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X.Org Foundation

Founded	22 January 2004; 20 years ago (2004-01-22)
Type	Non-profit
Product	X.Org Server
Method	Development
Parent organization	Software in the Public Interest
Website	x.org

The X.Org Foundation is a non-profit corporation chartered to research, develop, support, organize, administrate, standardize, promote, and defend a free and open accelerated graphics stack. This includes, but is not limited to, the following projects: DRM, Mesa 3D, Wayland, and the X Window System and its primary implementation, the X.Org Server.

Organization

The X.Org Foundation was founded on 22 January 2004.

The modern X.Org Foundation came into being when the body that oversaw X standards and published the official reference implementation joined forces with former XFree86 developers. The creation of the Foundation marked a radical change in the governance of X (see the history of the X Window System). Whereas the stewards of X since 1988 (including the previous X.Org, part of The Open Group) had been vendor organizations, the Foundation is led by software developers and using community development on the bazaar model, which relies on outside involvement. Membership is also open to individuals, with corporate membership being in the form of sponsorship.

In 2005 the X.Org Foundation applied for 501(c)(3) non-profit status. In 2012, with the help of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), the Foundation gained the status. In 2013, the Foundation lost the status because they did not fill a tax form (it had no income to declare and did not get any info from SFLC) and in the same year it regained the status, after clearing up the issue. In 2016, the X.Org Foundation joined Software in the Public Interest (SPI) who would manage the bureaucracy.

According to an October 2018 article published by Phoronix, freedesktop.org considered joining the X.Org Foundation.

In 2023, The X.Org Foundation decided to join Software Freedom Conservancy.

Fields of activity

The X.Org Foundation does not provide technical guidance, roadmaps or deadlines, releases or supervision of any kind.

The X.Org Foundation does provide communication tools (in relation with freedesktop.org), an annual physical meeting and money to help developing the free graphics stack.

• a physical annual meeting (X.Org Developer's Conference)
• Travel sponsorship:
• The X.Org Foundation participated as an organization of the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). This allows students to participate to X.Org-related projects over the summer .
• Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC): EVoC is a GSoC-like project, funded by the X.Org Foundation. It allows students to participate to X.Org-related projects during their vacation, at any time of the year.
• Communication: Google+ and Twitter Google+/YouTube: Store and/or link to talk videos, slides, blog articles or G+ posts related to projects under our umbrella (Martin Peres); Twitter: Mostly security issues, random updates (Alan Coopersmith).
• There is an X.Org developer guide written by Alan Coopersmith, Matt Dew and the X.Org team; edited by Bart Massey at https://www.x.org/guide/

The X.Org Foundation organizes the annual X.Org Developer's Conference (XDC) and sponsors students to work on X.Org as part of their X.Org Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC) initiative.

The X.Org Server and xlib are the reference implementation of the X protocol, and is commonly used on Linux and UNIX; it is the fundamental technology underlying both the modern GNOME and KDE desktops and older CDE desktop environment; applications written for any of these environments can be run simultaneously.

Along with reference implementation of X protocol, the X.org Foundation hosts development of several utilities and example applications, including xcalc on-screen calculator, xclock simple digital and analog clock, xedit text editor, xload periodically updated histogram of the average system load, xterm terminal emulator, and xeyes which shows, by default, a pair of eyes that follow the mouse cursor.

As of April 2013, the Board of Directors consisted of Alan Coopersmith, Alex Deucher, Martin Peres, Matt Dew, Matthias Hopf, Peter Hutterer (Secretary), Stuart Kreitman (Treasurer), and Keith Packard.

X.Org Developer's Conference

The physical meeting is the X.Org Developer's Conference (XDC/XDS), which is organized once a year, around September/October and alternates between North America and Europe and lasts for 3 days. The board of directors can cover the travel and accommodation expenses to the developers who couldn't attend an X.Org-related conference (XDC or FOSDEM?) otherwise.

Conference history

X.Org Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC)

X.Org Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC) is a Google Summer of Code (GSoC)-like project initiated in 2008 funded by the X.Org Foundation. It allows students to participate to X.Org-related projects during their vacation, at any time of the year.

An example of an accepted EVoC project from 2014 is to work on nouveau, the free and open-source graphics device driver for GeForce-branded GPUs. NVA3/5/8 are the engineering names of the Tesla-based GT215, GT216 and GT218.

See also

• Free and open-source graphics device driver
• List of free-software events

References

1. "Proposed Bylaws of the X.Org Foundation" (PDF). 22 March 2015.
2. "FOSDEM2014: State of the X.Org Foundation". 1 February 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
3. "X.Org Foundation releases X Window System X11R6.7". LWN.net. 7 April 2004. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
4. Coopersmith, Alan (28 May 2004). "The difference between Xorg and XFree86". Retrieved 17 September 2018.
5. "The X.Org Foundation and the 501(c)(3) status".
6. ^ Michael Larabel (23 May 2023). "X.Org Foundation To Become Part Of The SFC".
7. "State of the X.org foundation". archive.fosdem.org.
8. "FreeDesktop.org Might Formally Join Forces with the X.Org Foundation".
9. "The X.Org Endless Vacation of Code (EVoC)". 21 September 2008. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
10. "The X.Org Foundation Board of Directors". 19 April 2013. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
11. "The 2013 "State of X.Org" report". LWN.net. 22 February 2013. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
12. "[Nouveau] EVoC Proposal: REclock - Reverse-engineer and implement NVA3/5/8 Voltage- and Frequency Scaling in Nouveau". freedesktop.org. 12 June 2014.
13. "Engineering vs. marketing names". freedesktop.org.

External links

• X.Org Foundation website

v t e X Window System
Architecture	Core protocol X Window selection X Window authorization X11 color names X Input Method Wayland
Extensions	X Image Extension X keyboard extension RandR X Rendering Extension Shape extension Shared memory extension X Display Manager Control Protocol X video extension X-Video Motion Compensation AIGLX GLX Multi-Pointer X Display PostScript Composite Extension Xinerama
Components and notable implementations	Display servers X.Org Server Cygwin/X X-Win32 X386 XFree86 XDarwin Xming Xsgi Xsun Xgl Xephyr XQuartz XWayland Client libraries Xlib XCB X Toolkit Intrinsics Display managers Session managers GDM KDM SDDM XDM LightDM LXDM Entrance WDM Window managers (comparison) Compositing Compiz KWin Metacity Mutter Xfwm Enlightenment Stacking 4Dwm AfterStep amiwm Blackbox CTWM cwm Fluxbox FLWM FVWM IceWM Matchbox mwm olwm Openbox Qvwm Sawfish swm tvtwm twm vtwm WindowLab Window Maker wm2 Tiling awesome dwm i3 Ion ratpoison wmii xmonad StumpWM larswm
Standards	ICCCM EWMH XDS freedesktop.org
Applications	xcalc xclock xedit xload xterm xeyes Desktop environments (comparison)

• 501(c)(3) organizations
• Free software project foundations in the United States
• X Window System