X Window System

The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a

windowing system for bitmap displays, common on X Window System
Unix-like operating systems.

X provides the basic framework for a GUI

environment: drawing and moving windows on the
display device and interacting with a mouse and
keyboard. X does not mandate the user interface – this
is handled by individual programs. As such, the visual
styling of X-based environments varies greatly;
different programs may present radically different
interfaces.

X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984.[3] The X
protocol has been at version 11 (hence "X11") since
September 1987. The X.Org Foundation leads the X
project, with the current reference implementation,
X.Org Server, available as free and open-source twm - the default X11 window manager
software under the MIT License and similar permissive Original author(s) Project Athena
licenses. Developer(s) X.Org Foundation
Initial release June 1984
Stable release X11R7.7[1][2] 
/ 6 June
Contents 2012
Purpose and abilities Operating system Unix, Unix-like, MVS
Software architecture OpenVMS, DOS
Remote desktop Platform Cross-platform
User interfaces Predecessor W Window System
Implementations Type Windowing system
X terminals
License MIT License
Limitations and criticism Website x.org (https://x.org) 
User interface issues
Computer accessibility related issues
Network
Client–server separation
Competitors
History
Predecessors
Origin and early development
The MIT X Consortium and the X
Consortium, Inc.
 The Open Group
X.Org and XFree86
The X.Org Foundation
Nomenclature
Key terms
Release history
See also
Notes
References
External links

Purpose and abilities

X is an architecture-independent system for remote graphical user interfaces and input device capabilities.
Each person using a networked terminal has the ability to interact with the display with any type of user
input device.

In its standard distribution it is a complete, albeit simple, display and interface solution which delivers a
standard toolkit and protocol stack for building graphical user interfaces on most Unix-like operating
systems and OpenVMS, and has been ported to many other contemporary general purpose operating
systems.

X provides the basic framework, or primitives, for building such GUI environments: drawing and moving
windows on the display and interacting with a mouse, keyboard or touchscreen. X does not mandate the
user interface; individual client programs handle this. Programs may use X's graphical abilities with no user
interface. As such, the visual styling of X-based environments varies greatly; different programs may
present radically different interfaces.

Unlike most earlier display protocols, X was specifically designed to be used over network connections
rather than on an integral or attached display device. X features network transparency, which means an X
program running on a computer somewhere on a network (such as the Internet) can display its user
interface on an X server running on some other computer on the network. The X server is typically the
provider of graphics resources and keyboard/mouse events to X clients, meaning that the X server is
usually running on the computer in front of a human user, while the X client applications run anywhere on
the network and communicate with the user's computer to request the rendering of graphics content and
receive events from input devices including keyboards and mice.

The fact that the term "server" is applied to the software in front of the user is often surprising to users
accustomed to their programs being clients to services on remote computers. Here, rather than a remote
database being the resource for a local app, the user's graphic display and input devices become resources
made available by the local X server to both local and remotely hosted X client programs who need to
share the user's graphics and input devices to communicate with the user.

X's network protocol is based on X command primitives. This approach allows both 2D and (through
extensions like GLX) 3D operations by an X client application which might be running on a different
computer to still be fully accelerated on the X server's display. For example, in classic OpenGL (before
version 3.0), display lists containing large numbers of objects could be constructed and stored entirely in the
X server by a remote X client program, and each then rendered by sending a single glCallList(which)
across the network.
X provides no native support for audio; several projects exist to fill this niche, some also providing
transparent network support.

Software architecture
X uses a client–server model: an X server communicates with
various client programs. The server accepts requests for graphical
output (windows) and sends back user input (from keyboard,
mouse, or touchscreen). The server may function as:

an application displaying to a window of another display

system
a system program controlling the video output of a PC
a dedicated piece of hardware

This client–server terminology – the user's terminal being the server

and the applications being the clients – often confuses new X users,
because the terms appear reversed. But X takes the perspective of
the application, rather than that of the end-user: X provides display
and I/O services to applications, so it is a server; applications use
these services, thus they are clients.

The communication protocol between server and client operates

network-transparently: the client and server may run on the same
machine or on different ones, possibly with different architectures
Simple example: the X server
and operating systems. A client and server can even communicate
receives input from a local keyboard
securely over the Internet by tunneling the connection over an
and mouse and displays to a screen.
encrypted network session.
A web browser and a terminal
emulator run on the user's
An X client itself may emulate an X server by providing display
workstation and a terminal emulator
services to other clients. This is known as "X nesting". Open-
runs on a remote computer but is
source clients such as Xnest and Xephyr support such X nesting.
controlled and monitored from the
user's machine
Remote desktop

To run an X client application on a remote machine, the user may do the following:

on the local machine, open a terminal window

use ssh -X command to connect to the remote machine
request a local display/input service (e.g., export DISPLAY=[user's machine]:0 if
not using SSH with X forwarding enabled)

The remote X client application will then make a connection to the user's local X server, providing display
and input to the user.

Alternatively, the local machine may run a small program that connects to the remote machine and starts the
client application.

Practical examples of remote clients include:

 administering a remote machine graphically (similar to using remote desktop, but with single
windows)
using a client application to join with large numbers of other terminal users in collaborative
workgroups
running a computationally intensive simulation on a remote machine and displaying the
results on a local desktop machine
running graphical software on several machines at once, controlled by a single display,
keyboard and mouse

User interfaces

GNOME graphical user interface

X primarily defines protocol and graphics primitives  – it

deliberately contains no specification for application user-interface
design, such as button, menu, or window title-bar styles. Instead,
application software  – such as window managers, GUI widget
toolkits and desktop environments, or application-specific graphical
user interfaces – define and provide such details. As a result, there
Xfce graphical user interface is no typical X interface and several different desktop environments
have become popular among users.

A window manager controls the placement and appearance of application windows. This may result in
desktop interfaces reminiscent of those of Microsoft Windows or of the Apple Macintosh (examples include
GNOME 2, KDE, Xfce) or have radically different controls (such as a tiling window manager, like wmii or
Ratpoison). Some interfaces such as Sugar or Chrome OS eschew the desktop metaphor altogether,
simplifying their interfaces for specialized applications. Window managers range in sophistication and
complexity from the bare-bones (e.g., twm, the basic window manager supplied with X, or evilwm, an
extremely light window-manager) to the more comprehensive desktop environments such as Enlightenment
and even to application-specific window-managers for vertical markets such as point-of-sale.

Many users use X with a desktop environment, which, aside from the window manager, includes various
applications using a consistent user-interface. Popular desktop environments include GNOME, KDE
Plasma and Xfce. The UNIX 98 standard environment is the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). The
freedesktop.org initiative addresses interoperability between desktops and the components needed for a
competitive X desktop.

Implementations
The X.Org implementation is the canonical implementation of X. Owing to liberal licensing, a number of
variations, both free and open source and proprietary, have appeared. Commercial Unix vendors have
tended to take the reference implementation and adapt it for their hardware, usually customizing it and
adding proprietary extensions.
Up until 2004, XFree86 provided the most common X variant on free Unix-like systems. XFree86 started
as a port of X to 386-compatible PCs and, by the end of the 1990s, had become the greatest source of
technical innovation in X and the de facto standard of X development. Since 2004, however, the X.Org
Server, a fork of XFree86, has become predominant.

While it is common to associate X with Unix, X servers also exist natively within other graphical
environments. VMS Software Inc.'s OpenVMS operating system includes a version of X with Common
Desktop Environment (CDE), known as DECwindows, as its standard desktop environment. Apple
originally ported X to macOS in the form of X11.app, but that has been deprecated in favor of the XQuartz
implementation. Third-party servers under Apple's older operating systems in the 1990s, System 7, and
Mac OS 8 and 9, included Apple's MacX and White Pine Software's eXodus.

Microsoft Windows is not shipped with support for X, but many third-party implementations exist, as free
and open source software such as Cygwin/X, and proprietary products such as Exceed, MKS X/Server,
Reflection X, X-Win32 and Xming.

There are also Java implementations of X servers. WeirdX runs on any platform supporting Swing 1.1, and
will run as an applet within most browsers. The Android X Server is an open source Java implementation
that runs on Android devices.

When an operating system with a native windowing system hosts X in addition, the X system can either
use its own normal desktop in a separate host window or it can run rootless, meaning the X desktop is
hidden and the host windowing environment manages the geometry and appearance of the hosted X
windows within the host screen.

X terminals

An X terminal is a thin client that only runs an X server. This architecture became popular for building
inexpensive terminal parks for many users to simultaneously use the same large computer server to execute
application programs as clients of each user's X terminal. This use is very much aligned with the original
intention of the MIT project.

X terminals explore the network (the local broadcast domain) using the X Display Manager Control
Protocol to generate a list of available hosts that are allowed as clients. One of the client hosts should run an
X display manager.

A limitation of X terminals and most thin clients is that they are not capable of any input or output other
than the keyboard, mouse, and display. All relevant data is assumed to exist solely on the remote server, and
the X terminal user has no methods available to save or load data from a local peripheral device.

Dedicated (hardware) X terminals have fallen out of use; a PC or modern thin client with an X server
typically provides the same functionality at the same, or lower, cost.

Limitations and criticism

The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) devoted a full chapter to the problems of X.[4] Why X Is Not Our Ideal
Window System (1990) by Gajewska, Manasse and McCormack detailed problems in the protocol with
recommendations for improvement.

User interface issues

The lack of design guidelines in X has resulted in several vastly different interfaces, and in applications that
have not always worked well together. The Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM), a
specification for client interoperability, has a reputation for being difficult to implement correctly. Further
standards efforts such as Motif and CDE did not alleviate problems. This has frustrated users and
programmers.[5] Graphics programmers now generally address consistency of application look and feel and
communication by coding to a specific desktop environment or to a specific widget toolkit, which also
avoids having to deal directly with the ICCCM.

X also lacks native support for user-defined stored procedures on the X server, in the manner of NeWS –
there is no Turing-complete scripting facility. Various desktop environments may thus offer their own
(usually mutually incompatible) facilities.

Computer accessibility related issues

Systems built upon X may have accessibility issues that make utilization of a computer difficult for disabled
users, including right click, double click, middle click, mouse-over, and focus stealing. Some X11 clients
deal with accessibility issues better than others, so persons with accessibility problems are not locked out of
using X11. However, there is no accessibility standard or accessibility guidelines for X11. Within the X11
standards process there is no working group on accessibility, however, accessibility needs are being
addressed by software projects to provide these features on top of X.

The Orca project adds accessibility support to the X Window System, including implementing an API (AT-
SPI[6]). This is coupled with GNOME's ATK to allow for accessibility features to be implemented in X
programs using the GNOME/GTK APIs.[7] KDE provides a different set of accessibility software,
including a text-to-speech converter and a screen magnifier.[8] The other major desktops (LXDE, Xfce and
Enlightenment) attempt to be compatible with ATK.

Network

An X client cannot generally be detached from one server and

reattached to another unless its code specifically provides for it
(Emacs is one of the few common programs with this ability).
As such, moving an entire session from one X server to
another is generally not possible. However, approaches like
Virtual Network Computing (VNC), NX and Xpra allow a
virtual session to be reached from different X servers (in a
manner similar to GNU Screen in relation to terminals), and
other applications and toolkits provide related facilities.[9] Example of tunnelling an X11 application
Workarounds like x11vnc (VNC :0 viewers), Xpra's shadow over SSH
mode and NX's nxagent shadow mode also exist to make the
current X-server screen available. This ability allows the user
interface (mouse, keyboard, monitor) of a running application to be switched from one location to another
without stopping and restarting the application.

Network traffic between an X server and remote X clients is not encrypted by default. An attacker with a
packet sniffer can intercept it, making it possible to view anything displayed to or sent from the user's
screen. The most common way to encrypt X traffic is to establish a Secure Shell (SSH) tunnel for
communication.
Like all thin clients, when using X across a network, bandwidth limitations can impede the use of bitmap-
intensive applications that require rapidly updating large portions of the screen with low latency, such as 3D
animation or photo editing. Even a relatively small uncompressed 640x480x24  bit 30  fps video stream
(~211  Mbit/s) can easily outstrip the bandwidth of a 100  Mbit/s network for a single client. In contrast,
modern versions of X generally have extensions such as MESA allowing local display of a local program's
graphics to be optimized to bypass the network model and directly control the video card, for use of full-
screen video, rendered 3D applications, and other such applications.

Client–server separation

X's design requires the clients and server to operate separately, and device independence and the separation
of client and server incur overhead. Most of the overhead comes from network round-trip delay time
between client and server (latency) rather than from the protocol itself: the best solutions to performance
issues depend on efficient application design.[10] A common criticism of X is that its network features result
in excessive complexity and decreased performance if only used locally.

Modern X implementations use Unix domain sockets for efficient connections on the same host.
Additionally shared memory (via the MIT-SHM extension) can be employed for faster client–server
communication.[11] However, the programmer must still explicitly activate and use the shared memory
extension. It is also necessary to provide fallback paths in order to stay compatible with older
implementations, and in order to communicate with non-local X servers.

Competitors
Some people have attempted writing alternatives to and replacements for X. Historical alternatives include
Sun's NeWS and NeXT's Display PostScript, both PostScript-based systems supporting user-definable
display-side procedures, which X lacked. Current alternatives include:

macOS (and its mobile counterpart, iOS) implements its windowing system, which is known
as Quartz. When Apple Inc. bought NeXT, and used NeXTSTEP to construct Mac OS X, it
replaced Display PostScript with Quartz. Mike Paquette, one of the authors of Quartz,
explained that if Apple had added support for all the features it wanted to include into X11, it
would not bear much resemblance to X11 nor be compatible with other servers anyway.[12]
Android, which runs on the Linux kernel, uses its own system for drawing the user interface
known as SurfaceFlinger. 3D rendering is handled by EGL.
Wayland is being developed by several X.Org developers as a prospective replacement for
X. It works directly with the GPU hardware, via DRI. Wayland can run an X server as a
Wayland compositor, which can be rootless.[13] A proprietary port of the Wayland backend to
the Raspberry Pi was completed in 2013.[14] The project reached version 1.0 in 2012. Like
Android, Wayland is EGL-based.
Mir was a project from Canonical Ltd. with goals similar to Wayland.[15] Mir was intended to
work with mobile devices using ARM chipsets (a stated goal was compatibility with Android
device-drivers) as well as x86 desktops. Like Android, Mir/UnityNext were EGL-based.
Backwards compatibility with X client-applications was accomplished via Xmir. The project
has since moved to being a Wayland compositor instead of being an alternative display
server.[16]
Other alternatives attempt to avoid the overhead of X by working directly with the hardware;
such projects include DirectFB.[17] (The Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI), which aims to
provide a reliable kernel-level interface to the framebuffer, might make these efforts
redundant.)
Additional ways to achieve a functional form of the "network transparency" feature of X, via network
transmissibility of graphical services, include:

Virtual Network Computing (VNC), a very low-level system which sends compressed
bitmaps across the network; the Unix implementation includes an X server
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), which is similar to VNC in purpose, but originated on
Microsoft Windows before being ported to Unix-like systems; cf NX, GotoMyPc, etc.
Citrix XenApp, an X-like protocol and application stack for Microsoft Windows
Tarantella, which provides a Java-based remote-gui-client for use in web browsers

History

Predecessors

Several bitmap display systems preceded X. From Xerox came the Alto (1973) and the Star (1981). From
Apollo Computer came Display Manager (1981). From Apple came the Lisa (1983) and the Macintosh
(1984). The Unix world had the Andrew Project (1982) and Rob Pike's Blit terminal (1982).

Carnegie Mellon University produced a remote-access application called Alto Terminal, that displayed
overlapping windows on the Xerox Alto, and made remote hosts (typically DEC VAX systems running
Unix) responsible for handling window-exposure events and refreshing window contents as necessary.

X derives its name as a successor to a pre-1983 window system called W (the letter preceding X in the
English alphabet). W ran under the V operating system. W used a network protocol supporting terminal
and graphics windows, the server maintaining display lists.

Origin and early development

From: rws@mit-bold (Robert W. Scheifler)

To: window@athena

Subject: window system X

Date: 19 June 1984 0907-EDT (Tuesday)

I've spent the last couple weeks writing a window

system for the VS100. I stole a fair amount of code

from W, surrounded it with an asynchronous rather

than a synchronous interface, and called it X. Overall

performance appears to be about twice that of W. The

code seems fairly solid at this point, although there are

still some deficiencies to be fixed up.

We at LCS have stopped using W, and are now

actively building applications on X. Anyone else using

W should seriously consider switching. This is not the

ultimate window system, but I believe it is a good

starting point for experimentation. Right at the moment

there is a CLU (and an Argus) interface to X; a C

interface is in the works. The three existing

applications are a text editor (TED), an Argus I/O

interface, and a primitive window manager. There is

no documentation yet; anyone crazy enough to

volunteer? I may get around to it eventually.

Anyone interested in seeing a demo can drop by

NE43-531, although you may want to call 3-1945

first. Anyone who wants the code can come by with a

tape. Anyone interested in hacking deficiencies, feel

free to get in touch.

 The email in which X was introduced to the Project Athena community at MIT in June 1984[18]

The original idea of X emerged at MIT in 1984 as a collaboration

between Jim Gettys (of Project Athena) and Bob Scheifler (of the
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science). Scheifler needed a usable
display environment for debugging the Argus system. Project
Athena (a joint project between DEC, MIT and IBM to provide
easy access to computing resources for all students) needed a
platform-independent graphics system to link together its
heterogeneous multiple-vendor systems; the window system then
under development in Carnegie Mellon University's Andrew
X11R1 running on a Sun machine Project did not make licenses available, and no alternatives existed.

The project solved this by creating a protocol that could both run
local applications and call on remote resources. In mid-1983 an initial port of W to Unix ran at one-fifth of
its speed under V; in May 1984, Scheifler replaced the synchronous protocol of W with an asynchronous
protocol and the display lists with immediate mode graphics to make X version 1. X became the first
windowing system environment to offer true hardware independence and vendor independence.

Scheifler, Gettys and Ron Newman set to work and X progressed rapidly. They released Version 6 in
January 1985. DEC, then preparing to release its first Ultrix workstation, judged X the only windowing
system likely to become available in time. DEC engineers ported X6 to DEC's QVSS display on
MicroVAX.

In the second quarter of 1985, X acquired color support to function in the DEC VAXstation-II/GPX,
forming what became version 9.

A group at Brown University ported version 9 to the IBM RT PC, but problems with reading unaligned
data on the RT forced an incompatible protocol change, leading to version 10 in late 1985. By 1986,
outside organizations had begun asking for X. X10R2 was released in January 1986, then X10R3 in
February 1986. Although MIT had licensed X6 to some outside groups for a fee, it decided at this time to
license X10R3 and future versions under what became known as the MIT License, intending to popularize
X further and, in return, hoping that many more applications would become available. X10R3 became the
first version to achieve wide deployment, with both DEC and Hewlett-Packard releasing products based on
it. Other groups ported X10 to Apollo and to Sun workstations and even to the IBM PC/AT.
Demonstrations of the first commercial application for X (a mechanical computer-aided engineering system
from Cognition Inc. that ran on VAXes and remotely displayed on PCs running an X server ported by Jim
Fulton and Jan Hardenbergh) took place at the Autofact trade show at that time. The last version of X10,
X10R4, appeared in December 1986. Attempts were made to enable X servers as real-time collaboration
devices, much as Virtual Network Computing (VNC) would later allow a desktop to be shared. One such
early effort was Philip J. Gust's SharedX tool.

Although X10 offered interesting and powerful functionality, it had become obvious that the X protocol
could use a more hardware-neutral redesign before it became too widely deployed, but MIT alone would
not have the resources available for such a complete redesign. As it happened, DEC's Western Software
Laboratory found itself between projects with an experienced team. Smokey Wallace of DEC WSL and
Jim Gettys proposed that DEC WSL build X11 and make it freely available under the same terms as X9
and X10. This process started in May 1986, with the protocol finalized in August. Alpha testing of the
software started in February 1987, beta-testing in May; the release of X11 finally occurred on 15 September
1987.
The X11 protocol design, led by Scheifler, was extensively discussed on open mailing lists on the nascent
Internet that were bridged to USENET newsgroups. Gettys moved to California to help lead the X11
development work at WSL from DEC's Systems Research Center, where Phil Karlton and Susan
Angebrandt led the X11 sample server design and implementation. X therefore represents one of the first
very large-scale distributed free and open source software projects.

The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium, Inc.

By the late 1980s X was, Simson Garfinkel wrote in 1989, "Athena's most important single achievement to
date". DEC reportedly believed that its development alone had made the company's donation to MIT
worthwhile. Gettys joined the design team for the VAXstation 2000 to ensure that X—which DEC called
DECwindows—would run on it, and the company assigned 1,200 employees to port X to both Ultrix and
VMS.[19][20] In 1987, with the success of X11 becoming apparent, MIT wished to relinquish the
stewardship of X, but at a June 1987 meeting with nine vendors, the vendors told MIT that they believed in
the need for a neutral party to keep X from fragmenting in the marketplace. In January 1988, the MIT X
Consortium formed as a non-profit vendor group, with Scheifler as director, to direct the future
development of X in a neutral atmosphere inclusive of commercial and educational interests.

Jim Fulton joined in January 1988 and Keith Packard in March 1988 as senior developers, with Jim
focusing on Xlib, fonts, window managers, and utilities; and Keith re-implementing the server. Donna
Converse, Chris D. Peterson, and Stephen Gildea joined later that year, focusing on toolkits and widget
sets, working closely with Ralph Swick of MIT Project Athena. The MIT X Consortium produced several
significant revisions to X11, the first (Release 2 – X11R2) in February 1988. Jay Hersh joined the staff in
January 1991 to work on the PEX and X113D functionality. He was followed soon after by Ralph Mor
(who also worked on PEX) and Dave Sternlicht. In 1993, as the MIT X Consortium prepared to depart
from MIT, the staff were joined by R. Gary Cutbill, Kaleb Keithley, and David Wiggins.[21]

In 1993, the X Consortium, Inc. (a non-profit corporation) formed

as the successor to the MIT X Consortium. It released X11R6 on
16 May 1994. In 1995 it took on the development of the Motif
toolkit and of the Common Desktop Environment for Unix
systems. The X Consortium dissolved at the end of 1996,
producing a final revision, X11R6.3, and a legacy of increasing
commercial influence in the development.[22][23]

The Open Group Common Desktop Environment

In January 1997, the X Consortium passed stewardship of X to The

Open Group, a vendor group formed in early 1996 by the merger of the Open Software Foundation and
X/Open.

The Open Group released X11R6.4 in early 1998. Controversially, X11R6.4 departed from the traditional
liberal licensing terms, as the Open Group sought to assure funding for the development of X, and
specifically cited XFree86 as not significantly contributing to X.[24] The new terms would have made X no
longer free software: zero-cost for noncommercial use, but a fee otherwise. After XFree86 seemed poised
to fork,[25] the Open Group relicensed X11R6.4 under the traditional license in September 1998.[26] The
Open Group's last release came as X11R6.4 patch 3.

X.Org and XFree86

XFree86 originated in 1992 from the X386 server for IBM PC compatibles included with X11R5 in 1991,
written by Thomas Roell and Mark W. Snitily and donated to the MIT X Consortium by Snitily Graphics
Consulting Services (SGCS). XFree86 evolved over time from just one port of X to the leading and most
popular implementation and the de facto standard of X's development.[27]

In May 1999, The Open Group formed X.Org. X.Org supervised the release of versions X11R6.5.1
onward. X development at this time had become moribund;[28] most technical innovation since the X
Consortium had dissolved had taken place in the XFree86 project.[29] In 1999, the XFree86 team joined
X.Org as an honorary (non-paying) member,[30] encouraged by various hardware companies[31] interested
in using XFree86 with Linux and in its status as the most popular version of X.

By 2003, while the popularity of Linux (and hence the installed base of X) surged, X.Org remained
inactive,[32] and active development took place largely within XFree86. However, considerable dissent
developed within XFree86. The XFree86 project suffered from a perception of a far too cathedral-like
development model; developers could not get CVS commit access[33][34] and vendors had to maintain
extensive patch sets.[35] In March 2003, the XFree86 organization expelled Keith Packard, who had joined
XFree86 after the end of the original MIT X Consortium, with considerable ill feeling.[36][37][38]

X.Org and XFree86 began discussing a reorganisation suited to properly nurturing the development of
X.[39][40][41] Jim Gettys had been pushing strongly for an open development model since at least 2000.[42]
Gettys, Packard and several others began discussing in detail the requirements for the effective governance
of X with open development.

Finally, in an echo of the X11R6.4 licensing dispute, XFree86 released version 4.4 in February 2004 under
a more restrictive license which many projects relying on X found unacceptable.[43] The added clause to
the license was based on the original BSD license's advertising clause, which was viewed by the Free
Software Foundation and Debian as incompatible with the GNU General Public License.[44] Other groups
saw it as against the spirit of the original X. Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD, for instance, threatened to fork
XFree86 citing license concerns.[45] The license issue, combined with the difficulties in getting changes in,
left many feeling the time was ripe for a fork.[46]

The X.Org Foundation

In early 2004, various people from X.Org and freedesktop.org formed the X.Org Foundation, and the
Open Group gave it control of the x.org domain name. This marked a radical change in the governance
of X. Whereas the stewards of X since 1988 (including the prior X.Org) had been vendor organizations,
the Foundation was led by software developers and used community development based on the bazaar
model, which relies on outside involvement. Membership was opened to individuals, with corporate
membership being in the form of sponsorship. Several major corporations such as Hewlett-Packard
currently support the X.Org Foundation.

The Foundation takes an oversight role over X development: technical decisions are made on their merits
by achieving rough consensus among community members. Technical decisions are not made by the board
of directors; in this sense, it is strongly modelled on the technically non-interventionist GNOME
Foundation. The Foundation employs no developers.
The Foundation released X11R6.7, the X.Org Server,
in April 2004, based on XFree86 4.4RC2 with X11R6.6 changes merged. Gettys and Packard had taken
the last version of XFree86 under the old license and, by making a point of an open development model
and retaining GPL compatibility, brought many of the old XFree86 developers on board.[44]
While X11 had received extensions such as OpenGL support during the 1990s, its architecture had
remained fundamentally unchanged during the decade. In the early part of the 2000s, however, it was
overhauled to resolve a number of problems that had surfaced over the years, including a "flawed" font
architecture, a 2-d graphics system "which had always been intended to be augmented and/or replaced",
and latency issues.[47]
X11R6.8 came out in September 2004. It added significant new features, including
preliminary support for translucent windows and other sophisticated visual effects, screen magnifiers and
thumbnailers, and facilities to integrate with 3D immersive display systems such as Sun's Project Looking
Glass and the Croquet project. External applications called compositing window managers provide policy
for the visual appearance.

On 21 December 2005,[48] X.Org released X11R6.9, the monolithic source tree for legacy users, and
X11R7.0, the same source code separated into independent modules, each maintainable in separate
projects.[49] The Foundation released X11R7.1 on 22 May 2006, about four months after 7.0, with
considerable feature improvements.[50]

XFree86 development continued for a few more years, 4.8.0 being released on 15 December 2008.[51]

Nomenclature
The proper names for the system are listed in the manual page as X; X Window System; X Version 11; X
Window System, Version 11; or X11.[52]

The term "X-Windows" (in the manner of the subsequently released "Microsoft Windows") is not officially
endorsed – with X Consortium release manager Matt Landau stating in 1993, "There is no such thing as 'X
Windows' or 'X Window', despite the repeated misuse of the forms by the trade rags"[53] – though it has
been in common informal use since early in the history of X[54] and has been used deliberately for
provocative effect, for example in the Unix-Haters Handbook.[4]

Key terms

The X Window System has nuanced usage of a number of terms when compared to common usage,
particularly "display" and "screen", a subset of which is given here for convenience:

device
A graphics device such as a computer graphics card or a computer motherboard's
integrated graphics chipset.
monitor
A physical device such as a CRT or a flat screen computer display.
screen
An area into which graphics may be rendered, either through software alone into system
memory as with VNC, or within a graphics device, some of which can render into more
than one screen simultaneously, either viewable simultaneously or interchangeably.
Interchangeable screens are often set up to be notionally left and right from one another,
flipping from one to the next as the mouse pointer reaches the edge of the monitor.
virtual screen
Two different meanings are associated with this term:

A technique allowing panning a monitor around a screen running at a larger

resolution than the monitor is currently displaying.
An effect simulated by a window manager by maintaining window position
information in a larger coordinate system than the screen and allowing panning
 by simply moving the windows in response to the user.

display
A collection of screens, often involving multiple monitors, generally configured to allow the
mouse to move the pointer to any position within them. Linux-based workstations are
usually capable of having multiple displays, among which the user can switch with a
special keyboard combination such as control-alt-function-key, simultaneously flipping all
the monitors from showing the screens of one display to the screens in another.

The term "display" should not be confused with the more specialized jargon "Zaphod display". The latter is
a rare configuration allowing multiple users of a single computer to each have an independent set of
display, mouse, and keyboard, as though they were using separate computers, but at a lower per-seat cost.

Release history
 Version Release date Most important changes
First use of the name "X"; fundamental changes distinguishing the product
X1 June 1984
from W.
X6 January 1985 First version licensed to a handful of outside companies.
X9 September 1985 Color. First release under MIT License.
X10 November 1985 IBM RT PC, AT (running DOS), and others.
X10R2 January 1986
First freely redistributable X release. Earlier releases required a BSD
X10R3 February 1986 source license to cover code changes to init/getty to support login. uwm
made standard window manager.
X10R4 December 1986 Last version of X10.
X11 15 September 1987 First release of the current protocol.

X11R2 February 1988 First X Consortium release.[55]

X11R3 25 October 1988 XDM.
XDMCP, twm (from the beginning known as Tom's window manager)
X11R4 22 December 1989 brought in as standard window manager, application improvements, shape
extension, new fonts.
X386 1.2, PEX, Xcms (color management), font server, X video
X11R5 5 September 1991
extension.
ICCCM v2.0; Inter-Client Exchange; X Session Management; X
X11R6 16 May 1994 Synchronization extension; X Image extension; XTEST extension; X
Input; X Big Requests; XC-MISC; XFree86 changes.
X11R6.1 14 March 1996 X Double Buffer extension; X keyboard extension; X Record extension.
Web functionality, LBX. Last X Consortium release. X11R6.2 is the tag for
X11R6.2 a subset of X11R6.3 (Broadway) with the only new features over R6.1
23 December 1996
X11R6.3 being XPrint and the Xlib implementation of vertical writing and user-
defined character support.[56]

X11R6.4 31 March 1998 Xinerama.[57]

X11R6.5 2000 Internal X.org release; not made publicly available.
X11R6.5.1 20 August 2000
X11R6.6 4 April 2001 Bug fixes, XFree86 changes.
First X.Org Foundation release, incorporating XFree86 4.4rc2. Full end-
X11R6.7.0 6 April 2004
user distribution. Removal of XIE, PEX and libxml2.[58]
Window translucency, XDamage, Distributed Multihead X, XFixes,
X11R6.8.0 8 September 2004
Composite, XEvIE (https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/XEvIE/).
X11R6.8.1 17 September 2004 Security fix in libxpm.
X11R6.8.2 10 February 2005 Bug fixes, driver updates.

X11R6.9 XServer 1.0.1, EXA, major source code refactoring.[59] From the same
21 December 2005 source-code base, the modular autotooled version became 7.0 and the
X11R7.0
monolithic imake version was frozen at 6.9.
XServer 1.1.0, EXA enhancements, KDrive integrated, AIGLX, OS and
X11R7.1 22 May 2006
platform support enhancements.[60]
XServer 1.2.0, Removal of LBX and the built-in keyboard driver, X-ACE,
X11R7.2 15 February 2007
XCB, autoconfig improvements, cleanups.[61]
X11R7.3 6 September 2007 XServer 1.4.0, Input hotplug, output hotplug (RandR 1.2), DTrace probes,
 PCI domain support.[62]
XServer 1.5.1, XACE, PCI-rework, EXA speed-ups, _X_EXPORT, GLX
X11R7.4 23 September 2008
1.4, faster startup and shutdown.[63]
XServer 1.7.1, Xi 2, XGE, E-EDID support, RandR 1.3, MPX, predictable
X11R7.5 26 October 2009[64] pointer acceleration, DRI2 memory manager, SELinux security module,
further removal of obsolete libraries and extensions.[65]

X11R7.6 20 December 2010[66] X Server 1.9.3, XCB requirement.[67][68]

X Server 1.12.2; Sync extension 3.1: adds Fence object support; Xi 2.2
X11R7.7 6 June 2012
multitouch support; XFixes 5.0: Pointer Barriers.[69][70]
Old version Latest version

On the prospect of future versions, the X.org website states:[71]

X.Org continues to develop and release the X Window System software components.

These are released individually as each component is ready, without waiting for a overall X
Window System "katamari" release schedule - see the individual X.Org releases directory for
downloads, and the xorg-announce archives or git repositories for details on included changes.

No release plan for a X11R7.8 rollup katamari release has been proposed.

See also
Bitstream Speedo Fonts
Cairo (graphics)
DESQview/X
DirectFB
General Graphics Interface
History of the graphical user interface
List of Unix commands
Microwindows (Nano-X)
rio – the windowing system for Plan 9
SVGALib
VirtualGL
X/GEM
X11 color names
Xgl
Xmark

Notes
1. http://www.x.org/wiki/Releases/7.7/.
2. https://www.x.org/releases/current/.
 3. Jennifer G. Steiner; Daniel E. Geer Jr. (21 July 1988). "Network Services in the Athena
Environment". Proceedings of the Winter 1988 Usenix Conference.
CiteSeerX 10.1.1.31.8727 (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.31.87
27).
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James Gettys, Philip L. Karlton, Scott A. orts/Compaq-DEC/CRL-90-8.pdf)" (PDF),
McGregor, "The X Window System, Software: Practice and Experience (10
Version 11 (http://www.hpl.hp.com/techrep December 1990)
 Hania Gajewska, Mark S. Manasse and On the Thesis that X is
Joel McCormack, "Why X Is Not Our Ideal Big/Bloated/Obsolete and Should Be
Window System (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.e Replaced (https://linuxfinances.info/info/xbl
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6E7FEBD2FBC5A0C935008A0DC2?doi= Open Source Desktop Technology Road
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(PDF), Software – Practice & Experience 3140042/http://people.freedesktop.org/~jg/r
vol 20, issue S2 (October 1990) oadmap.html) (Jim Gettys, 9 December
Linda Mui and Eric Pearce, X Window 2003)
System Volume 8: X Window System X Marks the Spot: Looking back at X11
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External links
Official website (https://x.org)

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