X11R6.8.0 Release Official Announcement (plain text)

Fri Sep 10 14:39:09 PDT 2004

[the PDF version isn't readable on all readers it seems. here's plaintext]

 X.Org Foundation Announces X11R6.8 Release of the X Window System
 _________________________________________________________________ 

      The X.Org Foundation Release Officially Introduces 
		State of the Art Technologies to 
		      the X Window System

Brookline MA, September 9, 2004 - The X.Org Foundation today announced the 
second release of the X Window System since the formation of the Foundation 
in January of this year.

The new X.Org release, called X Window System Version 11, Release 6.8 
(X11R6.8) builds on the work of X.org X11R6.7 released in April.  X11R6.8 
combines the latest developments from many people and companies working 
with the X Window System and an open X.Org Foundation Release Team. The X 
Window System X11R6.8 release can be found at ftp://www.x.org/pub and at 
mirror-sites worldwide.

About this Release:

In response to user and application developer demand, X.Org's X11R6.8 
brings forward widely anticipated fundamental facilities through this 
release. They include the first official X Window System Release support 
for:

	- Translucent windows
	- Window animation, window decorations like shadows
	- Support for accessibility applications
	- Support for 3D immersive user environments like Looking Glass(1) 
		and Croquet(2)
	- Support for large scale display walls using DMX(3)

These new facilities, some of which are still considered experimental, and 
so not enabled by default, have been under development for several years. 
Once completed and deployed, they will enable X Window System desktop 
projects, such as Gnome and KDE, to greatly extend their visual user 
interface vocabulary while still ensuring uncompromised support for 
existing applications, even surpassing current state of the art in 
competing window systems. 

These facilities will enable easy implementation of thumbnailing, screen 
magnifiers for accessibility, translucent windows, menus, drop shadows, and 
even integration of conventional applications into 3D immersive 
environments. They are the result of open collaboration within the 
freedesktop.org community, desktop projects, and the X Window System user 
and developer communities. For some illustrations visit 
http://www.freedesktop.org/XOrg/X11R68ScreenShots.

Features also included in this release are updates and fixes to: FreeType2, 
Xprint, Xaw ( new PrintShell class), Mesa, DRI, driver rotation support, 
Render ( New Trapezoid Extension ), many driver updates, and a broad range 
of fixes and enhancements.

About participation and membership in X.Org

Membership in the X.Org foundation is free and open to all participants. 
Active participants in the further development of the X Window System are
invited to visit: http://www.x.org/XOrg_Foundation_Membership.html to
complete a membership application. Participation in the Foundation's
Sponsor Group is also available to those who wish to financially
support the activities of the X.Org Foundation. Current Sponsors
include Hewlett Packard, IBM, ICS, Sun Microsystems, Shiman
Associates, and WRQ.

About the X.Org Foundation

X.Org Foundation L.L.C. is a Delaware company organized to operate as
a scientific charity under IRS code 501(c)(3), chartered to develop
and execute effective strategies that provide worldwide stewardship of
the X Window System technology and standards. The group is currently
managed by its Board of Directors that includes: Stuart Anderson (Free
Standards Group), Egbert Eich (Novell), Jim Gettys (HP), Stuart
Kreitman (SUN Microsystems), Kevin Martin (Red Hat), Jim McQuillan
(Linux Terminal Server Project), Keith Packard (HP), and Leon Shiman
(Shiman Associates). The website for the X.Org Foundation can be
found at http://www.x.org/.

About The X Window System

The X Window System provides the only common networked windowing
environment bridging the heterogeneous platforms in today's
computing. The X Window System is one of the most successful
open-source, collaborative technologies developed to date and is the
standard graphical window system for the Linux® and UNIX® operating
systems. The inherent independence of the X Window System from the
operating system, the network and the hardware, as well as its
successful interoperability, have made it widely available and
deployed with more than 30 million users worldwide. All major hardware
vendors support the X Window System and many third parties provide
technologies for integrating X Window System applications into the
networked computer or personal computer environments including
Microsoft Windows®, UNIX, Linux and Mac OS® X. Further, thousands of
software developers provide X Window System applications, and with the
continued growth of Linux and the emergence of Mac OS X, the number of
users is growing rapidly.

Community Response:

"This release of the X.org server incorporates a number of extensions that 
were developed in consultation with experts in the field," said Bill 
Haneman, Sun Microsystems, GNOME Foundation board member and member of the 
FSG Accessibility Workgroup. "This new release removes a number of 
significant accessibility roadblocks and facilitates considerably improved 
support for onscreen magnifiers, screen readers, and other assistive 
technologies." 

"As one of the original founding members of the X Window System project,
HP is pleased to be supporting the X.Org Foundation as a continued
sponsor. With the second X.org Foundation release of the X Window System, we 
once again demonstrate the power of the open source development model to 
deliver true innovation and value to our customers," said Martin Fink, vice 
president of Linux, HP.

"Open source takes a giant leap into the future with the new X Window
System release and Croquet working together," said Alan Kay, Senior HP 
Fellow, HP Labs.

"If anyone doubts the quality of 'Open Source' they only need look to this 
new release of X," said Peter Winston, President of leading UI development 
company Integrated Computer Systems (www.ICS.com) and member of X.org.  With 
tens of  millions of Linux and UNIX developers around the world relying on 
the X Window System, X.org has created a new version which users can depend 
upon and that addresses the new needs of  a changing market. The additions 
of translucent windows and support for large scale  display walls will be 
especially well received by our core customer base of developers building 
homeland defense applications."

"LTSP relies heavily on the X Window System and we are inspired by the 
continuing development and community involvement that has gone into the 
latest X.org release." -- Jim McQuillan, LTSP project leader.

"Novell welcomes the rapid progress of the X.Org Foundation. We are
pleased to support the new release of X.Org in the next SUSE LINUX product
offering, which will enable technology enthusiasts to benefit from the
latest enhancements in Linux windowing technology, and we will continue to
actively contribute to the project." -- Chris Schlaeger, VP R&D SUSE LINUX 
at Novell

"Red Hat is proud to contribute to development of the X Window System
technology and standards through continued involvement in and support of
X.org's efforts.  Red Hat plans to include the X11R6.8 release in the
the open source Fedora Core project and upcoming releases of Red Hat
Desktop." -- Havoc Pennington, desktop technical architect and engineering 
manager.

"X11R6.8 contains essential features which provide the underlying
foundation for the Project Looking Glass 3D window system, such as the
Composite and Damage extensions. These timely and well implemented
features have significantly accelerated our development effort." -- Deron 
Johnson, Sun Microsystems, Project Looking Glass.

"As the former X.org chair, and current chair of the X.org Sponsor's 
Group, I'm very pleased to see the X.org Foundation produce the 6.8 release 
of X11, which includes contributions from many different groups, with 
different interests and goals, but with a common interest in and focus on 
advancing the X technology.  I believe that as long as that common focus 
continues, this Foundation and their releases will be of great value to the 
broad community of X technology users." -- Steve Swales, Senior Manager, 
Platform Globalization Engineering; X.Org Sponsor Board Chairperson, Sun 
Microsystems, Inc.

"R6.8 rocks! Now Qt/X11 can natively support almost everything developers 
have come to expect from our Windows and Mac OS X versions", says Matthias 
Ettrich, Director of Software Development at Trolltech, a cross-platform 
GUI tool vendor, "Kudos to the X.org team."

Notes to editors: 

(1) Project Looking Glass: http://wwws.sun.com/software/looking_glass/
and https://lg3d.dev.java.net
(2) Croquet Project: http://www.opencroquet.org/
(3) Distributed Multihead X Project: http://dmx.sourceforge.net/
(4) The Mesa 3D Graphics Library: http://www.mesa3d.org
(5) Direct Rendering Infrastructure: http://dri.sourceforge.net/
(6) The Freetype Project: http://www.freetype.org
(7) The Xprint Project: http://xprint.mozdev.org/

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in
the US and other countries.  LINUX is a registered trademark of Linus
Torvalds.  Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mac OS is a
registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the
U.S. and other countries. All other company names are trademarks of
the registered owners.

---------------

For questions, please contact: Leon Shiman, for The XOrg Foundation, at:

Shiman Associates Inc
(00)1.617.277.0087
leon at shiman.com