alan@jane.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Alan S. Mazer) (09/23/88)
Hola. For all you X types, can someone tell me the difference between X 11,
X 11.2, and X Prerelease? I understand that X 11.2 (following X 11.1 and
X 11.0?) is now available. But my Masscomp salesman tells me "X 11" is _not_
available in official form, only as a prerelease of questionable quality.
Is this true? Is MIT still holding onto X 11 officially while meanwhile
letting go various versions? Can someone sort this out? I'm confused!!!
-- Alan ..!{ames,cit-vax}!elroy!alan
alan@elroy.jpl.nasa.govjim@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Jim Fulton) (09/23/88)
> Hola. For all you X types, can someone tell me the difference between X 11, > X 11.2, and X Prerelease? I understand that X 11.2 (following X 11.1 and > X 11.0?) is now available. You need to make the distinction between things that are distributed by MIT and products that are released from companies. The X Window System, Version 11 (sometimes called X11) was first released from MIT in September of last year. Release 2 (R2 for short) came out in March of this year. I assume that "prerelease" refers to the beta test for R3, for which public release is currently scheduled for "Octoberish, this yearish". > But my Masscomp salesman tells me "X 11" is _not_ available in official > form, only as a prerelease of questionable quality. We encourage vendors take as much of our code as they like and incorporate it into their product-level implementations of X. This frequently involves tuning code for performance on particular platforms, building added-value environments to make using and programming easier, writing a lot of additional documentation, and putting the whole thing through rigorous quality assurance testing. The code that MIT ships is pretty good (it's what we use, so we have a vested interest in making it work :-), but it's never been accused of being fully commercial grade. Some of it is, but for the most part it's geared towards portability instead of performance. And, to be fair, MIT's distributions are intended to be a public service rather than a money-making venture. I'll be charitable and assume that your salesman simply meant that Masscomp isn't shipping an X11 product yet. > Is this true? Is MIT still holding onto X 11 officially while meanwhile > letting go various versions? There are many thousands of people all over the world who are using X11. MIT's Software Distribution Center ships several hundred release tapes per month, and many more people get it over various networks. A number of vendors are already shipping products based on X and I expect to see a great many more announced in the next few months. Jim Fulton MIT X Consortium
black@masscomp.UUCP (Sam Black) (09/28/88)
> >> But my Masscomp salesman tells me "X 11" is _not_ available in official >> form, only as a prerelease of questionable quality. > > ... > > I'll be charitable and assume that your salesman simply meant that Masscomp > isn't shipping an X11 product yet. > I'm not sure when you talked to your salesman, but we've been shipping a version of X11 based on MIT R1 since July. Our product based on MIT R2 will be out VERY shortly (it's on the manufacturing floor already). - sam -------------------------------------- I'm pink, therefore I'm Spam. ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!black UUCP black@masscomp.com Internet --------------------------------------