XFree86

1990

The last XFree86 CVS commit was made on May 18, 2009; the project was confirmed dormant in December 2011. For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, the project was the source of most innovation in X and was the de facto steward of X development.

Roell has continued to sell proprietary X servers, most recently under the name Accelerated-X. === Rise with Linux === As Linux grew in popularity, XFree86 rose with it, as the main X project with drivers for PC video cards. By the late 1990s, official X development was moribund.

1999

In 1999, XFree86 was sponsored onto X.Org (the official industry consortium) by various hardware companies interested in its use with Linux and its status as the most popular version of X. === 2002: growing dissent within the project === By 2002, while Linux's popularity, and hence the installed base of X, surged, X.Org was all but inactive; active development was largely carried out by XFree86.

2000

The last XFree86 CVS commit was made on May 18, 2009; the project was confirmed dormant in December 2011. For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, the project was the source of most innovation in X and was the de facto steward of X development.

2001

Hammel, Linux Magazine, December 2001) Some perspective from the cheap seats ...

2002

In 1999, XFree86 was sponsored onto X.Org (the official industry consortium) by various hardware companies interested in its use with Linux and its status as the most popular version of X. === 2002: growing dissent within the project === By 2002, while Linux's popularity, and hence the installed base of X, surged, X.Org was all but inactive; active development was largely carried out by XFree86.

2003

The Core Team decided to remove Keith's commit access, but without removing him from the Core Team itself, and the XFIXES extension was backed out six weeks later. === 2003: The fork and the disbanding of the Core Team === In March 2003, the Core Team claimed that Packard had been trying to fork the XFree86 project by working inside the project while trying to attract core developers to a new X Server project of his own making.

Xwin saw a lot of activity in the first two months after the announcements, but most of the activity was happening behind the scenes, and Keith moved his own development to freedesktop.org. === Xouvert === Xouvert was later also hailed as the first XFree86 fork in August 2003.

Even though releases were announced for October 2003 and April 2004, no releases were made.

(David Wexelblat, March 20, 2003) — on why Keith Packard was sacked from the core team A Call For Open Governance Of X Development (Keith Packard, March 21, 2003) XFree86 dust-up questions X11 model (Andrew Orlowski, The Register, March 21, 2003) == External links == Project home page Free windowing systems X servers

2004

Until early 2004, it was almost universal on Linux and the BSDs. In February 2004, with version 4.4.0, The XFree86 Project began distributing new code with a copyright license that the Free Software Foundation considered GPL incompatible.

In February 2004, XFree86 4.4 was released with a change to the XFree86 license, by adding a credit clause, similar to that in the original BSD license, but broader in scope.

Even though releases were announced for October 2003 and April 2004, no releases were made.

The last status change was made in March 2004 and it was communicated that there were delays in setting up a revision control system. === X.Org === The X.Org Server became the official reference implementation of X11.

2008

The last released version was 4.8.0, released December 2008.

2009

The last XFree86 CVS commit was made on May 18, 2009; the project was confirmed dormant in December 2011. For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, the project was the source of most innovation in X and was the de facto steward of X development.

Most operating systems incorporating XFree86 (including later versions of OpenBSD and Debian) migrated to the X.Org Server. The last code commit was in 2009; the project was confirmed dormant in 2011. == Forks of XFree86 == === Xwin === Shortly after he was expelled from the XFree86 Core Team, Keith Packard started setting up xwin.org.

2011

The last XFree86 CVS commit was made on May 18, 2009; the project was confirmed dormant in December 2011. For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, the project was the source of most innovation in X and was the de facto steward of X development.

Most operating systems incorporating XFree86 (including later versions of OpenBSD and Debian) migrated to the X.Org Server. The last code commit was in 2009; the project was confirmed dormant in 2011. == Forks of XFree86 == === Xwin === Shortly after he was expelled from the XFree86 Core Team, Keith Packard started setting up xwin.org.

2015

The last remaining operating system distribution to use it was NetBSD, which shipped some platforms with 4.5.0 by default until removing it as obsolete in 2015.




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