterwards, it ran for about
5.5 hours :->).

Participation was wide-ranging, including me and Jim Tsillas representing
XFree86, and representation from MetroLink, SCO, and NCR.  There were
people of all levels of experience there, from people just looking to
put a system together, to folks with lots of X hacking experience.  The
discussions were lively and wide-ranging, with lots of participation.

I started things off by introducing the plans for the future of XFree86.
To summarize:

	- XFree86 1.2 will be released in a couple of weeks.  This adds
	  a lot of diverse features, including SVR3 shared libraries,
	  a Hercules monochrome driver (supporting dual heads), lots of
	  bug fixing and error detection enhancements, etc.
	- XFree86 1.2.1 is being planned as an "OS Support Release", which
	  will add support for Amoeba, Minix-386, SVR4.2, 386BSD 0.2 and
	  BSD/386.  Release dates have not been set.
	- XFree86 2.0 is in the very beginning stages.  This release will
	  merge the functionality of XS3 and X8514 into XFree86.  Some
	  other things being considered are HiColor/TrueColor support,
	  16-color support, other chipsets, etc.  We hope to have this
	  ready before summer, but no promises.

We discussed a lot of issues surrounding this, like support for Diamond
boards (will not happen), accessibility of literature for the various
accelerated chipsets (e.g. ATI's policy of releasing documentation only
when the chipset is no longer top-of-the-line), and some of the technical
problems with supporting 4-bit and 24-bit displays, because of bad SVGA
architecture.

The issue of support for SCO Unix came up (of course :->) leading directly
into a presentation by Mike Patnode of SCO on their current and upcoming
offerings (X11R5 is coming).  It was a very friendly discussion, which was
a little surprising, given the overwhelming number of XFree86 users there
(I kind of expected him to get beat up on).  Mike gave us a source for some
sample code for working with SCO VTs, and a hint for where to locate the
dynamic loading code that they are using (from the Andrew distribution).
So if anyone wants to step up and provide SCO support for XFree86, we'd
be glad to have it.

Another issue that was discussed briefly was a problem for SVR4 users.
Basically, the libraries that USL ships are in violation of the ABI
specification (the have entry points not defined by the ABI), so none of 
the 3rd-party X packages (XFree86, SGCS, MetroLink, NCR) can function
as a drop-in replacement for USL's package (3rd-party software linked
with USL's shared libs won't work).  Stuart Anderson of NCR will be
fronting an effort (with participation of all of these groups) to
try to get this problem resolved, either by having USL change what they
ship or provide correct documentation, or some combination of the two.
We will be continuing to pursue this issue.

There was a lively discussion of the future XFree86 and how it relates
to X11R6.  Basically, we have no real voice in what happens in X11R6
because we are not part of the X Consortium (there was talk by a couple
of people of trying to come up with the money to sponsor us, to which
we respond "go for it!" :->).  As has been stated several times, we will
be working with SGCS on their contribution to X11R6, in a consulting role.
Our intention is to have a release of XFree86 as part of the Contributed
Software distribution for X11R6.  Whatever pieces of XFree86 don't make
it into the core distribution, we will put in the contributed distribution,
so that an X11R6-based XFree86 should be available approximately one month
after X11R6 is released (assuming MIT follows the same schedule as for 
X11R5).  In addition, several of the folks present who work for X Consortium
members (e.g. NCR) volunteered to help get our concerns voiced.  That's
an awfully friendly attitude to take with a competitor, and we appreciate
it.

All in all, the BOF was a great success.  I met a lot of people who I'd
previously only dealt with on the net, and a lot of net lurkers (people
who knew who I was, but had never had conversations with).  It was
a great experience all around for me.  I got to take a great course of
Tk/Tcl from John Osterhout (the author), and saw some great presentations.

On a somewhat related note, I went to the O'Reilly display and had a 
brief chat with Adrian Nye, who edits The X Resource.  We discussed our
doing a paper on XFree86 for publication in The X Resource, and they
are interested.  I will be starting on this after we get XFree86 1.2
out the door.

I'm hoping that we can do similar BOFs at other conferences.  I will be
going to Xhibition in June, and will investigate doing another one.  I 
may be going to X World in March, but that's not clear yet.  And, as
always, we encourage participation in XFree86.  If you want to contribute
to the effort (and have FTP access - we only provide stuff via FTP), send
email to <xfree86@physics.su.oz.au>.

--
David Wexelblat <dwex@mtgzfs3.att.com>  (908) 957-5871
AT&T Bell Laboratories, 200 Laurel Ave - 3F-428, Middletown, NJ  07748

"The meaning of life?  That's simple.  Try to be happy, try not to hurt
 other people, and hope to fall in love."  -- Mallory Keaton
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.i386unix