Xserver just got forked
Posted by kalzEOS@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 109 comments
What's the deal with this fork? Is it going to work?how are they going to make Nvidia works? Hasn't everyone already moved on, including Nvidia? I'm actually curious and will be trying this. Anyone has more details? Input? https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/tree/master
ExaHamza@reddit
If you use Waland and are feeling off about this fork, seek treatment urgently.
NaheemSays@reddit
But the author of the fork is against treatment.
ExaHamza@reddit
Who cares and why?
theother559@reddit
It doesn't fill a useful niche - who is looking for a non-DEI Xorg replacement? All of about three people imo.
froschdings@reddit
the non-dei thing is just enrico being a difficult person, it's more about him wanting to clean up the code for legacy support and reaming x11 people giving up on the idea. he lack's the ability to communicate in a way that makes people WANT to help him with his goals.
theother559@reddit
I just don't understand why - X11 came out in the 1980s and is showing its age, flog a dying horse?
josefx@reddit
Can we expect Wayland based DEs to pull support for the entire x86 based CPU family any day now as well? Maybe run only on Intel Itanium, that architecture is still pristine.
theother559@reddit
Why would they do that? How is the bit width relevant to Wayland?
josefx@reddit
Bit width? We have x86_64 for decades, a bloated, patched mess with dozens of extensions as old as X that dragged x86 screaming into an era it didn't belong in. Itanium was the clean redesign, the Wayland to x86/amd64s X11. So if you want to avoid old "dead" horses it should be obvious that Wayland implementations should pull support for anything except Itanium.
froschdings@reddit
I lack the technical inside to truely evalue the situation, but I also think it's just a bad idea.
theother559@reddit
My understanding of the Xorg situation is that the code is complex and any major new features would be very difficult.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
It's not just because the code itself is old and complex it's that fixing some of the problems would require breaking the protocol which would break applications that use it. It'd be more like x12.
sns8447@reddit
"Non Political" though - LOL
theother559@reddit
Open source is inherently political lmao
KrazyKirby99999@reddit
Probably anyone who's been banned from freedesktop. It'll need "WXorg" to be useful.
MooseBoys@reddit
no comment
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
I don't see anything wrong with that. Do you want him to not welcome anyone regardless of whatever he listed in there?
daemonpenguin@reddit
You don't see anything wrong with crazy conspiracy theories and far right-wing propaganda in your display server project? ... You might have bigger issues than display software.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
I still don't see any issue in the part the person to whom I replied quoted. The part is just welcoming everyone. How is that an issue?
ulMyT@reddit
He's welcoming everyone, yet raging against DEI? What's DEI even got to do with X? He sounds unhinged.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
DEI is 100% politically charged by all these corporations that support it. I have no issue with DEI (I'm an immigrant myself and I'd like a fair chance,too), but my issue is how corporations are using it. It's fucked. They go too far on the other side.
bigon@reddit
Discrimination or the lack of discrimination IS politically charged...
6SixTy@reddit
Yes, that would be an amenable statement in a vacuum, but in the previous paragraph, he drops the line 'It's explicitly free of any "DEI" or similar discriminatory policies.'
He's using DEI as a charged word and then continues to list a core tenant of DEI in the next paragraph. It means that people probably find him and/or his opinions detestable.
A manefesto for forking a project because nobody really cares about the project shouldn't even include any such phasing at all.
froschdings@reddit
That's because of metux/ Enrico Weigelt. He's a Linux developer, he was a confounder of metux IT, a little german business focussing on Linux support, that went out of business a while ago - or maybe his collegues/ co-founders just moved on with their lives. He had some loud discussion on the Linux mailiings lists during covid (some anti-vax stuff) until Linus torvalds himself told him to shut up.
I don't think he does have much work anymore and therefore he has a bit too much free time and even without any personal knowledge of him and his life, it seems to me like he is living in the past.
froschdings@reddit
He made some (maybe) valid points about legacy support and I think people missunderstood him by not listening and focussing on being annoyed. He's trying to give people that rely on X something like long term support and bugfixes and x11 people have a different understanding of X being in maintanance mode.
Jhuyt@reddit
The part about "no DEI" is hilarious and the rest of the README, IMO, would make me turn away from this project even if I was interested in the points you brought up. One should crash out on twitter, not in a README
froschdings@reddit
better not on twitter, he might actually find people agreeing with him
ilep@reddit
It would like a bubble of rot that festers and spreads.. Just like twitter is.
grem75@reddit
His other hobby is digging up weeks/months old Reddit threads to respond to comments.
froschdings@reddit
oh nooo
Outrageous_Trade_303@reddit
It won't survive.
ilep@reddit
I am expecting similar results as Trump-Musk alliance. Endless forks of forks incoming..
MatchingTurret@reddit
Depends on what the BSD people do:
LvS@reddit
They are going to do (1).
Because soon enough apps will stop supporting X11 and they don't want to maintain X11 support for all those apps.
JockstrapCummies@reddit
Actually there's a 4th option: just drop X11 and Wayland altogether.
It's all bloat anyway. /s
Fluid-Wrangler-4065@reddit
btw can we stop generalising bsd anymore, there is no bsd people anymore, there ade netbsd people, openbsd people, freebsd people, each have different ideals, different implementations, different project goals and different people who really don't like to things from each most of the time
MatchingTurret@reddit
But they all have to decide what to do about the Linux transition to Wayland.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
freebsd officially supported wayland speaking desktops. It's even in the handbook. Sway was able to run on openbsd most of the way as of 2 years ago. I would imagine we'll see them move forward with that.
Fluid-Wrangler-4065@reddit
not all, why would they? linux distros transitioning to wayland doesn't have anything to do with openbsd's aim at security or netbsd' saim at portability, but if someone does work on them then i don't think they would be reluctant to have these things, so it's not a "have to" but more of a "might"
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
wayland enabled desktops can run on freebsd and have for years. Sway already ran on openbsd as of 2 years ago so it seems very possible.
Unlucky-Ad-2993@reddit
Third option is very unlikely. Earlier I stumbled upon a post about this fork in r/openBSD and comments looked pretty much like the ones you find here
that_leaflet@reddit
I don't see any post on openBSD, maybe it was removed?
Unlucky-Ad-2993@reddit
Thank you, yeah, after posting the comment I went to search it but couldn't find it
MatchingTurret@reddit
I suspect that they will go with Wayland. With the major desktop environments poised to drop support for running on an X session in their next major release, sticking with X means either maintaining a fork of the full ecosystem (they don't have the manpower for this) or loosing support for newer DEs.
grem75@reddit
OpenBSD kinda already does.
INITMalcanis@reddit
Looks like someone is underestimating the willingness of Linux users to stubbornly resist change
Outrageous_Trade_303@reddit
lol! In this case it seems that the fork happened because of political differences :\
FriedHoen2@reddit
No, it's because the developers have not released new versions for years.
OneQuarterLife@reddit
Why would they? None of them want to maintain it beyond what is required to move users to it's replacement. It's dead software.
aliendude5300@reddit
I think new releases should be made that rip out functionality not used by XWayland to reduce attack surface and the focus should be 100% on just having X11 clients be backwards compatible with Wayland compositors. The xserver project is too valuable to die completely or we'd lose lots of old apps.
FriedHoen2@reddit
I am not arguing whether it is right or not, I am explaining why the developer with the most commits decided to create a fork.
PixelatingPony@reddit
"Most commits" and according to the FDO GitLab almost all were cosmetic changes causing breakage or introduced vulns and had to be reverted.
FriedHoen2@reddit
If they accepted them, it means they were not.
PixelatingPony@reddit
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/issues/1797 They reverted quite a few, and finally had to reject his MRs point blank due to lack of testing and the issues they introduced + him flooding their MRs with trivial cosmetic things.
FriedHoen2@reddit
Funny, who reported that bug was me and now I guess you want to explain the 'huge' problem caused by that bug.
FriedHoen2@reddit
Then I will explain something: it is perfectly obvious that a commit can break something, it happens all the time in any project.
PixelatingPony@reddit
Yes, but if you're submitting a bunch and not testing (clearly), you're causing more work for the maintainers so don't be surprised when they say "we don't want your work anymore".
This is proven in one of the linked MRs where he had introduced a bug, refused to work on it until it was reverted, and then threw a fit. This was despite him working on other MRs during that time and ignoring said MR. The linked MR was just the the final straw for the team it seems.
FriedHoen2@reddit
Look, as I told you I reported it and I followed the discussion and I know very well how things went, you don't have to explain it to me.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
Looks like the dude has tried to help fix it, but all of his commits get rejected. He has a couple of thousands of commits to be fair.
FriedHoen2@reddit
Not exactly: https://www.phoronix.com/news/X.Org-Server-2024-GitStats
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
Then someone should have forked it before this person :)
YouRock96@reddit
But if it survives, I'm curious how they want to fix the problems that are broken in X11 bydesign.
Outrageous_Trade_303@reddit
It won't survive. It has a political motive and no one will follow them.
froschdings@reddit
I think his poltical views are not the reason why he wanted to fork, but the reason why he had to. (not that there was any chance x11 would get any real development in the future)
Outrageous_Trade_303@reddit
The political reason is what you perceive if you read the README.
froschdings@reddit
Yes, I agree with you. I meant it in a "digging his own grave" way.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
The part I'm most curious about is the dual monitors with different resolutions and refresh rate.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
Looks like it has over 400 contributors. I know this is too small compared to other major projects, but still a good number.
Dirlrido@reddit
Does the contributers list on GitHub not copy with the fork? If so, that doesn't really mean much.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
I actually didn't know it copied. So, my bad there.
OneQuarterLife@reddit
The fork is by one developer. X11 is dead, most compositors are dropping X11 entirely, and anyone that uses this fork for their application breaks compatibility with XWayland.
Outrageous_Trade_303@reddit
These are the original contributors of X11 not the fork.
Damaniel2@reddit
Seems like a guy upset about 'woke' companies influencing Xorg and choosing to fork it as a result - without any developer momentum of any kind (it seems like he's mainly looking for some more conservatively minded people to jump in), but large projects like Xorg aren't exactly easy to build up developer teams for, especially when you've forked without any plan other than 'I don't like the people currently doing things so I'll fork and do my own'.
The end result is likely to be similar to the chaos that came out of Nintendo's DMCAing of Yuzu. Forks sprung up, but the devs who actually had the talent to work on the original code were nowhere to be found (mostly scared away by Nintendo). The result has been projects that mainly push commits related to 'code cleanup' or 'documentation fixes' without any substantial changes or fixes to existing code, let alone addition of new features.
Personally, I don't think this is going anywhere.
syldrakitty69@reddit
"Companies" aren't just influencing Xorg, they're deliberately killing it off. Red Hat employees are in charge of it while also flat out saying they're not interested in releasing a new version ever. They are just sitting on the project with no intention of doing anything but pushing the "X11 is dead. Wayland is the future" narrative, to help push the desktop ecosystem in a way that Red Hat wants it to go.
There's a clear pattern of the Red Hat employees in charge of X.Org/Freedesktop contriving social-political reasoning for blacklisting people so its not surprising why someone could come to the conclusion that its corporate policy dressed up in a rainbow flag.
I don't think this is comparable to Yuzu at all, either, according to Phoronix in 2024:
Its not like X11 is such a complicated piece of software either, despite the people whose full time job seems to be to bemoan it as "unmaintainable". There are clearly people who want to and can make genuine improvements but the biggest barrier to doing so is X.Org/FDO.
Its awful to try and tear people's efforts down just because you either agree with the social political agenda that Red Hat hides behind, or because you were annoyed by someone posting something anti-Wayland on social media once.
aliendude5300@reddit
His work got ripped apart pretty badly on https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/issues/1797 for not being tested at all. I can't see this ever being production ready.
DheeradjS@reddit
Oh, That's the guy that went on the Anti-Vax rant on the LKML, wasn't he...
Stunning_Ad_1685@reddit
Honestly, I think that XOrg should be retconned to be some kind of time reversal fork of XLibre. But, of course, the DEI version control systems don’t allow this. Obvious conspiracy! BAD!
Stunning_Ad_1685@reddit
Does anybody know if there’s an entire anti-DEI distro? I think that would be useful. 😂
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
Not that doesnt' pull in all the supposably "DEI" code from the upstream projects to keep the bug and security fixes flowing.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
I think open mandriva is partial/non-political.
gerx03@reddit
I mean anyone can fork it and rename it, right? Is that all that happened here?
froschdings@reddit
As much as I don't like his views, he has the abilities to do this, he just lacks the abilities to happily work with other people.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
This is what it takes to run an open source project the size of xorg though.
cyb3rofficial@reddit
Yes anyone can fork and rename, but im pretty sure this dude has over like 3k commits reedy to plop into it. If i remember correctly.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
He's in the number one spot of number of commits. I'm going to watch and see. Surely, over 3000 commits will have some good fixes, no?
PixelatingPony@reddit
Plot twist, they don't. Just dig through GitLab.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/issues/1797
mortuary-dreams@reddit
Freedesktop.org is an absolute joke. Their staff committed far worse offenses and are somehow still in charge. Yet, some unfortunate soul trying to maintain X.org independently gets slammed with the Code of Conduct. Why does the CoC only apply to outsiders and not their own corrupt team?
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
This part is actually confusing to me. Which coc is it being mentioned here, the one in the fork, or the one in the original project, or are they the same?
mortuary-dreams@reddit
I am talking about fd.o's CoC, and some of their staff have a history of abusing their own power, yet nothing ever happens to them.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
Oh I see. Watch out, you'll get banned from this sub. Lol
mortuary-dreams@reddit
Lol.
mortuary-dreams@reddit
Freedesktop.org's CoC.
SirGlass@reddit
I love how he vastly overestimates this. Dude 99.9999% of people have no clue about any of this, and even in the linux community, almost no one cares
mortuary-dreams@reddit
I'm not here to protect Enrico, but it's clear fdo.o is a buddy-buddy group. Why does the CoC only apply to external contributors? Nobody from that group ever gets banned, even though their own staff have committed serious breaches of trust and are still there.
6SixTy@reddit
Watched the Lunduke video on this fork last night, and it was pretty clear that a screw is loose.
mortuary-dreams@reddit
This brings up the question of why their CoC applies only to external contributors and not to their own staff. There have been violations by their own staff, and nothing ever happened to them.
Jhuyt@reddit
Very, very bad README. If it survives it'll be out of pure spite and anger
mrlinkwii@reddit
this is the third post today https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1l4qnnr/xorg_forked_xlibre_developer_promises_to_release/
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
Damn, I scrolled too far in the sub before posting. My bad.
NGRhodes@reddit
> how are they going to make Nvidia work?
If your referring to the proprietary drivers, that's always going to be Nvidias job.
MatchingTurret@reddit
NOVA is coming, backed by Nvidia.
HackedcliEntUser@reddit
I'm tired of the wayland bs. If you like it, good for you, stop convincing us. Looking forward to this.
kalzEOS@reddit (OP)
I'm actually very curious about it. I don't really have many issues with Wayland, but I'd like to see how far this goes.
flyhmstr@reddit
That readme used an entire factory's output of tin foil
postmodest@reddit
The guy who did the fork is a right wing nut job so unreasonable that Linus himself had to deliver a smack down about vaccines in the LKML of all places.
He is not making sincere and rational arguments, and no one in the Linux community should engage with the far-right pipeline except to note its intellectual dishonesty.
NatoBoram@reddit
Schizoposting in a
README.md… don't see that every daythat_leaflet@reddit
Sure it's going to work. But based on that README alone, no distribution is going to touch this.
This will be relegated to hobbyists who want to build this themselves and will also require rebuilding all the GPU drivers, so seemingly it won't support NVIDIA?
DamonsLinux@reddit
Not all, only nvidia. Also looks like developer was one of the most active contributors so IMO not a hobbyist projest.
daemonpenguin@reddit
No, look at the README. Every paragraph of it clearly shows this is not going to work at all.
This makes no sense. NVIDIA has always worked fine on X.
Since you haven't even read anything about the project yet, why not start there and then ask specific questions.