Modular X.org and the Unichrome forks.

[Thomas Hellström]

>> For X.org
>>
>> For distributors,
>
>> As for the projects themselves,
>
> Now where abouts do the users come into this, how does a user who
> knows nothing other than there is a VIA chip in my board, decide who
> rules, and how stable that is v the other.. distributions still have
> to bless one over the other as they have to make a default, no matter
> what they do they aren't going to have a popup dialog explaining to
> the user the political minefield and why one is better than another..
>
> Dave.

>From experience, the average user just wants his board to work in the way
it was intended. To be frank, the average user couldn't care less about
how the code is written and unfortunately even in many cases whether it is
secure as long as it supports the features she wants.

Removing the via driver from CVS head will IMHO be a big mistake. Not only
will it create confusion among users and distro makers, but in the via
case also to some extent for maintainers of Xine, and Mythtv which depend
on the XvMC extension to make videos play on EPIA boards. (If the via
driver is removed from head, the via XvMC libs should be as well, since
they do not compile or work standalone). The XvMC support in via DRM could
be kept intact.

Moreover, distros choosing to include unichrome code from one of the
projects will include heavily untested code directly into the distros,
which is generally a bad idea.

The via code currently in Xorg doesn't really differ that much from the
point where the "fork" took place. It mainly adds Unichrome Pro Xv, tv-out
and modesetting. As long as anyone commiting code to it

* Works and produces patches against latest CVS
* Before commiting a patch that is intrusive or removes features knowingly
important to many users constructively discusses the commit on the Xorg
list or on a bugzilla bug.

I can't see why it should be necessary or even beneficial to remove the
driver from head. Who would really benefit from it and why?

/Thomas


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