RE: Announcing the second official X Window System release by the XOrg Foundation, at http://www.X.Org .
If you have questions, you may contact:
Leon Shiman, for The XOrg Foundation, at:
Shiman Associates Inc (00)1.617.277.0087 leon@shiman.com
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:
o Translucent windows o Window animation, window decorations like shadows o Support for accessibility applications o Support for 3D immersive user environments like Looking Glass(1) and Croquet(2) o 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/
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