The future of Xephyr and Kdriver

[jamey at minilop.net]

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Feng, Haitao <haitao.feng at intel.com> wrote:
> I'd like to know what is the future of Xephyr and Kdriver from your point of
> view. Will you still need someone maintain Xephyr? I am willing to maintain it
> if needed.

I wouldn't discourage someone from maintaining any part of X they
like. However, Josh Triplett and I are currently mentoring a team of
students at Portland State University to see if they can build a
Xephyr-like video driver for the X.Org DDX. Their project will end in
March 2011. These students have no background in X development, so
there are certainly risks to the project. But if it goes well then I'm
hoping we'll have a good basis for replacing Xephyr, Xnest, and Xdmx.

The students just started work, and are sorting out the usual build
environment issues. We're encouraging them to show up on this list or
IRC as they get into the actual development, so hopefully you'll all
get to monitor their progress and perhaps offer helpful feedback. If
you feel the need to flame them, please mail me privately instead and
I'll have a talk with them. :-)

GL acceleration is not likely to happen by March--I'm not even sure
the driver will have input support, given how painful that is for
Xephyr et al today. If you want to use Xephyr for Meego development
now, you might want to continue your work regardless of how these
students do.

Jamey