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RE: X 4.0.2 issues...



> From: Sergio Brandano [mailto:sb@dcs.qmw.ac.uk]
> 
>  Was X version 4 supposed to be that magic next step,

	The magic here is yours only.


>  where companies like ATi and Matrox could make
>  their own drivers? Was X version 4 supposed to have

	Could and can.  Doesn't mean they will, even if they should.  In
fact, they could make their own servers before - they didn't because they
wanted to make them proprietary and few people would accept a proprietary
server.



>  a mechanism for which these drivers could be added
>  modularly with no need to hack the main code? Was

	And it has.  It is called drivers.  Before X had no drivers, just
monolithic servers.



>  that one of the reasons why we could not have a free
>  version of X Version 4? If so, why is that we are

	We have a free version of XFree.  In fact, XFree is free, that's
where it got its name.  Now the X reference implementation (because X itself
is just the specs) at a time was to become proprietary, but they reversed it
(mainly because XFree devs and users cried out) and the X Reference
Implementations remain free up to now.

	What people expected is that we would have some extra proprietary
drivers in addition to the free ones.  But AFAIK the only vendor doing
proprietary X drivers is NVidia, and then only for the i386 architecture.
Thanks God, because I'd rather have everything GPL'd, no more free riders.



>  now having this problem in running an ATi driver?

	Because you and me are too lazy to debug and improve the existing
driver, and we don't step up to ATi and demand they create one or fix the
existing one.  Perhaps because no one has yet convinced ATi they could sell
more boards if there was a good free driver for them.



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