OWT: Support for changing resolutions on the fly was just added to XFree86 CVS a couple of days ago :-). The basic design of X is a very strong one, and most of the current limitations can be addressed in an incremental benefits. Could you do better by starting from scratch? Given sufficient resources, time and experienced people, yes. Could you do enough better to be worth breaking all the existing code and throwing away all the accumulated programmer experience? No.
HP: Changing real resolutions on the fly is already working in XFree86 CVS, and was not rocket science to add. Smooth window moving should not be that hard either. It's just a matter of a smart person getting around to doing it.
If we went back and started over, then we'd need 1000 smart people to get around to doing a whole lot of things we already have with X. While right now we just need one or two smart people to fix a few relatively small problems. Do you want the 2-smart-person deficit or the 1000-smart-person deficit? Seems like a no-brainer decision to me.
10. A lot has been said recently regarding the KDE/Red Hat issue that was raised. Do you feel that there is such an issue, or that is simply a misunderstanding?
OWT: A lot of it was misunderstanding, but there are certainly real issues as well. Red Hat is interested in a desktop that is well integrated into the OS. The KDE project is interested in a desktop that is well integrated with itself. These goals don't always completely coincide.
HP: Like most situations, it's complicated. I think there were some real issues and some misunderstandings. Owen's writeup here is a good summary of how I feel about the matter.
11. If it was one thing that you would like to change/add/remove from the Gnome 2 DE, what that would be?
OWT: Better printing support
HP: Nice multimedia applications and infrastructure. With the infrastructure part at least shared between GNOME and KDE.
12. Any plans to implement any of these suggestions here and here?
HP: Most sound nice. They are on a level of detail that really needs to happen on the upstream level (as part of the GNOME project); we would not add that many patches in Red Hat specific changes, except for the items that can be implemented by changing the theme.
Frankly I think we'll be all set as a desktop OS once those small pixel tweaks are our biggest problem. ;-)
13. Why the nvidia 3D drivers are not included by default in the new Red Hat 8, which is a distribution release that is pitched against the desktop as well?
OWT: Well, aside from free software issues, Red Hat, in general, has a lot of trouble supporting binary-only kernel modules. Having code in the kernel that we haven't seen and have no control over invalidates all the testing we do.
HP: We don't include proprietary software with Red Hat Linux 8.0 in general, but in this specific case even more so because the drivers have (at least historically) had flaws that result in lots of bug reports and support headaches. If we ship the drivers, no matter what disclaimer you put on them, people will blame us for those bugs; and without the source code, we can't fix the bugs.
We also like to support and encourage the open source drivers for nvidia cards.
Remember that the primary target desktop users for Red Hat Linux 8.0 are users with a system administrator that will set things up, and can install the nvidia drivers on users' behalf, or purchase hardware that's better supported.
- "Interview with HP and OWT - Part I"
- "Interview with HP and OWT - Part II"
- "Interview with HP and OWT - Part III"
