X Window system on Handheld devices

[David Jackson]

Has the X.org organisation ever thought of promoting X.org for use by
companies on thier handheld devices such as phones? X has really missed the
boat on this one. Years ago, in their infinite wisdom, X.org developers
removed monochrome support and low colour support, things that would have
been perfect for many handheld devices such as kindles.

There is really no good reason why X cannot be used on handheld devices and
it woule encourage more use of a standardized platform like X rather than
yet more proprietary systems.

Another issue with possible use of X by other companies is the need to
provide a device driver facility that supports backwards compatability, that
a device driver will continue to work on newer X servers, without being
recompiled. That would go for all drivers for all parts of an OS. One thing
corporations do not want to do is have to distribute 40 different versions
of a device driver and end up with a huge mess where device drivers packaged
with older devices no longer work.

In relation to Linux and X, the only way to get these systems to be useable
for most people is to have hardware companies provide drivers for it, since
they can do all of the testing to make sure the driver works well with the
hardware. This is the only way to get timely hardware support. Average
people dont want to use Linux because of how shoddy the hardware support is.
If its anything slightly unusual, it wont work. Some corporations may want
to distribute binary drivers, thats just a necessary evil to help get an
open source OS more widely used, and as well, eventually open source
replacements would still get developed anyway. In fact binary drivers from
companies would make Linux more useable to more people, so we would see in
increase in user use of Linux, and more opportunities for open source
companies to be able to fund open source driver development.

Ive been watching Linux for over 10 years and I have seen virtually no
progress on the desktop. The big reason it still is not useable is the
hardware problems. And the attitude of the Linux community as a whole is the
cause of that, the reason why so few people use Linux today, I have to
recommend people who want to use Linux to not use it and stay with Windows,
because I know what a hassle it is, it really is still hard thing to use
because it does not work right with so much hardware out there. And thats
due to the attitude of Linux developers who have a knee jerk reaction
against 3rd party drivers, when 3rd party drivers could make Linux useable
to far more people and actually increase potential to fund Linux
development. Both Linux kernel itself and X.org, if they were really serious
about making Linux practical to common users, would make it easier for third
party drivers to be developed, including better documentation of the APIs so
a company does not need to spend a year trying to understand it.
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