Modular X.org and the Unichrome forks.

[Robin Gilks]

> On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 09:38:26AM +0100, Thomas Hellström wrote:
>> Adam Jackson wrote:
>>
>> >On Thursday 22 December 2005 13:10, Alan Cox wrote:
>> >
>> >I have no desire to turn a choice among two drivers into a choice among
>> >three.  If Xorg ships effectively the stable branch of one or the other
>> >project, then we're creating driver number 3.  We _had_ to do this for
>> 7.0
>> >because we had to have parity with 6.9.  Doing it again in the 7.1
>> >timeframe is mistake unless, and only unless, the driver we ship as
>> part
>> >of the 7.1 katamari is clearly superior to either of the other two in
>> >terms of user experience.
>> >
>> I think the situation needs to be clarified, and X.org needs to make a
>> decision on how to proceed.
>>
>> The openChrome project was not started by me, although I have been the
>> most active developer lately, but by the  people wanting continued
>> support for their Unichrome Pro chips and for XvMC. It is based on the
>> code currently in Xorg with some additions for backwards compatibility
>> and unstable development like EXA support and Xv DMA transfer.
>> Development is currently focusing on EXA HW composite acceleration and
>> XvMC mpeg4 acceleration.
>>
>> The reason for almost all developers leaving the unichrome.sf.net
>> project one by one had very little to do with technical disagreement.
>> For those few interested in gossip, I think the Unichrome mailing list
>> archives are still open. It had more to do with people having enough of
>> and wanting to be nowhere near statements like this:
>>
>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2005-December/011739.html
>>
>> I still think all developers involved agree technically on where the
>> driver needs to go. There is a disagreement on how to get there, since
>> there are people prioritizing usability and people prioritizing code
>> cleanups no matter what price is paid.
>>
>> Recapping what's been said previously in this thread everybody seems to
>> be favouring usability. This currently rules out replacing the existing
>> via driver with the unichrome driver since it, in addition to what's
>> been said earlier, also lacks support for Unichrome Pro modes, tv-out,
>> and Xv, the latter requiring quite some effort to fix. I think Alan Cox
>> clearly outlined what is going to happen if the via driver is removed
>> from head.
>>
>> The other option (if conflicting commits are feared) is to appoint a
>> maintainer for the driver who OKs or denies the commits. I think it has
>> been pretty clear from the list discussions that there are to be no
>> usability reversions unless _really_ motivated. I'd happily accept any
>> qualified maintainer who agrees to follow those recommendations. Even
>> Luc.
>>
>> Finally, to Luc, If lack of hardware is the reason for not extending
>> your cleanups to Unichrome Pro, the offer of a CN400 board is still
>> there. No VIA money involved.
>>
>> /Thomas
>>
> What you said last time was:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=7004149&forum_id=38615
>
> About the very last bit, you, and Ivor Hewitt and Andreas Robinson,
> should've thought about that before:
> - You all criticised me for being that verbose about very much needed
> hardware donations (which i became after a release had been postponed
> for several weeks due to no-one having the hardware to test a serious
> problem report). Donations btw, which i have only ever been willing to
> accept from commercial users (i have sinned: the only hardware i didn't
> pay for my self is the discarded CH7019B daughterboard from an Acer
> Aspire 135x).
> - You all so eagerly pounced on the resulting donations.
> - You all left shortly after.
>
> I'm sure that this sort of mudthrowing can continue for quite a long
> time. And i'm very sure that i can rebutt most of it in more lengthy and
> in the end pretty irrelevant ways.
>
> Now, what i am not sure about is why you are so eager to keep things in
> tree. Surely openchrome.org is the most popular project, surely it has
> all the features your users want. What are you afraid of?
>
> X is modular. I don't see us come to terms any time soon. This
> flamewar has gone on long enough. Maybe it's time to choose the option
> that is most acceptable to most people and go back to doing something
> useful.
>
> Luc Verhaegen.

My vote is to have the support for the hardware that my hard earned cash
went into - a CN400 based motherboard SPECIFICALLY purchased for TV out
and hardware acceleration for a quiet media system (like many others,
MythTV).

Since making this choice in May of this year, it came as a bit of a shock
to find is disappear after seeing several months of improved stability and
usability. As a programmer, I get paid to produce clean, stable and
maintainable code - as a user, all I want is for my stuff to work. In this
case I'm a user and with Unichrome Pro and OpenChrome, a happy one.

-- 
Robin Gilks