[forum] Consensus Building

[Egbert Eich]

Biju Chacko writes:
 > Firstly, with regard to X.org function:
 > 
 > * Is it agreed that X.org (or an alternative standards body) should
 > stick to certifying innovations from downstream X implementations as
 > standards and that it should not be generating new extensions to the
 > standard itself?

Extensions are the way to add innovations to X. There is a
standarized procedure to add extensions. You are probably referring
to the X Core Protocol. Yes, we must avoid touching this.
A more interesting question is how far should an extension
be standardized before we add it to a release.
Since an extension is client visible we have created a 
de-facto standard once clients start using it. 

 > 
 > Secondly, with regard to the future of XFree86:
 > 
 > * There does not seem to be serious opposition to the idea that XFree86
 > should be split into two trees: a stable tree and an unstable tree.

Hm, two trees, two CVS? I don't opt for having two CVS repositories
as it makes merging a pain. Instead we should use separate branches.
In fact we have been using separate branches for the forthcoming release
and for bugfixes for the old release. Unfortunately the bugfix branch
never got used heavily.
We should however create more experimental branches. This way
new features can be made available for testing much easier.
Once they have stabilized and agreed on merging back to the 
trunk should be no problem.

 > 
 > * Furthermore, the distribution of these two trees should be modularised
 > so that certain modules (eg device drivers) can have a more frequent
 > release schedule than others.
 > 

Drivers are about the only kind of modules that can be released
separately without creating a major maintenance nightmare.
New features in other modules change (or amend) the ABI.
Currently we have no decend way to ensure that the ABIs of
all modules match. We only have the overall ABI version 
number which is the same for every module of a certain 
version of the tree.

And yes, I'm working on separating out the drivers.

 > If we can agree that a consensus exists on these points, perhaps Alan
 > Coopersmith could incorporate them into his draft proposal for further
 > discussion.
 > 

Oh, is Alan making a draft proposal? I must have missed this.

 > Final point: who am I and why am I posting this?
 > 
 > * I am a nobody. ;-)
 > 
 > * It seemed like a constructive thing to do.
 > 

That's fine. Everybody is welcome to participate.
Every contribution is welcome that doesn't start
a new flamewar.

Egbert.