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XFree86 expels core team developerMarch 22, 2003 at 22:51, by Geoff Richards XFree86, the free implementation of the X low-level graphics system used on almost all Linux machines, last week lurched into the limelight when the project's ‘core team’ expelled Keith Packard. Open source projects rarely resort to such harsh measures, with maintainers usually compromising to keep everyone happy. But development strife does happen, and when it does it's hard to know what will happen to the disputed software.
The problems with XFree86 emerged on the 19th of March with a posting on the xfree86@xfree86.org mailing list. In a message announcing a new mailing list and inviting participation in “public and open discussion” the core team went on to state that Keith Packard was no longer to be one of their number. The project's home page also carried the news: It is with regret that the XFree86 BOD announces that Keith Packard has been removed from the XFree86 Core Team for conduct that is not in the interests of the XFree86 Project. The reason given for this rather drastic action is that Keith has been talking in secret to “vested interests” about forking [?] the XFree86 project. This hasn't been the first evidence of discontent with the project. Mike Harris, an XFree86 developer at Red Hat, posted a long exasperated message to his Advogato diary in January complaining about a lack of openness and community spirit. He's annoyed that his patches, and those contributed by ATI for the Radeon driver take months to get into XFree86, because to get into the official CVS repository they have to go through one of a handful of “inner circle” developers. Mike was surprised at the number of positive comments he got over this. David Wexelblat, one of the founders of the XFree86 project, posted a long message giving his views. He explains why he thinks Keith Packard had to go, and goes on to talk about the history of the project and it's own fork from the original MIT version of X. He also raises some interesting questions about how the X standards are defined. He agrees that in some ways the project needs to change (particularly in finding ways to spread some of the work out), but also wonders if X is the right solution anymore. He thinks that “X needs to be replaced by a direct-rendered model, on which a backwards-compatible X server can be reasonably trivially implemented.” It looks like the XFree86 project is taking some of the concerns about ‘openness’ on board. They're trying to encourage more open discussion on their mailing lists, and have set up a Bugzilla to open up bug reporting (something Mike Harris had asked for). Both of these coincided with the expulsion, perhaps indicating that the project is doing what it can to avoid the threatened fork. It's also interesting to note that the message Mike Harris reported seeing on the XFree86 developers page (“We are no longer accepting applications at this time”) has been replaced with something slightly more inviting. Whether Keith Packard's expulsion leads to a forked ‘new X’ or to a more open XFree86 development community, it'll be a while before we know where X on Linux is heading. Related Links
UpdateKeith Packard has started his fork, and has set up xwin.org as its new base. He's asking for input on how the project should be governed. |
© Copyright Geoff Richards, 2004 |